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100-Petabit Internet Backbone Coming Into View
lostinbrave notes laboratory work that could lead to long-haul network cables capable of exceeding 100 Petabits per second.kilometer. "Alcatel-Lucent said that scientists at Bell Labs have set an optical transmission record that could deliver data about 10 times faster than current undersea cables, resulting in speeds of more than 100 Petabits per second.kilometer. This translates to the equivalent of about 100 million Gigabits per second.kilometer, or sending about 400 DVDs per second over 7,000 kilometers, roughly the distance between Paris and Chicago. ... The transmissions were not just faster, they were accomplished over a network whose repeaters are 20 percent farther apart than commonly maintained in such networks, which could decrease the costs of deploying such a network."
No, it means that it takes longer to transmit information over large distances because of this little thing, which people tend to forget about; no matter how much information you can send at one time, you'll still have some lag which you must take into account so YES, there is such a term as "bits/second/kilometer". It takes the light over 8 minutes to reach the Earth from the Sun in void. In other materials it would take even longer, because light does not have infinite speed. There is a deceleration you have to take into account.