[HN Gopher] Researchers achieve optical data transmission speed ...
___________________________________________________________________
Researchers achieve optical data transmission speed of 44.2
terabits per second
Author : martonlanga
Score : 138 points
Date : 2020-05-23 11:56 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.independent.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.independent.co.uk)
| The_rationalist wrote:
| Wasn't the last record (2014) of 255TBs?
| https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/192929-255tbps-worlds-fa...
| oarsinsync wrote:
| That was over 1km utilising 7 cores. Typical fibre plants use
| one core per direction (transmit / receive).
|
| This is over 75km utilising a single core per direction. IE
| this is actually something that has potential to be deployed in
| the world without having to replace all the existing fibre
| plants that already exist (eg undersea cables)
| souterrain wrote:
| It would be interesting to see if EDFAs also do not require
| retrofit.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| billme wrote:
| Given the cost of laying fiber lines across the ocean and this
| tech (appears) to double the capacity of an existing line, why
| would there not be a push to get this into use, what am I
| missing?
| detaro wrote:
| This is a field that's constantly being worked on, not sure why
| you say there isn't a "push" in it.
|
| This specific thing is not faster than previous results, but
| more compact.
|
| Long-distance fiber lines also have amplifiers along the way,
| so you can't just scale them up by changing the endpoints if it
| doesn't match the capability of the in-line hardware.
| eternauta3k wrote:
| When do you have to replace an EDFA?
| billme wrote:
| Cost of swapping the amplifiers, not just the end-points,
| makes sense as an issue. Thanks!
|
| As for it being "only more compact" not a capacity increase,
| for a comparable single coherent optical fiber line, are
| existing fibers filled to capacity due to the limits of tech,
| economies, physics, etc. - if physics, then I assume all
| fibers are at capacity, right?
| dasudasu wrote:
| If you're going to lay a fiber across the oceans, then
| yeah, that capacity is going to approach the Shannon limit,
| but at some point there is a calculation to be made about
| how expensive it is to use all that capacity vs using
| multi-core fibers or just laying out more fibers.
|
| The economics of it are pretty interesting. A single fiber
| (non-submarine) is about C/8 a meter in raw cost, and it
| said that they laid out so many during the telecom bubble
| of the late 1990s that there are still many unused (so-
| called dark) fiber networks throughout the US. See for
| example https://www.ofsoptics.com/lighting-up-dark-fiber/
| cycomanic wrote:
| That is incorrect the amplifiers have the capacity to amplify
| lots of channels simultaneously. So it is sufficient to only
| upgrade the endpoints (unless your fibre is full, where full
| means the bandwidth of the amplifiers, ~100 Tb/s for a single
| fibre). This has in fact been the driver behind the
| tremendous growth in data rates we have seen in the last 30
| years. Operators can incrementally upgrade links by upgrading
| the endpoints. To transfer a MB across the network was 100s
| of $ in the 90s and is now essentially free (it's like 10e-4
| cents or sol
| acd wrote:
| Looking forward to a 1 terabit/second home Internet connection.
| andarleen wrote:
| One can barely get 1Gbps connections in the UK, and in most
| parts even 10Mbps is a lot. TBps may have to wait a few eons.
| PopeDotNinja wrote:
| And even it that speed, I bet pre-roll ads on videos still end up
| buffering.
| 6510 wrote:
| Yes, we will find ways to spoil the gains arguing it doesn't
| matter.
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| Yes, we need better software (engineers).
| tudorw wrote:
| And we need better consumers, kidding, we love you.
| bobajeff wrote:
| I like like the bottle neck in the future will be Harddrive/SSD
| file read/write speeds.
|
| Honestly, I'd love to have my hands on a terabyte drive with
| 1TBps speeds.
| dasudasu wrote:
| Electro-optic conversion is expensive in terms of power, so you
| better be sure it's necessary. There are still some people
| looking at hybrid computers with both optics and electronics.
| To be practical, you'd need both to be realized in the same
| platform, but they don't exactly work on the same scales, and
| laser integration is a big issue.
| zepearl wrote:
| I'm sending right now at home 7TB from my server to my NAS and
| it's taking aaages over my internal 1Gb/s ethernet network.
|
| Am I right thinking that there are (still) no SOHO network
| switches that can handle faster speeds (at least 2Gb/s) that
| don't have active fans & don't get hot and that aren't super-
| expensive? The last time I checked, about 1 year ago, I didn't
| manage to find anything.
| jlgaddis wrote:
| I've not used one and can't speak to their quality but:
|
| > _The CRS305 is a compact yet very powerful switch,
| featuring four SFP+ ports, for up to 10 Gbit per port. The
| device has a 1 Gbit copper ethernet port for management
| access and two DC jacks for power redundancy. The device is a
| very sleek and compact metallic case without any fans, for
| silent operation._ [0]
|
| > _Suggested price $149.00_
|
| ---
|
| [0]: https://mikrotik.com/product/crs305_1g_4s_in
| wtallis wrote:
| Anything with multi-Gig or 10GbE is still quite expensive,
| unless you score a good deal on used enterprise gear that
| will definitely have screaming fans. There are a few switches
| that have mostly 1GbE ports and a few 10G ports and are
| fanless.
| unholythree wrote:
| You could always just put a fast NIC in those two machines
| and just go point to point no switch involved.
| [deleted]
| rayiner wrote:
| It's not even the future. 40 gig Ethernet is already faster
| than most SSDs. And you can get a card on eBay for $200.
| coribuci wrote:
| > I like like the bottle neck in the future will be
| Harddrive/SSD file read/write speeds.
|
| No. It will be your ISP
|
| > Honestly, I'd love to have my hands on a terabyte drive with
| 1TBps speeds.
|
| You need also a fast processor and RAM to to take advantage of
| it.
| IdiocyInAction wrote:
| Memory access latency is already the biggest bottleneck when it
| comes to optimization, both disk and RAM.
| dahfizz wrote:
| I think latency of a network will always lag behind that of
| local storage.
|
| Even traveling at the speed of light, going around the
| circumference of the earth takes over 100ms. Obviously not all
| network requests go around the globe, but the fact that local
| storage is physically closer to your computer will always be a
| sizeable advantage.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Plus the fact that cloud storage has to be stored on physical
| storage as well ...
| [deleted]
| amelius wrote:
| This is not directly internet related. The original title is
| better:
|
| > Ultra-dense optical data transmission over standard fibre with
| a single chip source
|
| As a compromise, I'd propose:
|
| > 44.2 terabit/s optical data transmission over standard fibre
| with a single chip source
| MR4D wrote:
| But it is directly internet related. If you check the actual
| paper [0] - I had to search for it - you will see this quote:
| We demonstrate transmission over 75 km of fibre in the
| laboratory as well as in a field trial over an installed
| network in the greater metropolitan area of Melbourne,
| Australia.
|
| Technically that 75 km was between two different labs running
| on dark fiber. They state more detail in this quote:
| These cables were routed from the labs access panels, to
| an interconnection point with the AARNet's fibre network.
|
| [0] - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16265-x
| YayamiOmate wrote:
| Much better, because what the heck is "internet speed". The
| most sensible definition to me is payload over IP protocol
| possibly on an existing commercial link. That's the only way I
| see relation to internet and the internet.
| monocasa wrote:
| IDK, I get it. WAN backbone rates over a single fiber rather
| than more typical LAN rates.
| jlgaddis wrote:
| In the past, the "Internet speed record" was measured in
| units such as "terabit meters-per-second":
|
| > _... they had managed to send nearly 840 gigabytes of data
| across a distance of 16,346 kilometers (10,157 miles) in less
| than 27 minutes, at an average speed of 4.23 gigabits per
| second._
|
| > _This was equal to 69,073 terabit meters per second (or
| 69,073 trillion bits sent through one meter in a second),
| which exceeded the previous record set by CalTech and CERN
| earlier this year._ [0]
|
| ---
|
| > _The team successfully transferred data at a rate of
| 8.80Gbps, which is equal to 264,147 terabit-meters per second
| (Tb-m /s)._ [1]
|
| ---
|
| > _Internet2 ... has this week announced a stunning new
| record speed of 9.08Gbps - equal to 272,400 terabit-meters
| per second (Tb-m /s)_ [2]
|
| ---
|
| No idea if it's still done that way or not but I don't see
| any mention of distance in this article (haven't looked at
| the paper).
|
| ---
|
| [0]: https://www.cnet.com/news/internet-speed-record-broken/
|
| [1]: http://www.startap.net/translight/pages/applications/200
| 6/da...
|
| [2]: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india/the-speed-
| fantasy/story...
| rejberg wrote:
| > In the past, the "Internet speed record" was measured in
| units such as "terabit meters-per-second":
|
| I like this unit better, because then a jetliner full of
| hard drives could be a valid competitor.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Which is exactly why it was chosen, the 'purpose' of
| networks is moving data from point A to point B so the
| 'goodness' of networks is how much data from point A to
| point B _and_ how far away is point A from point B.
|
| Then the Internet became a transport for time sensitive
| data (movies, voice, Etc.) and so the latency between
| bits gets wedged in sometimes.
| dang wrote:
| I've taken a crack at it.
| ganzuul wrote:
| I have this funny idea about a waveguide interconnect, where MIMO
| radios address each other inside the manifold. You could get
| pretty decent bus width through e.g QAM and with beam steering
| probably simultaneous data links.
|
| Of course it could be made to look cool as hell, complex
| microwave plumbing with integrated heatsink replacing a plain old
| mainboard. :)
| cycomanic wrote:
| This has actually been a big research topic over the last 8
| years or so. The keywords are space division multiplexing (SDM)
| and in particular Mode division multiplexing (MDM)
| fnord77 wrote:
| > The highest commercial internet speed anywhere in the world is
| currently in Singapore, where the average download speed is 197.3
| megabits per second (mbps).
|
| what?
| notaplumber wrote:
| Yeah, this confuses me. Gigabit is available in several places
| in North America. I had to check the date on the article..
| posted 20 hours ago. Yep. Still confused.
| shric wrote:
| Yes, but this is average across the country. Singapore has a
| rather unfair advantage of being a city state.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| It's still better than any metro area in the US.
|
| The average speed in NYC is 18.2 mbps.
| [deleted]
| z3t4 wrote:
| In Sweden we have 10Gbe consumer Internet for $40/month
| snovv_crash wrote:
| ... and then put a wifi router in front of it, am I right?
| myko wrote:
| I'm paying $50/mo for 1Gb in the US. I thought I was doing
| well
| jraph wrote:
| I am paying 13EUR/mo for 600M down, 60M up, unlimited
| (France). The plan is actually 1Gb but this cannot be
| reached in my flat.
|
| But the Internet is slow and/or unreliable in many places
| in the country side, when available at all. We are far
| from having these speed on average across the country.
| thejynxed wrote:
| To be fair, here we have some counties as large as Sweden
| with fewer people living in them.
| [deleted]
| sollewitt wrote:
| Sweden is the size of California.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| True. It also has one quarter the population too.
| elorant wrote:
| Average speed, not the top available. Singapore has 5,6m
| citizens and 75% of them have an Internet connection. So an
| average speed of 197Mbps is pretty impressive.
| im3w1l wrote:
| When you ask about top of the averages, it becomes
| critically important at what scale you average and how you
| gerrymander. Given that Singapore is both a city and a
| country comparing it to either seems fair.
| postingawayonhn wrote:
| > where the average download speed is 197.3 megabits per
| second (mbps).
|
| Average is the key word there. Higher speeds may be available
| but just not used by many people die to cost.
|
| In New Zealand for example 95% of the population has access
| to gigabit (with 10 gigabit being tested in places) speeds
| but the average download speed is only around 50 mbps due to
| most people opting for slower/cheaper plans.
| 6510 wrote:
| My ISP in the Netherlands made slow plans only a few euro
| cheaper than fast ones. 50 mbit = 46.50, 250 mbit = 56.50,
| 500 mbit = 64.50, 1000 mbit = 76.50
| [deleted]
| saberience wrote:
| Err dude, you aren't reading. This is AVERAGE speed. The
| average internet speed in the US or UK is nowhere near 197
| megabits. In the UK it's 28.9Mb and in the US 32Mb.
| rbinv wrote:
| Link to paper (PDF):
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16265-x.pdf
| martonlanga wrote:
| Abstract:
|
| > Micro-combs - optical frequency combs generated by integrated
| micro-cavity resonators - offer the full potential of their
| bulk counterparts, but in an integrated footprint. They have
| enabled breakthroughs in many fields including spectroscopy,
| microwave photonics, frequency synthesis, optical ranging,
| quantum sources, metrology and ultrahigh capacity data
| transmission. Here, by using a powerful class of micro-comb
| called soliton crystals, we achieve ultra-high data
| transmission over 75 km of standard optical fibre using a
| single integrated chip source. We demonstrate a line rate of
| 44.2 Terabits s-1 using the telecommunications C-band at 1550
| nm with a spectral efficiency of 10.4 bits s-1 Hz-1 . Soliton
| crystals exhibit robust and stable generation and operation as
| well as a high intrinsic efficiency that, together with an
| extremely low soliton micro-comb spacing of 48.9 GHz enable the
| use of a very high coherent data modulation format (64 QAM -
| quadrature amplitude modulated). This work demonstrates the
| capability of optical micro-combs to perform in demanding and
| practical optical communications networks.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| tl;dr: _" chips with friggin laser beams attached to their head"_
| keenmaster wrote:
| Is anyone knowledgable on the implications of the underlying tech
| once it gets commercialized? Obviously things like game streaming
| would be improved.
| dasudasu wrote:
| This would never be for a home access point. This would be used
| for long-haul communications (i.e. between metro areas). The
| data rates there are already pretty ludicrous. The current
| standard is called 800G, for 800 Gbit/s per wavelength.
| stephen_g wrote:
| This isn't the kind of thing that we're going to see in home
| internet for a long time. The newest WiFi standard is only
| 10Gbps at best, and routers and wired standards aren't
| affordable over 10Gbps yet either for home use. For internet
| connections, there are currently already consumer standards
| that can do 10Gbps symmetric (like NG-PON2) which hopefully we
| see being deployed more widely soon. Even in 15 years I would
| be surprised if the high-end of available speeds for home
| connections are more than 2-5x that (Of course, companies that
| can pay for dedicated links can already get 100Gbps+ today).
|
| The technology in the article, if commercially practical, would
| first go in to carrier networks and the larger enterprise
| market for backhaul transit links in the next few years, then
| over time filter down to general enterprise networking.
|
| Even if transit providers upgrade, it wouldn't actually be a
| noticeable change, because they can already do this kind of
| link, just with a rack with dozens of laser modules that are
| optically multiplexed together. This does that in a single chip
| which would reduce cost a lot.
| cycomanic wrote:
| The research here is all about core and metro networks, so
| those are the networks connecting metropolitan areas to each
| other and the ones connecting the big users within metro areas.
| The home users and mobile users are not directly connected to
| these networks, but through e.g. your providers passive optical
| network. You can think about this similar to a road network,
| you are living on the little side roads, these are the big
| highways and ring roads. But because everyone is using more and
| more data on their home and mobile devices, there needs to be
| bigger pipes in the core network (despite more and more local
| data centres for caching)
| throwawaygh wrote:
| We will be able to make comments complaining about bloated
| JavaScript libraries at lightning speed.
| thejynxed wrote:
| You aren't kidding, the bloated JavaScript libraries will
| make my browsing session feel like a blistering 55.6k bps
| instead of the piddly 11.4k bps they do now.
| 6510 wrote:
| For a while at least.
| dahfizz wrote:
| This improves the speed achieved with a single chip, not the
| actual maximum speed possible with fiber. We already have links
| that can go faster than this, this invention will likely just
| make those high speed links cheaper / more compact / easier to
| manufacture.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Aren't gamers primarily concerned with _latency_ rather than
| _speed_?
| govg wrote:
| Both latency and bandwidth affect gaming. Latency is
| important to ensure that there isn't too much lag between you
| moving a controller stick and your character moving, and not
| as important for slower games which can handle this well.
| Bandwidth is important because it determines the resolution
| and quality you can stream at, so higher bandwidths would
| enable full HD or 4K gaming.
| TheAdamAndChe wrote:
| They said game streaming, which makes me think s/he's talking
| about things like Twitch and Mixer, livestreaming platforms
| that do depend on throughput for high quality video.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Sorry, yes, I see that now.
| thejynxed wrote:
| Well, if you use things like nVidia Shield for remote
| streaming you want both.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > The highest commercial internet speed anywhere in the world is
| currently in Singapore, where the average download speed is 197.3
| megabits per second (mbps).
|
| I'm very surprised by this. I would have assumed the leading
| country would have had something a lot closer to gigabit. 'Good
| enough' must be the user reaction. Years of terrible connections
| have left me chasing down every last bit, even though fibre is
| now installed.
| ksec wrote:
| Because that assumption would means everyone is getting a GPON
| / Fibre Network. In reality even if 20% of the nation is still
| connected via ADSL, your average speed would have been
| significantly lowered.
|
| I still think we haven't fully solved the last mile problem
| yet. Fibre installation still sucks for most people. And vast
| majority of new home dont have additional pipes for Fibre built
| in.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| I wonder if that figure includes WISPs and cellular, which
| would bring down the average considerably.
| kneel wrote:
| The human penis still reigns supreme at 13500 terabits/sec
| mcnamaratw wrote:
| The article seems to be comparing a hero experiment to access
| rates. Why not at least compare to telecom backbone rates? You
| can do at least 1.6 Tbps per fiber, long haul, with commercially
| available gear.
|
| If we use telecom hero experiments as the standard, 44 Tbps is
| not the record: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber-
| optic_communication#Stan...
| dasudasu wrote:
| It is not particularly hard to do a "hero" experiment like this.
| Shannon limits to fiber transmission have pretty much been
| reached experimentally a long time ago. Muxing several
| wavelengths together is also of course the backbone of fiber
| optics transmission since its very origin. The current buzz in
| the field is to use micro-combs like they did as opposed to an
| array of lasers to provide the multiple wavelengths - but it
| still comes with its particular set of challenges to make it
| practical. The micro-comb provides the other wavelengths from a
| single source through a nonlinear process.
|
| My understanding from just looking quickly at the paper is that
| they don't modulate all the wavelengths independently, meaning
| that they duplicate the info they send several times to reach
| that high terabit rate. The laser source is only one part of a
| transceiver, and once you have 400+ independent
| modulators/receivers, the laser source becomes a much smaller
| concern when it comes to make it practical. A conventional laser
| source can be made very compact too (in a semiconductor platform)
| and integrated with the rest of the transceiver on the same chip.
| This is still where the industry is putting its efforts. These
| micro-combs come with some disadvantages too, relating to
| stability, low SNR, and uneven power among the wavelengths (that
| then need to be equalized).
| cycomanic wrote:
| I agree with you that microcombs come with their specific kind
| of challenges (and SNR is the big one), however making many
| semiconductor lasers so small as too fit 100 on a single chip
| poses lots of challenges (in particular thermal management and
| wavelength stability). That said, combs (not necessarily
| microcombs) over opportunities for additional
| functionality/optimizations. Because the comb lines are locked
| to each other (normally individual lasers have small wavelength
| fluctuations) let's you space channels even closer together, as
| well as process multiple channels at the same time.
|
| Regarding your comment about these hero experiments not being
| hard, I would argue it's actually the other way around, we are
| now so close to the limits that it is becoming incredibly hard
| to observe further gains. Also regarding not modulating lines
| independently, this is the common way how everyone (even the
| industry labs) demonstrates these systems, using 100
| independent transceivers would be prohibitevely expensive,
| moreover research has shown that you actually receive a penalty
| from using this approach so the demonstration is a lower bound
| on what could be achieved with individual tx modules.
| dasudasu wrote:
| Modulating individual lines is the only way for such a scheme
| to become practical in a real environment and achieve the
| claimed data rates. Making hundreds of modulators and
| receivers fit within a single chip is about as hard as making
| hundreds of laser fit a single chip, hence why it's not
| realistically being pursued by the industry. My point is that
| if you already require separate chips for the rest of the
| transceiver, integrating the laser itself becomes much less
| of an issue, and the benefits of a single laser source common
| to all much more muted.
| rayiner wrote:
| It's not "internet speed" if you can't route at that speed.
| wbl wrote:
| Bundled links via ECMP or even round robin are a valid
| strategy.
| vaer-k wrote:
| According to https://hpbn.co/primer-on-latency-and-
| bandwidth/#bandwidth-i...
|
| > As of early 2010, researchers have been able to multiplex over
| 400 wavelengths with the peak capacity of 171 Gbit/s per channel,
| which translates to over 70 Tbit/s of total bandwidth for a
| single fiber link!
|
| So why/how is 44 Tbps an improvement?
| detaro wrote:
| The improvement here seems to be "single chip" source.
| vaer-k wrote:
| Ah ok, so according to the article
| (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16265-x.pdf),
|
| > To dramatically increase bandwidthcapacity, ultrahigh
| capacity transmission links employ massivelyparallel wavelength
| division multiplexing
|
| and
|
| > All of this is driving the need forincreasingly compact, low-
| cost and energy-efficient solutions
|
| and
|
| > The ability to supply all wavelengths with a single, compact
| integrated chip,replacing many parallel lasers, will offer the
| greatest benefits
|
| So it's not really so much news in the sense that existing
| speeds over fiber have been improved, but instead in the sense
| that the speed produced by this single chip is a viable
| compact, low-cost and energy-efficient alternative to many
| parallel chips
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(page generated 2020-05-23 23:00 UTC)