Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Photonic Switching to Boost Internet Speeds

Posted by samzenpus on from the greased-lightning dept.

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."

9 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. Without costing the consumer any more? by neokushan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ha! The technology might not cost much more, but ISP's will milk consumers for all they're worth.

    --
    +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
    1. Re:Without costing the consumer any more? by Daryen · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Not only that, but as far as I know this would require different lines (we aren't running scratched glass right now), and different switches and such to receive those new lines.

      They're claiming this is 60x faster than current technology, and that it carries a terabit per second. While it's true that it may be 60x faster than technology IN PLACE, we already have optical fiber technology capable of multiple terabit connections. So considering the cost of upgrade, and the fact that existing infrastructure will need to be replaced, what exactly is novel here?

      While I did RTFA, (yeah, yeah, I'm new here) it was incredibly light on detail, maybe I missed something that would make this an actual advancement?

    2. Re:Without costing the consumer any more? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

  2. Yeah? by the_mind_ · · Score: 5, Funny

    "without costing the consumer any more"

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    after reading the prices on Telstras new iPhone plans i needed a good laugh

    --
    You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
  3. The Scratch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I love it how in these news snippets there is never any explanation of the technology, but long descriptions about the wonderful changes it will do to the world.

    1. Re:The Scratch by BiggerIsBetter · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I love it how in these news snippets there is never any explanation of the technology, but long descriptions about the wonderful changes it will do to the world.

      Back in my day we didn't call it a "news snippet", we called it a "press release".

      --
      Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
    2. Re:The Scratch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Back in my day we didn't call it a "press release", we called it "bullshit". Whilst walking uphill, backwards, in the snow.

  4. Re:Speed by Rob+Kaper · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not just that last mile is a bottleneck. For the majority of services (even and sometimes especially the popular ones) there are also severe bottlenecks on the hosting end, many of which have nothing to do with bandwidth and/or latency.

    If any of the hops between (inclusive) you and the service has any capacity/speed problem, you'll notice it.

  5. I had a lot of questions... by The+Master+Control+P · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Like:
    What exactly do you mean by scratch?
    How does it switch?
    What wavelengths and materials does it work best with?
    How long to market?
    If this is a "photonic IC" how long until we can buy photonic logic units?
    Will this work with SOS (Silicon On Sapphire) technologies?

    But the insightful article cleared them all up. Psyche! No it didn't. I learned that apparently a scratch can act as a waveguide of some kind that switches very rapidly. I know that the average reader doesn't have a PhD in photonics, but come on!

    The paper will probably show up on their publications page soon. I don't think that the top link is about this new photonic switch, because 160Gbps isn't exactly 100x the speed of exiting 10Gbps fiber systems, but I'm not sure.