Nokia says it can deliver internet 2,000 times faster than Verizon Fios
Nearly every month, Verizon Fios defends its title as the fastest ISP in Netflix's speed index. From time to time, another ISP will unseat the champion, but the change never lasts long. Of course, some have argued that such speed index tests are inaccurate and grossly over-simplified. However, it's hard to argue against the fact that Verizon Fios is a name synonymous with internet that's fast as hell. How fast is that exactly? Well, the top plan currently offered is 500 Mbps both up and down. Just to put that into perspective, dial-up internet ran on average 56 Kbps. 500 Mbps is equivalent to 500,000 Kbps. So Fios is 1000 times faster than dial-up. Pretty fast. Of course, Google Fiber has it beat at 1 Gbps, but it's not available in enough cities at this time to make it a true contender on a nationwide scale (you can search locally available internet providers here). But imagine if you could get internet that makes Verizon Fios feel like dial-up. That's exactly what Nokia says it has achieved. According to a statement to ZDNet, Nokia is working on a technique called Probabilistic Constellation Shaping (PCS) that has allowed them to achieve speeds of 1 Tbps. 1 Tbps is equivalent to 1,000 Gbps. So Nokia is saying it's figured out how to deliver internet that is 2,000 times faster than Verizon Fios, or 1,000 times faster than Google Fiber. That basically makes both Fios and Verizon dial-up. Hard to imagine. But with nearly half of the world's population online and an insane amount of activity every second of the day, speeds need to keep up with the demand. And consider this, one day your kids will scoff at your current Fios connection in the same way you chuckle thinking about hearing the AOL dial-up sounds. Mind boggling.
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