Bell Labs Break Record With 31Tbps Via a Single 7200km Optical Fibre

Mark.JUK writes "Alcatel-Lucent's research and development division, Bell Labs, has successfully broken yet another record after it used 155 lasers (each operating at different frequencies and carrying 200Gbps of data over a 50GHz frequency grid) and an enhanced version of Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) to send information at a staggering speed of 31 Terabits per second over a single 7200km long optical fibre cable. Previous experiments have been faster but only over shorter distances or by using a different type of fibre optic cable entirely."

Comments

Microsoft already did this

[Linux User 33]

Microsoft already did this back in the 90's. They got over 80Tbps via one metre long cable. So there is nothing new.

Re:Microsoft already did this

[Anonymous Coward]

1 meter vs 7200km

Then again most LAN's are not 7200 kms long :)

Re:Microsoft already did this

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft already did this back in the 90's. They got over 80Tbps via one metre long cable. So there is nothing new.

I'm glad you read the fucking summary

Re:Microsoft already did this

[Anonymous Coward]

And I can throw a 90mph fastball... I did it before half the pitchers in the MLB, the problem is that I can only throw that fast for 1cm and not all the way to the plate.

Re:Microsoft already did this

[Vanderhoth]

This is probably more applicable to ISP backbones rather than LANs. Although it'd be nice if I could move digital videos from my standard machine to my media server upstairs that quickly. I ripped my entire DVD collection which took me the better part of a year to do, now whenever we buy a new movie the first thing I do is rip them so I don't end up having to do a dozen+ movies at once.

Re:Microsoft already did this

[Anonymous Coward]

Why such hostility? MS rocks dude, get over it. Don't cry like a baby.

Re:Microsoft already did this

[Anonymous Coward]

Well crafted troll, but I would have said Google to make it a little less obvious.

Re:Microsoft already did this

[bws111]

TFA says it is for undersea cables, not LANs.

Re:Microsoft already did this

[arth1]

This is probably more applicable to ISP backbones rather than LANs.

I fear the first application will be high frequency trading, with links between bourses.

Re:Microsoft already did this

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, dude, they use dubstep in their ads and they say they're cool and everything! Dude! They're so totally radical!

Re:Microsoft already did this

[Anonymous Coward]

No Microsoft did not.
That's 31Tbps sustained transfer over a distance of 4473.87 MILES of in production fiber cable.

I CAN transfer 80Tbits of data over 1 meter distance in just 1 second .... by pushing a shoebox full of Segate hard drives off the end of a table.
It is quite another thing to transfer 35Tbits of data across the USA and back again in that same 1 second.

Re:Microsoft already did this

[Anonymous Coward]

TFA says it is for undersea cables, not LANs.

yeah ...and you point?

-Sponge Bob.

Re:Microsoft already did this

[tom17]

What medium are you throwing it in, treacle?

Re:Microsoft already did this

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're saying air resistance is what slows down the photons in the fiber?

Re:Microsoft already did this

[gl4ss]

Microsoft already did this back in the 90's. They got over 80Tbps via one metre long cable. So there is nothing new.

I'm glad you read the fucking summary

don't fret it, it's the new gnaa.

Re:Microsoft already did this

[BringYourOwnBacon]

I fear the first application will be high frequency trading, with links between bourses.

Why? This has nothing to do with lower latency.

Re:Microsoft already did this

[arth1]

Why? This has nothing to do with lower latency.

Indirectly, it does. Latency is affected by bandwidth usage, and the wider your pipe, the greater the chance of achieving minimum latency.

Re:Microsoft already did this

[jandrese]

It does a bit. The higher the speed of your link the lower the clocking delay in getting out all of the bits for a transaction. Will a couple of nanoseconds matter? With HFT it just might.

Re:Microsoft already did this

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah? Well Simpsons did it, too!

Re:Microsoft already did this

[Anonymous Coward]

Um... NO.. NO.. NO...

Minimum latency is the issue and that is driven by the speed of light though the fiber. The stuff you are talking about deals with the overhead amount of time to get the data on and off the fiber and that is really more about the technology being used than the minimum amount of time you can get data from A to B.

Distance plays into this automated trading in a BIG way. Having a few microseconds on your competitor can be all the difference between making a bit of cash and walking home with all the toys. Trading companies pay BIG MONEY to reduce latency. If you can move 1 block closer to the trading platform than the other guy, you can make more money than he can. So, guess what they do?

Re:Microsoft already did this

[Anonymous Coward]

FEDERAL EXPRESS! Only you are going to need a bunch more drives to get the data rate up..

Re:Microsoft already did this

[Lumpy]

I can get 20,000Tbps over a 500 mile long cable right now if all I send are 1's or only 0's.

Re:Microsoft already did this

[Lumpy]

latency of the processing gear is far higher than the time to travel through the Transatlantic cable.

Re:Microsoft already did this

[Bengie]

What do you mean by this? Processing of the router and photonic equipment is nano to microseconds, the travel time of the photons is in milliseconds.

Re:Microsoft already did this

[gagol]

No, glass resistance.

Re:Microsoft already did this

[Shatrat]

No it isn't. Latency through a switch is measured in microseconds.

Re:Microsoft already did this

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? This has nothing to do with lower latency.

Indirectly, it does. Latency is affected by bandwidth usage, and the wider your pipe, the greater the chance of achieving minimum latency.

No, that's not correct. The end-to-end latency across a fiber span of this type does not vary unless you've got a transmitter flaking out or some other physical problem. You can load it up 100% and you won't see latency increases.

Re:Microsoft already did this

[NatasRevol]

What, are you shoving 3's down your pipes?

Re:Microsoft already did this

[arth1]

Minimum latency is the issue

Topsy-turvy, kiddo. For timing critical systems, it's maximum operational latency that matters.

Best case is for ricers who want to impress each other. Average and median values are what most pros are concerned with - bang for the buck.
And worst case is what those running timing critical systems look at, and spend big money on improving.

Re:Microsoft already did this

[dadelbunts]

Hurrrrr no. Bandwith is how much data you can move, and latency is how fast it takes you to ping the servers. I can send you a boxtruck full of 2TB HDDs. The bandwith would be phenomenal, the latency not so much.

Re:Microsoft already did this

[adolf]

Latency is how much time your data takes to get from A to B, not "how fast it takes you to ping the servers".

Still confused? Hint: Some packets are bigger than your standard ICMP ping.

More bandwidth == less-latent transfer, all else being the same, simply because it takes less time to transfer an entire packet of data.

Re:Microsoft already did this

[Lumpy]

No 3's the sharp edges get stuck on things.

Too bad

[MrEricSir]

Too bad the bandwidth cap is only 1 GB per month.

Re:Too bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Not with Bell Aliant. We're uncapped with up to 175/30 (250/30 if you want to pay 200 something $ per month).

Re:Too bad

[Anonymous Coward]

No problem. That is UP TO 31 Tb/s. So 9600 bit per second in practice, shared with everyone in a 7200km radius.

Re:Too bad

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

I think you east coasters need to learn what uncapped means.

Re:Too bad

[SuricouRaven]

'Uncapped' means 'there is a monthly limit, but we won't tell you what it is. And we call it a fair usage policy.'

Re:Too bad

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you east coasters need to learn what uncapped means.

It's a general term that doesn't mean anything without context. The post you replied to seems to be talking about usage caps, not caps on throughput. It can also be applied to the act of removing a style of hat from one's head.

Re:Too bad

[DigitAl56K]

For consumers, capping typically refers to limits on the total transmitted and/or throttling applied, not to the channel bandwidth. It's perfectly reasonable to have a ceiling on the channel bandwidth for the service as advertised, and still call the service uncapped, so long as you don't artificially limit the consumer use of that advertised bandwidth and also make reasonable efforts to provide it.

Re:Too bad

[Anonymous Coward]

My ISP's usage policy says that there is no data cap and if there will be one, it will be done ISP wide and not per customer. Just make sure you're not running a server.

Re:Too bad

[citizenr]

You are joking, but this is exactly how NBN in Australia works. Nationwide fiber network .. with data caps on INTERNAL traffic.

Not going to happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think all the big-boys are going to tear up their existing long haul fiber and undersea trunks and replace it with something new? It'll never happen. These stories pop up on /. with disturbing periodicity and I've become immune to them.

Re:Not going to happen.

[MrEricSir]

Do you think all the big-boys are going to tear up their existing long haul fiber and undersea trunks and replace it with something new? It'll never happen. These stories pop up on /. with disturbing periodicity and I've become immune to them.

It appears you've also become immune to reading entire Slashdot summaries.

Re:Not going to happen.

[Vanderhoth]

They might not rip up existing infrastructure, but they might start replacing it as the old stuff starts breaking down or requires maintenance.

Re:Not going to happen.

[plover]

Do you think all the big-boys are going to tear up their existing long haul fiber and undersea trunks and replace it with something new? It'll never happen. These stories pop up on /. with disturbing periodicity and I've become immune to them.

What part of the story said they needed to tear up the existing fiber, or even lay new fiber? Sure, they would need to add new gear at the terminals, but that's cheap in comparison to laying cable.

And even if they did have to lay new cable, for this kind of bandwidth I imagine they'd have already begun planning it. The more you carry, the more money arrives.

Re:Not going to happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

The more you carry, the more money arrives.

Wow, my ISP must be pulling in 50 times what they did in 1999!

Re:Not going to happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

well the big deal here is that there is no signal regeneration required, so you just lay a cable across the ocean. this is a really big deal for people who are laying new undersea cable, which happens every so often. it lowers the cost dramatically to only lay cable and not power as well. very very big deal.

Re:Not going to happen.

[Shatrat]

Wrong, this still requires amplifiers every 100km, just like today.

Re:Not going to happen.

[BitZtream]

No, they'll just hook this new equipment up to the existing fiber. Thats how this works you know, right?

What do you think they are testing it on? Some new 7200km fiber they cooked up yesterday? They do this with existing trunks.

Re:Not going to happen.

[j1m 5n0w]

Wrong, this still requires amplifiers every 100km, just like today.

They don't explicitly say that there were no repeaters for this particular test, but that is strongly implied. (Sloppy reporting.) However, they do compare it to a test done recently over 10,000km with no repeaters:

Then in January 2012 a Japanese team working out of NEC successfully transmitted 4Tbps over a single “ultra-long haul” (10,000km) fibre optic cable (no repeaters) by making use of WDM just like Alcatel-Lucent (here). Lest we not forget all the other developments, such as the successful UK test of a new type of hollow fibre optic cable that earlier this year delivered speeds of 73.7 Tbps (here).

Alcatel-Lucent might have just set a new record and one that it is arguably most notable for its distance but such records are clearly made to be broken. GCHQ will probably get a headache if they want to “tap” (spy) on the next generation of transoceanic cables.

I had no idea that those kinds of distances were possible without repeaters. This is, indeed, big news.

Re:Not going to happen.

[Shatrat]

A repeater is different from an amplifier. A repeater receives the signal, cleans it up in the electrical domain, and retransmits it. This has to be done channel by channel so in this experiment they would need 155 of them along with the associated mux/demux WDM gear to transpond all channels. An amplifier on the other hand amplifies everything between about 1520 and 1610 nanometers, all in the optical domain. All undersea cables have amplifiers in 'festoons' which are enclosures that sit on the ocean floor.

Re:Not going to happen.

[Bengie]

From story: fibre optic cable (no repeaters)

Re:Not going to happen.

[AK Marc]

Do you think all the big-boys are going to tear up their existing long haul fiber and undersea trunks and replace it with something new? It'll never happen.

Amps designed to work with 1 Gbps Ethernet will work with 100 Gbps Ethernet. So the theory is all you have to do is replace optics at the end to upgrade the speeds on the fiber in the middle. You don't have to "tear up" anything.

These stories pop up on /. with disturbing periodicity and I've become immune to them.

That you don't understand (and have actively worked towards an "immunity" doesn't mean they don't contain valuable information that some of us use on a regular basis. 100 Gbps was in the same "never gonna happen" camp for a while, but I'm personally "tearing up" 155 Mbps links to install 4 Tbps (44*100G).

Re:Not going to happen.

[adolf]

If I take the "single strand" mentioned in TFS very literally, then it is indeed a single strand without amplification.

(Unless you can amplify light on a single strand, without ever breaking it into two or more strands.)

Re:Not going to happen.

[plover]

If I take the "single strand" mentioned in TFS very literally, then it is indeed a single strand without amplification.

(Unless you can amplify light on a single strand, without ever breaking it into two or more strands.)

Aha. I went to the Alcatel Lucent site and read The Fine Press Release where the actual truth* was published.

Paris, July 16, 2013 — Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) has broken a new record for the amount of data that can be transmitted over transoceanic distances on a single optical fiber.

In a test carried out at Alcatel-Lucent’s Innovation City campus in Villarceaux near Paris, researchers from Bell Labs successfully sent data at speeds of 31 Terabits-per-second (Tbps) over 7200km – a capacity exceeding that of the most advanced commercial undersea cables today by a factor of three. This was achieved with a span - the distance between amplifiers maintaining the entire length - of 100km.

The researchers were able to achieve the highest-ever capacity for undersea data transmission on a single fiber.

So there we have at least a few facts from the source. Yes, they used repeaters in a typical undersea configuration. No, they didn't say if these repeaters were the existing erbium doped optical amplifiers or if they used some other novel technology that would require either laying new cables or dredging up the old ones and splicing in new repeaters.

* If you can accept the concept of 'Truth' in a press release.

Re:Not going to happen.

[adolf]

So if we run it all through the bullshit detector: Cute and fast tech, doesn't break normal any distance limits.

Thanks for digging that up.

Re:Not going to happen.

[dww]

(Unless you can amplify light on a single strand ...)

Which you can - look up Raman Amplifier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_amplifier#Raman_amplifier

Raman amplification is quite widely used in existing fibre networks, both to increase the distance between repeaters, and to increase the bandwidth of existing fibre runs, e.g. to allow 40 Gb/sec over fibre originally laid for 10 or 2.4 Gb/sec use. By increasing the signal strength Raman amplification can reduce the effect of the dispersion which limits the minimum pulse length detectable, and hence allow higher data rates over a given fibre.

Buh bye, space

[Anonymous Coward]

Was nice knowing you, but we'll be laying cables on the ocean floor now.

Re:Buh bye, space

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you realise that only a small fraction of internet traffic goes via satellites?

This is what internet is made of

[cachimaster]

Not wifi, wimax, 3g, 4g, ethernet, satellite, etc.
All those tecnologies are just "last-mile" ways to bring data from this big pipes to the users. Internet is made of optical fibre.

Re:This is what internet is made of

[Anonymous Coward]

And that you Commander Obvious!

(or, no shit Sherlock)

Re:This is what internet is made of

[Kjella]

Last decade called and want their post back, this decade fiber is your last mile. The rest is just for in-house distribution or on the go.

Re:This is what internet is made of

[Charliemopps]

I work for an ISP. The vast majority of homes are still fed by copper/coax for the last mile. Fiber's expensive to install and it will be at least 10 to 20 years before it replaces significant portions of the copper out there.

Re:This is what internet is made of

[Kjella]

Here in Norway we're up to 20% last year, it increases by about 3% per year (11->14->17->20) and all major rollouts (ex-DSL, ex-cable, ex-power companies) are doing fiber for new apartment buildings or housing areas. We're expecting major investments in fiber over the next years as the copper network has officially been declared a phase-out technology to be shut down in central areas by end of 2017 (first tiny test county has already shut down, it's now all fiber + mobile), it'll still exist as a legacy option in rural areas but many of the 45% currently using xDSL will move to fiber. By the end of the decade I'd not be surprised if a majority is on fiber. But then I do think we're #2 in the world on fiber penetration.

Wonderful!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonderful! Now my porn collection will download in mere MINUTES!

Re:Wonderful!

[maroberts]

Your porn collection is obviously inadequate and pathetic.

The question is

[maroberts]

...whether a special type of cable was used, or whether just fitting different transmitters and receivers at each end of the cable will do the job without the need for putting down an entirely new fibre optic cable?

Re:The question is

[Anonymous Coward]

The question is ...whether a special type of cable was used, or whether just fitting different transmitters and receivers at each end of the cable will do the job without the need for putting down an entirely new fibre optic cable?

First, this isn't Redit, don't include the subject in your sentence. No one does that and it's annoying and stupid. Second, the answer to your question is in the first paragraph of the linked article. Instead of wasting yours and everyone's time posting, why don't you just read the fucking article? Sheesh.

Re:The question is

[Anonymous Coward]

The article itself was somewhat light on specifics, but stated it was a single long-haul optical fibre cable implying nothing really out of the ordinary. The main improvement seems to come from the lasers and handling of the distortions at the ends. So it would indicate the existing cable would likely work with new hardware at the ends.

Another article such as here give a bit more detail, again it implies that the fiber isn't anything like the hollow fiber cables, but it does mention: "However, it’s also worth noting that Alcatel-Lucent’s tests were based on having a signal amplifier every 100km along the line."

Re:The question is

[Lumpy]

They used old Cat-3 cable they found in the basement.

Re:The question is

[Anonymous Coward]

The beauty of DWDM is that you don't lay new cables.

How far is 7200 KM?

[timeOday]

For comparison, Tokyo to Honolulu is "only" 6200 km (then 3900 from Honolulu to San Francisco). Washington DC to Paris is also 6200 km. So, as far the planet earth is concerned, it's a very realistic maximum distance of interest.

Re:How far is 7200 KM?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care about planet earth! I'm only concerned about whether or not it gets to MY house directly! Mine! Not to any of you assholes, you'll suck down all my precious bandwidth!

Re:How far is 7200 KM?

[Hillgiant]

It's over 4 million smoots!

Re:How far is 7200 KM?

[perryizgr8]

and how do they make single fiber optic cables 7200 kilometers long? seems impossible

Wrong

[maroberts]

Everyone knows the internet is a series of tubes.

Re:Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

of course it's a series of tubes, tubes with optical fibres running through them...

Re:Wrong

[CanHasDIY]

Everyone knows the internet is a series of tubes.

You mean it's not a big truck?

Re:Wrong

[gagol]

Nah, it's a small box with a blinking led on top. It sits on top of Big Ben and only the elders of the Internet can allow access to it. (see: It Crowds)

Re:Wrong

[CanHasDIY]

... small box... blinking led on top... sits on top of Big Ben...

So... the TARDIS?

COOL

Postscript: I've tried getting into that I.T. Crowd show, but it doesn't seem to be able to hold my attention.

Re:Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Nononono, You've got it all wrong. There are only two tubes for the internet;
Bullshit coming in, and bullshit going out. End of story.

obligatory NSA tie-in

[NikeHerc]

This was likely at the request of the NSA so they could download all our traffic quicker.

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

31 Tablespoons over fiber.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

No; 31 tablespoons of fibre causes a shitstorm that stretches 7200 km.

For your "Staggering stat of the day"

[Anonymous Coward]

The switching is so dense and so fast, that the 7200km of cable has *in flight* 146 gigabytes of information at any given time. You can back up your typical "150GB" (143GB actual) OS hard drive and user data, and be done sending it before it starts reaching the other end (if you could buffer it to send that fast, naturally). Is that some crazy shit or what?

Re:For your "Staggering stat of the day"

[EmperorArthur]

The switching is so dense and so fast, that the 7200km of cable has *in flight* 146 gigabytes of information at any given time. You can back up your typical "150GB" (143GB actual) OS hard drive and user data, and be done sending it before it starts reaching the other end (if you could buffer it to send that fast, naturally). Is that some crazy shit or what?

Now that. That is impressive. It reminds me of those old mercury delay lines.

Re:For your "Staggering stat of the day"

[DutchUncle]

Back in 1979, when fiber was brand-new (and we were experimenting with speeds you wouldn't even bother with for TOSlink today), we hooked up a 5km spool of fiber to both sides of the same optical "modem". Using a Z80, we got an interrupt on the receive side apparently simultaneous (in the same clock cycle) to putting a byte in the transmit port - which sort of makes your DMA controller unhappy. Everyone figured there was a short or a cross-connection, because nobody could believe the speed. And that was a snail's pace in comparison to *each* laser of this system.

Re:For your "Staggering stat of the day"

[Anonymous Coward]

That's one hell of a packet....

Re:For your "Staggering stat of the day"

[Smerta]

Reminds me of my first day (literally) on the job, out of school (EE/CE).

Tech lead held up a one-foot segment of wire (about 30cm for you metric-minded folks).

"Know what this is?"

"Yeah, a piece of wire."

"Yes, but it's also memory. This holds one bit." Then he held up a longer piece and said "And this holds a byte." Then he went on to explain (really, remind me) about propagation times, eye diagrams, etc....

Re:For your "Staggering stat of the day"

[mirix]

I can't see light in an old system being much slower, light is light right. If the fiber is fatter I guess it bounces more, taking a longer path.

Data speed has of course improved, though, but that isn't strictly related. (speed of light affects the latency across the cable, whereas the data speed is all about modulation of the light).

So light is 300,000km/s, I think they usually say speed in fiber is about 2/3rds.. so 200,000km/s... passing through 5km of cable in 25uS... which is fast, but ages in modern clock cycle terms. (A 3GHz CPU would blow through 75000 cycles in that time).

Re:For your "Staggering stat of the day"

[DutchUncle]

Yes, light speed hasn't changed; switching speed, however, has changed dramatically, and it's switching that gives you data rate. I think we were using 6 Mhz Z80s - the latest and greatest at the time (1979). Slip your decimal point 3 places to the left. :-)

The TRUE test

[Billy the Mountain]

Does this beat out the station wagon loaded with 500 kgs. of optical media averaging 50 km/hr?

Units should probably be TerraBit / Sec / Km.

Re:The TRUE test

[jandrese]

Well, a blu-ray disc weighs about 16g and hold 50GB of data, so 500kg would be 1,562,500GB worth of storage. Your station wagon doing 50kph will need exactly 6 days to travel that for, or 518,400 seconds. In that much time, this optical link would have transferred 2,057,011,200GB.

Your station wagon's bandwidth isn't even in the ballpark. Even if you use those super experimental blu-rays that hold 1TB each you aren't even getting close to the bandwidth of this link.

Re:The TRUE test

[Overzeetop]

Worth checking: 16g/disc = 31,250 discs per 500kg payload. at 50GB/disc, that's 1562 TB or 12,500Tb/per payload. At 50km/hr, or 0.014km/s, I get 174 Tb-km/s

So 31 Tb/s over 7200km is 223,200 Tb-km/s

It looks rather biased in favor of the fiberoptic line. Moreso since stationwagons have particularly bad speeds when operated under water.

Re:The TRUE test

[Anonymous Coward]

Crunching the numbers... a station wagon appears to win?

I got 659.9 Terabit / s / km for your 500 kg of optical media averaging 50 km / hr.

I assumed the discs were Blu Ray at full theoretical capacity, 200 GB / disc

The weight of a Blu Ray disc is 0.58 oz, or 0.01644 kg.

500 kg of Blu Ray = ~30408 discs = 6,081,722.538 Gigabytes = 47513.45 Terabit

50 km / hr = 0.01389 km /s = 72 s / km

All combined = 659.9 Terabit / s / km

Re:The TRUE test

[Billy the Mountain]

What I find interesting about this is, the old test involved a station wagon full of magnetic tapes. But allowing for technology advances in both media and telecommunications, it seems that telecommunications is winning the day. Though 155 lasers all running at different frequencies sounds pretty exotic but maybe you can just put them all on a few chips. (don't ask me to connect up all the fibers though!)

Re:The TRUE test

[hamjudo]

The station wagon can outrun a backhoe.

Re:The TRUE test

[Anonymous Coward]

The outcome changes, however, if instead of discs they use 500kg of DNA storage. The most data to be successfully stored in one gram of DNA so far as I could bother searching for is 5.5 petabits. So this comes out to 2,750,000,000 Tb (2.75 Zb) in 500kg of payload. At 518,400 seconds, that works out to roughly 5,304.78 Tb/s, two orders of magnitude higher than the fiber optic line.

The real trick would be preserving the 2.75Zb of DNA on a cross-country trip in a station wagon...

Re:The TRUE test

[Anonymous Coward]

Crunching the numbers... a station wagon appears to win?

I got 659.9 Terabit / s / km for your 500 kg of optical media averaging 50 km / hr.

I assumed the discs were Blu Ray at full theoretical capacity, 200 GB / disc

The weight of a Blu Ray disc is 0.58 oz, or 0.01644 kg.

500 kg of Blu Ray = ~30408 discs = 6,081,722.538 Gigabytes = 47513.45 Terabit

50 km / hr = 0.01389 km /s = 72 s / km

All combined = 659.9 Terabit / s / km

Something went wrong (i will leave that as an exercise to the reader). If you are correct that the station wagon can be laden with 47,513Tb of data, it would take the cable about 1500 seconds to move that much (25 minutes). For the station wagon to "win" it would have to cover the same 7200km in 25 minutes, so it would need to travel at an average speed of 288km/min; or more hilariously, Mach 14. Nice station wagon you got there, does it take regular, or hydrogen/oxygen?

Re:The TRUE test

[AJH16]

Optical media is less data dense than using magnetic disks or even SD cards. A micro SD card can hold more space than a blu-ray disk.

Re:The TRUE test

[AJH16]

If we make it SD cards, it's about 64 GB per gram. That's 500*1000*64 GB or 32 million Gigabytes. That works out to the equivilent of a 494 gigabit link, so yeah, even if we use a more realistic speed of 100km/h, we're still talking 30 times faster. Fill a tractor trailer would be faster though and a container ship full of SD cards is much, much faster.

Re:The TRUE test

[plopez]

So how many station wagons would that be. Put it in terms we understand like "libraries of congress" storage, staion wagons of dvds for bandwith.

Re:The TRUE test

[bruce_the_loon]

But you still have to read them off on USB2 card readers.

Re:The TRUE test

[Anonymous Coward]

Now imagine:

"Please insert disc 3523452"

followed by:

"Error reading track 0"

followed by:

Newspaper clippings report body of unidentified man found on pavement after diving through the glass windows of a 50th floor office building. His coworkers report hearing a blood curdling scream, followed by a period of shocked silence, and some incoherent mumbling moments before the event. Authorities are still looking into what may have caused this.

Re:The TRUE test

[AJH16]

Ironically, I just installed a USB3 card reader in my tower yesterday...

On reading the headline...

[sottitron]

...was I the only one who thought "31 tablespoons of what now?"

Re:On reading the headline...

[DutchUncle]

The day they can deliver tablespoons of *anything* through the net, some people will never leave their rooms.

I can has adapter card?

[0xG]

Can I get the ISA version of the adapter card anywhere?

Tap

[michaelmalak]

Did the test include a simulated NSA tap, to test the impact of that optical degradation?

Re:Tap

[BitZtream]

Its built into each of the amplifiers stretched along the cable every 100km.

super duper hyper resolution video

[Skapare]

Now we can get pr0n in 302976 x 170424 video at 25 fps. It will have to be uncompressed as I don't think we have anything that can compress it that fast.

No repeaters

[hackertourist]

This is the first time that transoceanic cables can be made that don't need repeaters. The speed is nice, but no repeaters mean that the cable will be a lot cheaper to build and has far fewer parts that can fail. It also won't be enveloped in an electric field that attracts sharks. And finally, it becomes a lot easier to upgrade the cable later: you only need to install new equipment at either end, and don't have to worry about the repeaters being compatible with the new signalling.

Re:No repeaters

[BitZtream]

No its not. This cable uses amplifiers, and the article mentions a previous 10,000km cable that didn't require repeaters but only has a 4Tbps data rate.

Re:No repeaters

[hackertourist]

You're right. The wording in TFA suggested no repeaters were used, but the Alcatel press release mentions them. So my comment applies more to the NEC effort than this new record.

Re:No repeaters

[Anonymous Coward]

Attracts sharks? Hmm...sharks with transnational fiber optic lazers, anyone?

Meh

[azav]

Talk to me when it's 31 Tera Bytes.

Re:Meh

[Finallyjoined!!!]

Simply: No.
Fuck off.

Re:Meh

[MiG82au]

Is there a particular reason why dividing by 8 matters to you on links that have encoding overhead?

Previous tests have been faster?

[Anonymous Coward]

The owners of Slashdot are really breaking new ground for advitorials with this PR puff piece! So it's the fastest ever, except for other faster tests? Tests that the owners of Slashdot tell us to discount because the cable run was shorter (!) or the cable itself was different (WTF).

This real is one for the dumb sheeple who've already pre-ordered their Xbox One.

Of course, Team Obama have already banned the Chinese from installing telecommunication equipment, to allow the vastly inferior American companies an unfair advantage in the market. Now we have the old 'tractor factory output' Stalin-era propaganda methods used to puff US corporations that cannot compete on a level playing ground.

Whenever I'm encountering a Bell labs mention...

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever I'm encountering a Bell Labs mention, I cringe, being reminded they're at the mercy of Lucent-Alcatel.
Bell Labs - Lucent - Alcatel; What an unholy trinity...

Yep

[The Cat]

It will never leave the lab.

Re:Yep

[dww]

It will never leave the lab.

It will if it makes sense commercially. At the old STL (later Nortel) lab in Harlow England, where data transmission over fibre was invented back in 1966, we could show rates of up to 64 Tb were possible using DWM over a single fibre at least 12 years ago. But people weren't ready to pay for such data rates back then, and the telecoms market was crashing after the excesses of the late 1990's, so development was stopped.

this is significant because....

[Anonymous Coward]

it is yet another chunk taken out of the ass of long haul optical fiber cable mfgs.

multiplexing like this negates the need to lay new cable. ouch prysmian, ouch corning, ouch ouch ouch

hahahahahahahahahaha

Re:this is significant because....

[dww]

it is yet another chunk taken out of the ass of long haul optical fiber cable mfgs.

Lucent-Alcatel is itself a long haul optical fibre manufacturer, Alcatel having bought the Cable Division of STC when Northern Telecom (aka Nortel) bought the rest of STC in 1991. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Telephones_and_Cables

Wow the NSA is going to love this!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow the NSA is going to love this!