Alcatel claims new optical network speed "100 petabits per second"

[oisilener1982]

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By Stephen Lawson
IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
September 29, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - Alcatel-Lucent researchers said they have figured out how to multiply the speed of the fastest undersea cables by a factor of 10, an achievement that someday could send the contents of 400 DVDs hurtling from Paris to Chicago in one second.

Alcatel said researchers at a Bell Labs facility in Villarceaux, France, became the first to achieve the speed of “100 petabits per second.kilometer.” The measurement takes into account both speed and the ability to maintain it over distance, by multiplying the network’s speed by its distance in kilometers. In this case, a network with an aggregate speed of 15.5T bits per second (Tbps) was able to maintain that speed over a distance of 7,000 kilometers (4,349 miles), or roughly the distance from Paris to Chicago. One petabit is equal to about 1 million gigabits.

Because signals can degrade, the highest network speeds are possible over the shortest distances. But part of the requirements of a carrier network technology is reach. The longest lines in service-provider networks often need to move the most data, because they gather up traffic from entire countries and regions for transport around the world.

The Bell Labs team achieved its speed using 155 lasers, each transmitting data at 100Gbps over a different wavelength. They also used DSPs (digital signal processors) with a new technology called coherent detection, which allows the DSPs to look at more properties of light than the current method, called direct detection, Alcatel said in a press release. With coherent detection, the team was able to use more light sources on a fiber and still separate out the various wavelengths at the other end.

Alcatel didn’t achieve this speed by using more repeaters along the way to amplify the signals. On the network, repeaters for sustaining signal strength were spread 90 kilometers apart, 20 percent farther than in typical optical networks, even though lightwave “noise” tends to increase with speed, Alcatel said.

The need for speed on international connections such as trans-oceanic cables has continued to grow even in a weak global economy. International Internet traffic grew 79 percent between mid-2008 and mid-2009, research company Telegeography reported earlier this month. That was faster than the growth rate during the prior 12 months.

[Jason4eveR]

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Mayta muabot na sa pinas tawn oi hehehe ^____^


/hoping...

[oisilener1982]

1petabit = 1million gigabit amf

Ang number 1 nga mo benefit ani kay ang ISP like globe, bayantel nd pldt pero siyempre apil ta ana kay mas mo barato man nd mas paspas

[coolnezz]

damn they skipped Terabits...

[softtouch]

And we are still using modems and cellphones for internet... welcome to the middle ages...

[orlyboy78]

mau unta f muabot daun na dri...bsin 10yrs pa na mahitabot sa pinas

[Tin_Tin]

You just have to love the people at Bell Labs!

[acegear]

fast connection = high price

[coolnezz]

Bell Labs has been at the forefront of technology since 1925. Here are ten Bell Labs innovations that changed the world.

Data Networking

Since the transmission of the first facsimile in 1925, Bell Labs has explored ways to use networks to deliver more than just voice traffic. In the late 1940s, researchers demonstrated the first long-distance remote operation of a computer by connecting a teletypewriter in New Hampshire with a computer in New York. Throughout the '80s and '90s, Bell Labs worked to increase modem speeds and pioneered the first trial of Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) technology. Today, DSL is becoming a popular way to transform regular copper phone lines into high-speed data connections, giving consumers faster access to the Internet.

The Transistor

Developed in 1947, as a replacement for bulky and inefficient vacuum tubes and mechanical relays, the transistor revolutionized the entire electronics world. The transistor sparked a new era of modern technical accomplishments from manned space flight and computers to portable radios and stereos. Today, billions of transistors are manufactured weekly.

Cellular Telephone Technology

In a paper in 1947 Bell Labs was the first to propose a cellular network. The primary innovation was the development of a network of small overlapping cell sites supported by a call switching infrastructure that tracks users as they moved through a network and pass their call from one site to another without dropping the connection. Bell Labs installed the first commercial cellular network in Chicago in the 1970s. Since then Bell Labs has continued to innovate in the wireless area, recently creating digital cellular telephone technology offering better sound quality, greater channel capacity, and lower cost.

Solar Cells

While there were theories and activities to harness the sun’s energy dating back to the 1800s, Bell Labs, in 1954, was the first to actually build a device that used the sun’s power to create practical amount of electricity.

Laser

The invention of the laser, which stands for “Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation,” can be dated to 1958 with the publication of a scientific paper by Bell Labs researchers. Lasers launched a new scientific field and opened the door to a multibillion-dollar industry that includes applications in medicine, communications, and consumer electronics.

Digital Transmission and Switching

In 1962, Bell Labs developed the first digitally multiplexed transmission of voice signals. This innovation not only created a more economical, robust and flexible network design for voice traffic, but also laid the groundwork for today's advanced network services such as 911, 800-numbers, call-waiting and caller-ID. In addition, digital networking was the foundation for the convergence of computing and communications.

Communications Satellites

Bell Labs was the pioneer in communications satellites. In 1962 it built and successfully launched the first orbiting communications satellite (Telstar I). Telstar was unique in that it had the ability to receive a signal, amplify it, and then transmitted it back to elsewhere on earth . . . which is, after all, the core of what a communications satellite does. This technology allowed telephones calls to be bounced from coast to coast and around the world. The satellite was powered by Bell Labs solar cells and transistors – two other Bell Labs pioneering inventions.

Touch-Tone Telephone

First introduced by Bell Labs in 1963, touch-tone replaced rotary dials. This ushered in a new generation of telephone services and capabilities including voice mail and telephone call center applications. In a recent survey of Americans, touch-tone dialing was named the most important business communications advance of the last century.

Unix Operating System and C Language

The Unix operating system and the C programming language, closely intertwined in both origin and impact, were created at Bell Labs between 1969 and 1972. Unix made large-scale networking of diverse computing systems - and the Internet - practical. The C language brought an unprecedented combination of efficiency and expressiveness to programming. Both made computing more "portable." Today, Unix is the operating system of most large Internet servers, as well as business and university systems; C and its descendants are the most widely used programming languages in the world.

Digital Signal Processor (DSP)

Bell Labs built the first single-chip digital signal processor in 1979. The DSP is the engine of today's multimedia revolution. DSP technology is in multimedia PCs and in the modems that connect computers to the Internet. It's in wireless phones, answering machines, and voice-mail; it's in video games talking toys, DVD players and digital cameras. And DSP chips are at the heart of a growing number of systems that talk to you in synthesized speech and recognize your spoken responses.




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[ethzneuron]

wow
100 petabits per second @ 2009..
i wonder what will come up after 5 years..?!