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Nokia Says It Can Deliver Internet 1,000x Faster Than Google Fiber (engadget.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Verizon Fios has topped Netflix's speed index for quite some time now with its 500 Mbps up and down internet speeds. When compared to dial-up speeds of about 56 Kbps, Fios is roughly 1000 times faster (since 500 Mbps is equivalent to 500,000 Kbps). Google Fiber on the other hand offers 1 Gbps speeds, but it's not as widely available as Fios as of yet. In a statement made to ZDNet last week, Nokia said it has figured out how to deliver internet that is 2,000 times faster than Verizon Fios, or 1,000 times faster than Google Fiber. Their technique is called Probabilistic Constellation Shaping (PCS), which can deliver 1 Tbps speeds over a fiber connection. "The trial of the novel modulation approach, known as Probabilistic Constellation Shaping (PCS), uses quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) formats to achieve higher transmission capacity over a given channel to significantly improve the spectral efficiency of optical communications," Nokia explains. "PCS modifies the probability with which constellation points, the alphabet of the transmission, are used. Traditionally, all constellation points are used with the same frequency. PCS cleverly uses constellation points with high amplitude less frequently than those with lesser amplitude to transmit signals that, on average, are more resilient to noise and other impairments. This allows the transmission rate to be tailored to ideally fit the transmission channel, delivering up to 30 percent greater reach." Nokia's demonstration is described as being achieved in "real-world conditions," though there is no timeframe as to when the technology will be deployed in real networks.

16 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. The big difference is... by JustNiz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Google are actually out there doing it.

    1. Re:The big difference is... by The-Ixian · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Perhaps I misread this but this seems to be referring to the modulation technology that the light traveling over the fiber uses. So Google fiber and Verizon FIOS could license the technology from Nokia and increase the speeds... am I wrong?

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    2. Re:The big difference is... by jellomizer · · Score: 2

      The real appeal with Google Fiber and Fios is that they are priced so average middle class people could afford such speeds.

      1Tbs unless offered at a good price, would be useless for most homes and would be more important for VPN across good sized companies.

      My home internet is only 30mbs and that is more than enough for me and my family. Perhaps if I had a 4k TV it may be more important, or many people streaming at once... However we need technology that will utilize such speeds before we need to consider upgrading to it.

      4k Real Time (non-buffered) two way communication may do the trick. Then you have all the privacy concerns about that too.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    3. Re:The big difference is... by Shatrat · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The hilarious thing about this summary is that both Google Fiber and Verizon FiOS already use Nokia equipment.

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  2. Good for backhauls and maybe some DC uses by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Good for backhauls and maybe some DC uses.

    Not to the home but maybe to an local hub / node.

    10GB e-net stuff is still mostly priced at enterprise levels.

    1. Re:Good for backhauls and maybe some DC uses by wagnerrp · · Score: 2

      Good for backhauls

      Nearly all long distance links are single-mode fiber, because multi-mode fiber results in dispersion and low signal quality at longer distances. You can't run QAM over single-mode fiber. Assuming the breakthrough here is a new modulation technique that allows for such longer distance links, you would still need to run all new fiber.

    2. Re:Good for backhauls and maybe some DC uses by Shatrat · · Score: 2

      You can actually get 10G residential service now, using a different Nokia equipment using NGPON2 from EPB in Chattanooga.
      You're right about this Terabit announcement summary though, this is an idiotic summary comparing a train to a shopping cart.

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      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    3. Re:Good for backhauls and maybe some DC uses by sexconker · · Score: 2

      I'm annoyed that consumer gear doesn't have 10 gig ports on it yet. It's really not that much more expensive to implement anymore.

    4. Re:Good for backhauls and maybe some DC uses by Khyber · · Score: 2

      I could think of plenty of uses for 1T-bit connection in the home.

      Camfrog Video Chat, if they hadn't fucked up and removed your own ability to host your own server.
      4k broadcasting of multiple video cam angles for things like live from-home guitar education, lapidary education, etc.
      Being able to back up your stuff to whatever silly online cloud provider you have thank to our ever-increasing data glut.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    5. Re:Good for backhauls and maybe some DC uses by sexconker · · Score: 2

      And where are all the home routers/switches with 10g?

  3. Bad math... by sconeu · · Score: 2

    By my count, 500,000 is about 10,000 times more than 56.

    --
    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    1. Re:Bad math... by tsqr · · Score: 2

      Honestly, 56k ? Does that still exist in any country also featuring Fiber ?

      Best Buy lists a 56k dial-up modem priced at $50. 133 reviews, 4/5 stars. So yeah, that still exists. Gotta say, though, that some of the customer questions are pretty hilarious (or maybe just sad): "Will this connect DSL line to a cable modem router?" "Can we use this for a USB port on the router to use as a phone line?" And the winner: "Can I connect it to a led flat screen TV to surf the internet. By the way, the TV has Roku streaming connected to it."

  4. Does it work for copper too? by MetricT · · Score: 2

    While I'm sure getting a terabit to the home would be wonderful, the real-world situation is most people are going to continue to have copper to the home for years/decades due to regulatory capture.

    Is the Probabilistic Constellation Shaping concept also applicable to twisted pair/coax copper? Because being able to get some people decent DSL would be a major advance. My parents still can't get 1990's-vintage 200 kbs DSL because in 20 years, AT&T still hasn't run fiber *to their own fucking cabinets*, much less the home.

    I know AT&T already has g.fast, but that's one of those things that's mostly only useful for short distances and "demonstrations", the actual real-world speed isn't much better than DSL after so many hundred feet, and it would have required the same AT&T who has refused to spend money on fiber to spend money to upgrade their existing cabinets.

  5. Re:internet speed by Razed+By+TV · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not a Microsoft company.
    Microsoft purchased the "Devices and Services division" of Nokia,
    but the rest of Nokia is still Nokia.

  6. That's not exactly what Nokia said by Guy+Harris · · Score: 4, Insightful

    TFA doesn't claim Nokia said anything about Google Fiber. All it claims is that the number Nokia's talking about is 1 Tb/s, and that "For comparison on the consumer side, Alphabet's Google Fiber embryonic US fiber-to-the-premises service is offering 1Gbps connections.", so the comparison is being done by ZDNet, not Nokia.

    They also say "on the consumer side", so it's somewhat like Caterpillar saying some new haul truck can handle 500 tons and the article reporting on it saying "For comparison, on the consumer side, a Ford F-150 can handle 1 1/2 tons" - it's not as if somebody's going to use one of those big trucks to do residential construction, it's just there to give a sense of scale.

  7. Re:10,000 not 1000 times faster by PetiePooo · · Score: 2

    My Internet connection is 1.21 Jigabits per second. Signed, Doc Brown

    Great Scott!