Danish Researchers Break Fiber-Optic Network World Record Speed Of 43 Terabits Per Second

At a time when many are still in awe of the speeds that can be reached with Google's Fiber service, Danish researchers have come along to show us what those fiber wires can really do. The "High-Speed Optical Communications" team at DTU Fotonik in Lyngby, Denmark, have managed to secure a world record by achieving a transfer speed of 43Tbps across fiber using just a single laser. This achievement far exceeds the previous world record, of 32Tbps.

Making this world record possible is a brand-new fiber cable; unlike regular fiber which contains a single thread, or core, this new fiber contains seven. Despite that, the resulting cable is no thicker than standard fiber cables.

To help put things into perspective with regards to the accomplishment, 43Tbps (or Tbit/s, depending on how you want to write it), is equivalent to 5.375TB/s (43 * 0.125 - the same math applies to Gbps). That gives us bandwidth of roughly 5,375 gigabytes per second - that's about 2,500 Netflix movies in HD, or about 18,000 music albums ripped to FLAC.

Google Fiber connects its customers with a 1Gbps line - 43Tbps is 43,000Gbps. That's downright amazing.

Now it's time for storage vendors to step their game up so this speed can be made use of!