Nokia Successfully Achieves 1 Tbps Internet Speed on Fiber Optic

Internet speeds of 1 Tbps are now going to be possible, all thanks to Nokia and other companies that have conducted successful tests on this. They have demonstrated those blistering fast speeds in their lab using some innovative techniques.

Here are some details about the new technology that allowed Nokia Bell Labs, Deutsch Telekom and Technical University of Munich to test such faster speeds.

Reaching the Terabits Per Second Mark

Internet speeds around the terabits per second mark have been achieved in lab tests. Furthermore, achieving these speeds over long distances is also possible. The FASTER cable connecting Japan and USA manages 60 Terabits per second.

However managing to get to the Terabits per second mark with short distances in real world scenarios was impossible, until now.

Nokia Bell Labs, Deutsch Telekom and the Technical University of Munich have reached the Terabits per second level in a field trial. The field trial involved “real conditions” with different levels of traffic and varying channel conditions.

How They Managed It

A new modulation technique was behind this achievement. Normally in a modem (modulator-demodulator) for fibre optic connections, all constellation points in a network use a technique to modulate signals for transmission. The new technique called Probabilistic Constellation Shaping uses constellation points with a lower amplitude and generally less noise (disturbances in transmitting a signal).

This helps to transmit signals 30 percent further than before. This has also allowed the team behind this project to get close to theoretical speed limits of transmission for fibre optic connections. This falls in the realm of petabits per second. Normally we get 2-4Mbps at homes, but with petabits per second, this means that your home connection can now be a billion times faster.

Possible 5G Integration

The real-world application of such technology are still a long ways off. That means you won’t get that much speed any time soon anywhere. There is a big difference between field testing something and making it commercially available for use.

However, this does align with the proposed 5G launch by 2020, which promises speeds in the Gigabits.

Via Engadget