Photonic Switching to Boost Internet Speeds

Da Massive writes "Researchers at the University of Sydney have developed technology that could boost the throughput of existing networks 100-fold without costing the consumer any more, and it's all thanks to a scratch on a piece of glass. After four years of development, University of Sydney scientists say the Internet is set to become, on average, 60 times faster than existing networks. According to the Centre for Ultra-high bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS) at the University's School of Physics, the scratch will mean almost instantaneous, error-free and unlimited access to the Internet anywhere in the world."

Comments

Re:Without costing the consumer any more?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it was about photonic switching, not the actual fiber cables itself. Basically there's loads of dark fiber because the switches aren't fast enough or powerful enough to use it all. A photonic switch can make use of it all, and also make use of the full capacity of the fiber rather than have the line speed limited by the switches.

So, you'd need new switches at either end of each fiber cable. I don't know how often backbone switches are replaced, but I could see that happening within 3 years.