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

pico/mega/terra

[tal_mud]

I thought this paragraph was a doozer:

"This circuit uses the 'scratch' as a guide or a switching path for information - like when trains are switched from one track to another - except this switch takes only one picosecond to change tracks. This means that in one second the switch is turning on and off about one million times. We are talking about photonic technology that has terabit per second capacity."

Am I missing something? A picosecond to switch tracks implies a million billion times per second. A million times per second is a snails pace. And then they refer to terrabit capacity? Everything seems to be off by orders of magnitude all over the place...

one million times?

[tsjaikdus]

except this switch takes only one picosecond to change tracks. This means that in one second the switch is turning on and off about one million times

I think this should be (million x million)