A team at the Optical Networks Group at University College London has sent 178 terabits per second through a commercial singlemode optical fiber that has been on the market since 2007. It’s a record for the standard singlemode fiber widely used in today’s networks, and twice the data rate of any system now in use. The key to their success was transmitting it across a spectral range of 16.8 terahertz, more than double the the broadest range in commercial use.
The goal is to expand the capacity of today’s installed fiber network to serve the relentless demand for more bandwidth for Zoom meetings, streaming video, and cloud computing. Digging holes in the ground to lay new fiber-optic cables can run over $500,000 a kilometer in metropolitan areas, so upgrading transmission of fibers already in the ground by installing new optical transmitters, amplifiers, and receivers could save serious money. But it will require a new generation of optoelectronic technology.
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