Bell Labs uses 155 lasers to beam ridiculous amounts of data over 7,000 kilometers
By Tim Stevens 
posted October 1st 2009 11:09AM
posted October 1st 2009 11:09AM
Let's say you have a monumental collection of data at your place. Like, say, everything ever posted to the Pirate Bay. And let's say the Feds are beating down your door and you need to dump that data to a secure off-site storage facility right now. Who do you call? A lawyer, of course, because currently there's no practical way to do such a thing. But, in the not too distant future you might call up Bell Labs, a company whose scientists managed a monumental 100 Petabits per second per kilometer transmission rate using 155 lasers at different optical frequencies. If you take distance out of the equation you're looking at 15.5 Terabits per second, more than ten times faster than the last laser transmission test we reported on. Naturally, this was conducted in conditions that don't quite equate to the real world at large, and it's going to be a long time before we have fiber pipes like that beaming data into our homes. So, hands up chum, and make that one call count.
Holy Balls that's a lot of data.
Now fit that into your Memory Stick and your laughing!
Think about getting use to those connection speeds for a year then going back to dial-up. That's enough to make any man go mad...
People in Japan have had that kind of bandwidth for years, on their cellphones.
They've also been trying their best to hide their top-secret mechas that were built to fight off scantily-clad, evil aliens. ;)
WWIII won't be fought with nukes but, instead Metal Gears and Gundams from Japans uprising...
=P
..while watching their Octopi porn.
who cares how fast it is, its using LASERS!! pew pew pew =)
Now all we need are processors, bus speeds, and hard drives that can keep up!
oooh, maybe now Netflix can stream in HD.
And this is why we need fiber laid across the US. Now.
Fiber's bandwidth is nearly infinite, it's implementation is inevitable. Telecoms need to stop wasting their / our money on antiquated copper and focus only fiber. (Not to the door, but into the neighborhood) Mr. President, this is the public works project we need!
Only problem is that fiber wire is a pain and a half to lay, and it's more prone to failure than copper-based wire. Fiber has gotten much more flexible over the years, but it's still less reliable than copper, not to mention it's bloody expensive to make, prime for laying, and replace when the glass inevitably breaks somewhere in the line.
There's a single fiber connection between Austin and South Texas that gets broken every other month, so all the school systems are down for a day while the crew tries to repair the line. It's not fun during November when everyone is exasperated and trying to finish up research papers. ooohh The heads that fly! Imagine if a main line broke somewhere that cut off an entire county! (or state that's really small, like Rhode Island) Imagine the mayhem at that point.
My point is, until we find something more reliable, or at least until fiber is cheap enough to have lots of redundancy, it doesn't make sense to rely on it. Copper is slower, but it's something dependable to work with until fiber is ready to take over.
I was under the impression that we already have fiber all over the US.
http://www.telecomramblings.com/2009/04/us-longhaul-fiber-maps/
Telecom companies need to focus on 4G and data over power lines (where 4G in not possible or too expensive to implement) in the neighborhood, I still don't get why I cannot subscribe for solid reliable fast and unlimited 4G for $30/month in San Francisco
Fiber to the Neighborhood is already in place. How do you think most Cable lines work? There's some point in the neighborhood where the fiber comes in and is converted into Coax that then goes to the houses.
Then you have Verizon's FiOS which is Fiber all the way to your house. There is then a trade-off at your house to either Cat-5e Ethernet or RG6/RG6Quad that then goes to your router/TVs. There is also a run of Cat 3(or 5e) that goes from the fiber modem to your Telephone box.
Also, the main selling point of Fiber is that it's more reliable then copper. It transmits data at much faster rates, and is really easy to run. The only hard part right now is that it tends to be a little on the expensive side. Though when you're buying huge things of it in bulk you can drop the cost way down.
The line in Texas probably got dug up by construction/utility people, which then breaks the line. Cause it'll take a lot more then Some guy digging with hand tools in his backyard to break a Fiber run. Also, once they're in their tubes, they don't just spontaneously start breaking. Well if you're using cheap plastic fiber, that will break on you.
@Tripp
Dang. This is proof that I really do live on the edge of the known world. Down here there's no residential fiberwire. It all goes to the huge main stations, but from there, it's whatever is cheapest to buy. (I live 30 minutes walking distance from the Mexican border, on the American side of the river.) Also, all the workers with the cable and ISP companies still complain that firewire is too much of a pain. :P
At least now I have something to research while I'm bored at work!
The benefits of living in a relatively small country (Portugal) pay off when you need some kind of data coverage. Around here, pretty much global HSDPA network has been laid a few years ago, with HSDP+ being laid right now nationwide.
As far as land lines, fiber covered all the country a few years ago between the relay stations, with fiber being placed this year in a effort for FTTH (fiber-to-the-home) at least in all major cities. My street already has it, my building isn't connected yet, but when they do connect it, I'm sure I'll be standing in line asking "Where do I sign?".
Speedwise, just 100 Mbps is what is being sold, with plans to get to 200 in a few months. Yay!
Finally!!! Something that can handle Crysis multiplayer...
15.5 Tbps = 1984 GBps
1984 huh? So once this speed is achieved in the real world scenarios, we will be living in an Orwellian society?.
Yep, and then the orwellian amazon.com will take away our books from our minds!
i got 1938 GBps...
Yes, exactly. Any time that number comes up, we are automatically in an Orwellian society.
@thatrotierkid
1Tbps = 1024Gbps
rooshma: 1984GB/s is the bandwidth the 'bro needs to hook up all that surveillance gear.
More proof that lasers automatically make everything cool
So what you're saying is that my torrents will get downloaded a lot faster.
I think they are saying you can send them to an other hard drive really fast. For torrents to download fast all you need is a fast Internet connection and about 1000 people seeding the torrent you want.
or 1000 people shooting lasers at you
That's '(petabytes per second)-kilometer', not 'petabytes per second per kilometer'. Of course it's a bollocks unit anyway. It's only a sensible unit if you think that transmitting data at 1 Gb/s over 1 km is just as easy as 100 Mb/s over 10 km.
instant porn download!
sounds great but what's the latency? /sarcasm.
i wonder what device must be on the other side, which can DO SOMETING with that 15.5 terabits per second. 2TB in a second cannot be stored using any technology i know, and simulating sending to /dev/null is about useless
remember it's not 1 15.5Tbps data stream but 155 0.1Tbps data streams.
ExtremeHDTV
Can someone explain the math here:
"scientists managed a monumental 100 Petabits per second per kilometer transmission rate using 155 lasers at different optical frequencies. If you take distance out of the equation you're looking at 15.5 Terabits per second,"
How do you take distance out of the equation, I guess is my question.
For comparison light goes 75 T through glass, which represents the limit of fiber-optics.
I always New the Laser Blade were really The Future USB Flash drives... :P
"per kilometer"? Data transfer will be just as fast (after the latency for light speed to get the connection started) regardless of distance... except for the additional practical considerations (signal degradation) for longer links. Which will be very different from linear.
The units in which this was measured make no sense.
That said, it's nice to see some very impressive work from Bell Labs yet again!
Wow, that could be part of datalink infrastructure to a manned Mars outpost.
They want to deliver ridiculous amounts of data over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of lazors. And if you don't understand, those lazors can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that lazor ridiculous amounts of data, ridiculous amounts of data.
Actually, with some PITA dispersion effects aside, you might be floored at how quickly fiber laser tech is advancing.
Brilliantly written post, full of information and wit.