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The internet has benefitted from lightning fast connection speeds over the last few years. In what has felt like a comparatively short space of time, systems that could barely cope with the trickle of data needed to send an email, can now send over entire movie libraries in just a few seconds.
Those speeds have already had a number of advantages for businesses of all sizes, working in a whole range of sectors.
Yet it seems things could now be about to get even faster, with researchers claiming to have smashed the current top speed for an internet connection by creating a cable capable of transferring data at a rate of 255 terabits per second (Tbps).
The project is the result of a collaboration between researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology and the University of Central Florida.
The joint-team created a multi-core optical fibre to overcome the limitations of traditional single-mode fibres, giving the effect of “three cars driving on top of each other on in the same lane.”
The breakthrough comes following a number of other experimental setups, many of which have also reached significant data transfer speeds.
A team at the Technical University of Denmark managed to reach speeds of 43Tbps earlier this year, although the technology required was regarded as being too complicated to be implemented in a commercial setting.
The latest move will be seen by many technological analysts as being particularly significant due to the findings of a report from Intel back in 2013, which found that around 10.6 terabytes of IP data was transferred across the globe every second.
That number is roughly one third of the 32 terabytes per second that this new experimental multi-core optical fibre is potentially capable of.
To put it into perspective, such speed would make it possible to transfer a 1GB video in just 0.03 milliseconds and a one terabyte file in just 0.03 seconds.
Researchers claim it allows 21 times more bandwidth than what is currently available in communication networks.
Meanwhile, the latest edition of the journal Nature Photonics described the breakthrough as "like going from a one-way road to a seven-lane highway".
Experts have already suggested that the technology could be used on top of existing infrastructure in order to meet the growing demand for superfast internet access, much of which has been fuelled by wider availability of smartphones in India and China.
