A newly-developed modulation technique demonstrates a 2.5x data speed increase on existing undersea fibre optic cables
Nokia and Facebook have jointly develop a technique that can squeeze more data speed through existing undersea fiber optic cables, resulting in up to a 2.5x speed increase over the current standard.
The Internet as we know it is powered by a network of undersea fiber optic cables that link countries and continents together, keeping the Web communications among them humming. In recent times, with web applications like ultra-high definition video, virtual reality, and 360-degree videos being implicitly bandwidth-hungry, the need of the Web’s infrastructure to support this skyrocketing demand for data is growing exponentially.
Using the updated system, a new data speed record was clocked on a trial over a 5,500 km submarine cable between New York and Ireland. The researchers implemented a new data transmission algorithm called ‘probabilistic constellation shaping (PCS) technology used shaped 64-QAM’, enabling the cable to achieve a record spectral efficiency of 7.46 bits/sec/Hz. They clocked a practical data transmission speed of 250 Gb/sec over a round-trip transatlantic route.
Sam Bucci, head of optical networking at Nokia said, "We are thrilled to partner with Facebook to promote our common commitment to accelerating innovation in optical transmission. By demonstrating promising areas of Nokia Bell Labs research such as PCS, as well as coherent technologies available today, we hope to chart a path forward for the industry towards higher capacities, greater reach, and more network flexibility."
How fast is fast?
According to the
Cisco Virtual Network Index -- a report that covers public data demand trends -- 2016 was a milestone. It is the year the world’s annual internet traffic crossed 1 Zettabyte (1 billion terabytes). This translates roughly to about 31 TBytes/sec. So using this new modulation technique, about eight fibre optic strands -- a cable the size of the wire that connects your mouse to the computer -- could theoretically be able to support all of the globe’s current data transmission needs.
This discovery could enable existing fibre optic cables to transmit data more efficiently and at higher speeds; a significant advantage compared to the more expensive alternative of laying new cables with natively higher data capabilities. The newly-developed modulation system is centered around the Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) system, which is capable of flexibly adjusting the cable’s transmission capacity to keep it near the physical limits of the fibre optic link.
Using this approach, the researchers believe that future undersea fibre optic cables could achieve transmission speeds up to 32 Tb/s per fiber.
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