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New Data Transmission Speed Record
An anonymous reader writes "Gizmag is reporting that a team of German and Japanese scientists have collaborated to shatter the world record for data transmission speed. From the article: "By transmitting a data signal at 2.56 terabits per second over a 160-kilometer link (equivalent to 2,560,000,000,000 bits per second or the contents of 60 DVDs) the researchers bettered the old record of 1.28 terabits per second held by a Japanese group. By comparison, the fastest high-speed links currently carry data at a maximum 40 Gbit/s, or around 50 times slower."
Anti-Slashdoting for a webhost.
What kind of measurement is that? Why can't we use something everyone understands like u-haul trucks full of dvd's driving 100 kilometers per fortnight*10^(-6)?
For the uninitiated, that's a microfortnight.
Precisely why I read slashdot and fark, but not digg.
Slashdot has the non-time sensitive, most interesting news - with insightful or interesting comments.
Fark has the time sensitive or humorous news, with clever or funny comments.
Digg is somewhere in the middle, with the immature comments or spam I can find in an AIM chat room if I need it.
How much it is in terms of "a station wagon full of magtape" or Library of Congress.
s _of_measurement#Books_and_Bibles _of_measurement#Library_of_Congress
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_strange_unit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_strange_unit
Wow, converting to MPAA units that's 300 years of jail time per second! Smokin!
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
and storage in KB? It's not like we measure radio waves in cycles per second and sound waves in cycles per 8 seconds. What's the advantage?
According to the numbers given, the old record is exactly 64 times slower. Hmmm. About 50. Right. Even I'm not too lazy to use a calculator. Personally, I would have given a metric like DVDs per second (which in this case is a better approximation of 544).
into the real world, right? Why are they developing nuclear pebble bed reactors in laboratories, when I can't buy one at the 7-11 yet?
Ah, found it. This works out to approximately OC 49,382.
Wow.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
you completely missed the point.
Besides, if Digg is so much better, what the hell are you doing wasting time here?
Someone might post a story to Digg while you're here, and you'll be 3 seconds slower getting to it!!!!1!
Advanced users are users too!
it'll be a while before they splatter that record.
(oh, and the scrambled word I have to type in to post this as an AC is "saturate"! yes indeed)
OC-47095
Well folks, time to gear up.
;-)
We know what happens when the Germans and the Japanese collaborate
I've done some checking of aggregate SAN bandwidth in the last few months, and for the most part companies are not even saturating their 2 gbit Fibre Channel links (for that matter, most could easily run with legacy 1 gbit gear). Even the inter-switch links are often crusing well below 2 gbit. Funny to note that the big push is to release 4 gbit gear, for what conceivable purpose I have no idea.
It just seems to me that the real issue is access time, not bandwidth, though kudos to this team for an essentially meaningless achievement.
Je suis Marxiste, tendance Groucho.
... as if millions of RIAA execs suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
for when you get this at your place :
http://www.onzin.nl/internetdownload/
I'm calling my cable company to see if I can pay $25,000/month to get the data rate. Needless to say this will increase the downloads of my extremely intelligent blog.
when the Germans and the Japanese unite...oh wait.... There's a french joke somewhere in here but I just can't pull it out at the moment... i give up. -- J.
Equivalent to 160,000 metres and 160,000,000 millimetres!
Vista will require this much bandwidth as a minimum, to download security patches and have them rendered in erotic 3D by the compulsory 4Tb graphics card, when it is released in THE YEAR 3000.
The researcher assumes the transmission capacity on the large transoceanic traffic links will need to increase to between 50 and 100 terabits per second in ten to 20 years. "This kind of capacity will only be feasible with the new high-performance systems."
160 kilometers? large transoceanic traffic link? When 10,000 kilometers of non-repeated distance can be achieved, I'll be impressed. Until then it's nothing but a bragging right.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
I can send data at about 300,000m/s (its called turning the light on)
Is this similar to DDR memory where they pack info into the upward swing of the wave, and on the downward swing, as well as the troughs and peaks of the waves?
Namaste
Three different answers for what boils down to a grade school story problem. At least we know you three didn't cheat from each other.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
...and in related news, the spokesman for the MPAA is currently unable to comment due to suffering a heart attack.
"...transmitting a data signal at 2.56 terabits per second over a 160-kilometer link..."
Ok Amazing speed etc etc etc but what did they send?
Was it encrypted?
Was it DRMed???
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
porn.... the germans uploaded 30 dvd's of their famouse Scheiße porn, and the japanese uploaded 30 dvd's of their bukkake favorites
RUPERT! I TOLD YOU TO WATCH THE BAGS! You were looking at the boys again, WEREN'T YOU.
Digg is great for learning of new technologies. Slashdot is great because of its discussions. They are complementary websites. I don't see digg replacing slashdot anytime soon, yet, I am glad that digg is there to fill my need of having "as many tech news as possible" available.
Trying to have good discussions in Digg is futile because of its moderation system. And whenever discussion worthy news are available they are quickly buried by ten articles of what someone somewhere might have said about the color of the new Nintendo console.
Cheers,
Adolfo
At 100Km/hour, a truck would require 1.6 hours * 60^2 seconds/hour = 5,760 seconds to travel 160 kilometers. At 60 DVDs/second, the truck would have to be carrying 5760*60 = 345,600 DVDs to have equivalent bandwidth. A typical DVD in a case is 14cm wide, 19cm tall, and 1.5cm thick, for a total volume of 399 cm^3 (lets round to 400cm^3). Therefore, the truck would have to have a cargo volume of 400cm^3 * 345,600 = 138,240,000cm^3, or 138.24m^3.
Now, typical intermodal containers (as used on big rig trucks) are 8.5' by 8.5' by 40', or 2890ft^3. Converted to metric, this is about 82m^3, which is less than the 138.24m^3 required.
In other words, no, a truck full of DVDs is NOT faster than this connection!*
*unless you put the DVDs on spindles instead of in cases.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
i could be wrong, but isn't that like faster than the communications between parts in a computer including RAM? is there a computer that can feed that much data that fast?
From this link: http://proj.sunet.se/LSR3-s/ (This was from an old /. story)
NetBSD's Internet2 land speed record was (back at Sep'04):
# Network Distance: 28,983 kilometers
# Data transferred: 1831.05 Gigabytes (1966080000000 bytes)
# Time: 3648.81 seconds
Which equals 124.935 petabit-meters/second (1,966,080,000,000 * 8 * 28,983,000 / 3648.81)
Record in this story equals:
2,560,000,000,000 * 160,000 = 409,600,000,000,000,000 bit-meters/second = 409.6 petabit-meters/second
So that's about 3.28 times of NetBSD's record. Considering the fact that NetBSD's record was about 1.5 years old and they were using off the shelf hardware (Dell 2650 and Dell 650, Intel Pro/10GbE, routers were Cisco highend) except the routers, this new record is not all that impressive IMHO.
gd
To be sure, I believe this is a single-wavelength transmission record. For WDM (multiwavelength), I believe Alcatel's 2002 record of 10 Tbps over 3 x 100 km still hasn't been topped (Frignac et al, OFC 2002).
whats that in libraries of Congress per second... is that the same as shuttle launches per second, or I am I getting confused with burning libraries of congress per shuttle launch?
It's "New Math."
--mrm
The 11,520,000 ms ping times also might interfere with some applications.
This will...
A.) Make internet (connection fees) 50x cheaper.
2.) Finally still western telecoms complaining about the difficulties of offering fast service.
3.) Be considered too expensive to implement until someone who can't be bribed or bough enters the telecom game.
4.) Never see the light of day.
5.) Be implemented perfectly showing the telecommunications industy has a commitment to quality!
This technology enables many more people to be simultaneously stuck at 4Mbps down/256Kbps up.
Perhaps so, but you probably can't send 60 DVDs worth of data per second with a light bulb, can you?
Firehed - Unfortunately, thanks to medical breakthroughs, common sense is not as common as it once was.
You're assuming only one truck can use the road at a time.
One big thing you missed...
You have to add the "how long it takes to burn n DVD's and pack them on the sending side, and how long it takes to unpack, stick in a drive and read them on the receiving side.
And we haven't even started talking latency yet....
-
I RTFA but didn't see any mention of hardware specs, so what did they use? What kind of disk can process that amount of information per second? Any speculations?
;)
I have a feeling that if you tried hooking up my laptop, its 4200 rpm drive would pack up and walk out of the door, on principle alone
Heh. My ISP recently offered that an extra A$10/month would see my speed upgraded from 8Mbps/128Kbps (Though I tended to see about 10Mbps) to 17Mbps/256Kbps - I now regularly download 2 megabytes a second. Wee.
Can't we all just get along?
Seriously though, I don't see the need for a debate on which site is better... just use what you use and let it be.
You're nothing; like me.
Considering that 1 Gb is (at least sometimes) equal to 1,024 Mb = 1,048,576 Kb = 1,073,741,824 bits , I wouldn't say that it's that obvious. Thanks to the wonders of the binary system :P
Quote "* 9 bits were sometimes used" :). And if you are asking, think reservation/check in system of some big airlines around here...
Some of us are still working on 36 bits words, 9 bits per byte
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
It's inherent in the design of the cable modem and the cable network. There is only one uplink channel and each cable modem is assigned a time slot on that uplink channel (TDMA). There can be many downlink channels.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
We have a 30TB EMC CX-500 with Brocade 2Gb FC backbone. The bench moves blocks of a few hundred GB to a dozen servers or less. We have never come anywhere near %50 utilization on the FC.
The transfers run about 4-6hrs and I was looking for choke points to shorten the time. The data simply won't go to disk any faster on the U320 SCSI bus. We consistently measure 20MBps max to disk, which makes sense. U320 means 320Mbps/8 = 20MBps. So I get the same max numbers for local disk-to-disk that I get for SAN-to-disk, and the same results regardless of OS. If this rate could be maintained, six servers doing the transfer should just about saturate the backbone, but the overhead of file access and FS management mean the max is only maintained for a moment as a few particularly large files come across. With lots of smaller files being copied, the average rate goes down to 2MBps.
If these servers had to be optimized for SAN-to-Disk transfer rate, they would have to have multiple SCSI controllers and HBAs, paired up on seperate PCI busses, and the data would have to be optimized with fewer/larger files.
Of course, the 2.5TBps link is of interest to ISPs and regional carriers not server labs, but I thought I'd throw in what we've seen on the utilization of a 2Gbps FC link in a SAN setup.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law
(snorts coffee out of nose)
Cant beat a good Gizmag
I'm not sure what the utility of this is right now. In theory I could send 5.12 terabits/sec down a cable by getting the laser to flash on and off twice as quickly. That doesn't mean I've encoded any data or that I've been able to process that data at the other end in a meaningful way.
It's great that the transmission hardware is up to silly speeds, but until you can take that incoming data and packet switch/route it properly, until there are servers that can process even a tenth of that data in a meaningful way, this isn't something that will affect anybody, anywhere, other than for the people involved whose paper will get published.
Where's the moderation for "+5 for extreme nerdiness, minus several million because you really should get out more"? /says someone who's closing in on 4000 posts to slashdot...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If we want to be technical, OC refers to a SONET rate transmitted on a single wavelength... and this record is using wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) to achieve this kind of transmission rate. So they could be using any type of OC they want and many wavelengths. I am figuring they must be using OC-768 or at very best, OC-3072. Don't forget that the speed of electronics is the limiting factor here!
DrkBr
In fact, I'll bet a U-haul truck loaded with DVDs would still be faster.
Research scientists are always ahead of the "real world". This has always been, always will be. You can view their work as creating ideas, innovations and technologies. Once these ideas have been published, it is the industry's work to pick them up and transform them into something commercially usable. Yes, there is a lot of research projects that can be viewed as useless, but, you should see it as a brainstorming of new technologies. Not all will end up in something revolutionary, but it may incite new ideas and/or bring new products or ways of doing things in the "real world".
DrkBr
The article says nothing about how long they can *sustain* it for. I mean, great. They can transfer 282 GByte in one second. If they can only do it for one second before the system breaks down, then I really don't care. Call me when they make a system that can transfer that data rate indefinitely.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
Depends on the application. If you need the physical object for delivery (say for sale to end users), you're probably right, provided you need the physical object in a compact enough timeframe.
If you just need the information then the only issues is storage at the far end, and the ability to mount the a disk image (which most modern operating systems should be able to do).
Of course, in the hybrid case where you can produce a disk + colateral "relatively" rapidly for sale to a consumer, then the second option becomes even more enticing.
Imagine a "blockbuster-esque" store, where you picked which movie you wanted to view, wanted 2 minutes, and had a copy in your hand for their new "rent it, but if it isn't back within x days your credit card will be charged as if you bought it" policy. Now imagine if the store had a catalog as big as IMDB, was never out of any movie, and you only had to wait a few minutes (3 minutes? 2 minutes?) to be holding the movie you wanted to watch in your hand.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Well actually, trailers can be up to 53 feet long.. that increases their volume to 109m^3. That's still short, however I believe you're allowed to pull two trailers in any state (and even 3 in some).. 218m^3! Far above and beyond the paltry 138.24m^3 you need. In fact the extra room could carry a WHOLE LOT OF BEER.. for watching all those DVDs.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
You notice that you call my post "revisionist bullshit" and then proceed not to disagree with me.
Your post primarily says that once the US entered the fray the end was clear, which I completely agree with. What I said was that even if the US had not entered the war, Germany still would have lost (though without US involvement, Japan would probably rule much of Asia). It's interesting that you mention supplies: The US was supplying the allied forces before it actually entered the war, but the US supplies, both before and after 1942 went primarily to the western front. AFAIK, the US never provided significant supplies to the Russians; there really was no way for us to do so.
I will concede that the US entry into the war and the Normandy invasion did help take the pressure off of the Soviets, but I think it's far from clear that Hitler every could have conquered the Russians. The USSR was too big, too populous and too powerful, even if it didn't have the level of industrialization the US had.
It's all speculation, but I think even without the US involvement, the Soviets would have fought Hitler to a standstill, consuming more of Germany's troops and resources and the British were already planning the invasion of occupied France even without US troop support (they had US logistical support even without the US entry into the war). The US ended the war much sooner than it would have otherwise, and probably dramatically changed the level of Communist influence in the outcome, but Germany was doomed either way.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
In other news, it was reported that top officials of the RIAA and the MPAA were planning aggressive litigation to halt this progress citing 'Won't someone please think of the rampant piracy this technology will foster'. 'We believe that consumers cannot be allowed access to this kind of bandwidth'.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
sent via arctic North Atlantic ports. These routes were under constant threat by U-boats. Its a fascinating story, by the way. The question of Russia having the shear mass of humans to swamp the Germans is interesting. Without food, both sides were starving and the most likely outcome would have been an unfinished war settled by disease as had WWI.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Hmmm, 40 rods = 1 furlong but what I can't get is how many hoofbeats/furlong would that be?
you have take into account the time to load/unload the truck
there's no way a truck full of DVDs competes, even if it *does* use spindles
DSL stinks and Cable Co's aren't interested in providing more unless there's more competition.
This is public muni FTTH FIOS is important . More transmission speed and better value.
The cable co's don't want anything to compete against their channels. That would be stupid. They are holding everyone back.
The internet backbone also doesn't want more transmission speed. They are just phone companies that want to gouge people.
If we could bypass all of them with a national fiber network.........
He wasn't talking about your comment, you know. ;)
And just to back that post up, here's the first page of Digg right now:
There is an incredibly poor signal to noise ratio there. I'm counting at least 8 articles that are pretty much useless, and three more that I would just skip over personally. Terrific.
MOD PARENT UP!!!
I want to see this happen..
Can anyone come up with a business plan? (No, 1 2 3 Profit! doesn't count)
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
Thank you. And I was also talking about "Diggall", which is the only way to see the newer ones when they're first posted, which has more noise than the front page. Most of the front page stuff is at least peripherally interesting, but trying to get to the new stories is hard until they get dugg to the front page, by which point it's been a few hours. I wouldn't use either Slashdot or Digg for breaking news, and Slashdot has much better commentary.
(Yeah I'm humourless ...) not to mention the time required to load the DVDs on the truck, unload them again, and put them into the PC to read them ... whatever is on the other end of that 160km link is receiving all that data directly.
Did they mean 2.56 terrabits or 2,560,000,000,000 bits? Unless you are a hard disc seller or unclear on your units, the two are very different.
Let me say that I am one of those tiresome people who think that there are 1,024 bits in a kilobit, 1,024 kilobits in a megabit and so on. KiB and its relatives are just an invention dsigned to confuse people and they serve no real purpose.2,560,000,000,000 bits is about 2.32 terrabits and 2.56 terrabits is 2,814,749,767,107 bits. The two are not the same.
It's a bit like saying my cars top speed is 140 MPH or 287 KPH because car manufacturers have decided to redefine the kilometre. You can't. 1 Mile = 1.609 Km so my car does 225KM/hr.
Fellow geeks and pedants, let us get this right!
End pointless rant...
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
lets see, the new record is 60 DVD/s "ordinary" lines come in at 50 times slower, so still well over 1 dvd/second 60/50=x x=ludicrus speed Hey bob, uhh we need to move all of the internet to my house... and back again, by tues.
Like the saying goes, never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes. -Pyrotic
Cool. I haven't read about that; I'll have to look it up. Do you have any recommendations? Thanks.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
There were 78 convoys between August 1941 and May 1945 (although there were two gaps with no sailings between July and September 1942, and March and November 1943). At first, the convoys sailed from Iceland but after September 1942 they assembled and sailed from Loch Ewe in Scotland. The route was around occupied Norway to the Soviet ports and was particularly dangerous due to the proximity of German air, submarine and surface forces and also because of the severe weather.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_convoys_of_Wo
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
There are downsides to the above description. :)
... possibly even the purchase model (the way iTunes is for music and trying to be for TV/Video right now).
1) The disk they give you will be a 'burned' disk vs a 'pressed' disk. It might have a shorter shelf life, and it will probably be more vulnerable to environmental issues (a downside to the consumer, not to the seller/studio).
2) The above buisness plan has two potential competitors:
i) Netflix and Blockbuster type 'delivered to your door' content. Why go out, when you have to wait only a few days to get a disk this way? (ultimately not something that can be easily answered unless you need a disk 'now', which tends to be a smaller percentage of the possible purchases).
ii) Video on Demand. The natural evolution (assuming the studios allow it to happen), is to download the video you want, and either have a window you can watch it in, a number of times you can watch it, or a limited amount of storage you can keep at one time. TiVo has already started playing with this model, and was rumored to have partnered with Netflix awhile back. I participated in a trial which downloaded "Red Pants" the docu-history of Hong-Kong Stuntmen. I found the download quite good, and would probably consider 'renting' movies this way. The movie, once downloaded to my TiVo was allowed to hang out as long as I wanted, but took up space (a good thing, it took me a few weeks to clear time to watch it). I tried seeing if I could download it via TiVo2Go (so I could watch it on my PSP to/from work), but its locked down as a non-copiable program (the same as RocketBoom is during their current 'VideoCast trial').
Ultimately I believe that this is the future for the rental model
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Let's see... Well, Unless DVD can contain more that 40 GB of data (BluRay ?), there is a possibility of overflow in submitter's calculations.
My guess is that it's more like the quivalent of 600 DVD per second which has been transmitted.
-- javaDragon is an instance of JavaDragon.
1) The disk they give you will be a 'burned' disk vs a 'pressed' disk. It might have a shorter shelf life,
In time this will be overcome, and yes, burnt discs I think would have a shelf life, at the same time, you could just recopy the disc or transfer it to HDD. For average joe, this could be a problem.
At the same time, right now, I can't see VOD having the same catalogue as a big blockbuster or otherwise. Simply because of the complications with last mile.
I can go down the road and get a movie (Truck / station wagon full of media) and be home in 10 mins. I can't download a DVD quality movie in 10 mins (Wish I could but..) so again the problem would be last mile, VOD for cable doesn't support the bandwidth for a large warehouse of video, and ADSL can't support the short time frames in which people would want to watch it (Within 10 mins)
FTTH (Fibre to the Home) would be able to support it, but unless you are one of the lucky ones, FTTH is a long way off for a lot of people.
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown