Australian Scientists Smash Internet Speed Record With Tech That Could Be Available In 3-5 Years

Waiting minutes to hours when downloading or transferring larger files online could soon be a thing of the past after scientists in Australia used new technology they have been working on to smash previous internet speed records. The new world record set is fast enough that it would allow for the download of 1000 HD movies in a single second.

The new technology used in the research is a ‘micro-comb’ – a small optical chip that can carry communication signals currently handled by around 80 individual infrared lasers in fibre optic connections. The good news is the chip wouldn’t need to replace existing cable networks carrying internet connectivity but could be added to them.

With some parts of the UK, so called ‘internet black spots’, suffering from embarrassingly slow internet speeds for a developed economy, the news has raised hope that the micro-comb chips could be slipped into existing broadband networks to supercharge their speed.

The research, which was recently reported in the Nature Communications journal, was carried out by a combined team put together from three Melbourne universities. The top speed the new technology achieved was a download rate of 44.2 terabits per second. That blows the speed of Singapore’s broadband network, the fastest in the world with an average download speed of 197.3 megabits (Mbps) per second, out of the water. In Australia, the average broadband download speed is 42 Mbps, in the UK it is 67 Mbps and in the USA 133 Mbps.

The new record set is around a million times faster than Australia’s current average download speed. Quite the improvement. It has been suggested the micro-comb chips used in the experiment could be added to neighbourhood telecoms exchanges. Its accelerating power split between hundreds to possibly thousands of households, the boost would not speed up neighbourhood download speeds by a factor of thousands. But it would multiply current speeds.

Dr Bill Corcoran, one of the researchers who worked on the project, told reporters that the technology used in the experiment is being explored by other teams around the world. And that it could be “in broad use within three to five years”.

Dr Corcoran, who works at Melbourne’s Monash University, commented:

“It’s a hot topic of investigation and there’s a range of applications for it so the technology is being pushed really quite quickly. What our research demonstrates is the ability for fibres that we already have in the ground . . . to be the backbone of communications networks now and in the future. We’ve developed something that is scalable to meet future needs.”

The Australian experiment was the first time a micro-comb chip has been used in a ‘field trial’ as part of an existing broadband network, rather than in a controlled environment. The chips produce more data than any other single optical chip. Arnan Mitchell, who also worked on the project, added:

“Initially, these would be attractive for ultra-high speed communications between data centres. However, we could imagine this technology becoming sufficiently low cost and compact that it could be deployed for commercial use by the general public in cities across the world.”