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.
Amid a 5G rollout that has faced its fair share of challenges, it might seem somewhat premature to start looking ahead at 6G, the next generation of mobile communications. But 6G development is happening now, and it’s being pursued in earnest by both industry and academia.
