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Comments: 137 +- Technology: 100-Petabit Internet Backbone Coming Into View on Tuesday September 29, @08:01AM
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kdawson
on Tuesday September 29, @08:01AM
from the movies-on-whim dept.
from the movies-on-whim dept.
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technology
lostinbrave notes laboratory work that could lead to long-haul network cables capable of exceeding 100 Petabits per second.kilometer. "Alcatel-Lucent said that scientists at Bell Labs have set an optical transmission record that could deliver data about 10 times faster than current undersea cables, resulting in speeds of more than 100 Petabits per second.kilometer. This translates to the equivalent of about 100 million Gigabits per second.kilometer, or sending about 400 DVDs per second over 7,000 kilometers, roughly the distance between Paris and Chicago. ... The transmissions were not just faster, they were accomplished over a network whose repeaters are 20 percent farther apart than commonly maintained in such networks, which could decrease the costs of deploying such a network."
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Blu-Ray (Score:5, Funny)
...or sending about 400 DVDs per second
That's just about enough to cope with today's worldwide porn output, but what happens when the industry switches to Blu-Ray?
Re:Blu-Ray (Score:5, Funny)
umm, so to be clear... will this girlfriend or boyfriend help me find more porn??
Parent
Too bad (Score:2, Funny)
Too bad nobody in the USA will ever get that. Even if we were to get a connection that fast, it would have a 20GB/mo cap so the second you stream one HD flick on Netflix, your cap is filled and you're stuck at a measly 768kbit/sec down until the first of the month.
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I agree - the fraction I'd be happy with would be 9/10ths. Totally reasonable!
Being serious, this is only indirectly for end users, and people bitching about slow connections here would be like me bitching in a NASA thread about how it isn't fair that NASA has crafts going 20,000 MPH while my bicycle is still stuck at a max of about 30mph. Different toys for different uses. This is clearly an infrastructure tool, one that offers much better speeds and lower costs of deployment than the current stuff.
That sa
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Being serious, this is only indirectly for end users, and people bitching about slow connections here would be like me bitching in a NASA thread about how it isn't fair that NASA has crafts going 20,000 MPH while my bicycle is still stuck at a max of about 30mph. Different toys for different uses. This is clearly an infrastructure tool, one that offers much better speeds and lower costs of deployment than the current stuff.
My entire point is that even if this was deployed, the end user such as myself would probably still be capped at an unreasonable 5mbit download and a fraction of that for the upload. The USA has fallen behind severely in internet speeds while other countries are providing 100mbit right to your door at the same cost.
That said, I'd really be happy if I could just get FIOS where I live. It is absurd to me that, living in downtown Chicago, I can't get anything better than Comcast cable.
Up until about a year ago you couldn't get FIOS in Philadelphia. They're now starting to deploy it in some parts but it's going to take a while to be deployed. It'll be nice for people in the cit
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I think more accurately the point they are making is that advances in technology are showing that there is no reason for the ridiculously low usage caps we are facing.
I don't exactly love a 250GB cap with comcast, but trust me that 50MB down/9MB up for $80 (including basic cable which is pretty bullshit because it's 90$ without) - is alright. That's what I'm getting in Evanston.
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Exactly. Anything that makes it cheaper to deliver higher speeds filters down to us. Any time AT&T, Sprint or Tata [wikipedia.org] is thinking "Gee, we'll need another 50 Tier 1 lines to keep up with demand" and scientist come along and say "No, you can do it with one 100 Petabit line, and you can use fewer repeaters", it saves them money and allow
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
people bitching about slow connections here would be like me bitching in a NASA thread about how it isn't fair that NASA has crafts going 20,000 MPH while my bicycle is still stuck at a max of about 30mph.
Don't know about you, but I want to go to the grocery story at 20,000 MPH, and be able to bring back a container full of stuff too!
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Don't know about you, but I want to go to the grocery story at 20,000 MPH, and be able to bring back a container full of stuff too!
If you live so far from the grocery store you need a 20,000 MPH craft to get there, it's time to start growing your own.
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Don't know about you, but I want to go to the grocery story at 20,000 MPH, and be able to bring back a container full of stuff too!
If you live so far from the grocery store you need a 20,000 MPH craft to get there, it's time to start growing your own.
Do you know where one can purchase grocery store seeds?
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I don't see anything OT about this thread, but apparently since it doesn't have to do with the theory of deploying 100Petabit fiber, it has to be OT. It's not like I'm throwing in a hot grits Natalie Portmen comment. Mod me down more, I have plenty karma to burn while you groupthink mods waste your points.
second.kilometer (Score:5, Informative)
From the PC World article:
The measurement takes into account both speed and the ability to maintain it over distance, by multiplying the network's speed by its distance in kilometers. In this case, a network with an aggregate speed of 15.5T bits per second (Tbps) was able to maintain that speed over a distance of 7,000 kilometers (4,349 miles), or roughly the distance from Paris to Chicago
Re:second.kilometer (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe old hat to you network engineers, but I was previously unfamiliar with "bits per second.kilometer".
This is equivalent to 43 LoC/HI (Libraries of Congress per hour-inch).
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
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c mol / LoC m = (3x10^9 m/s) mol / (10 TB) m = 0.00003 mol / byte s. I'm at a loss for how to interpret this dimensional measure. Maybe it has something to do with the number of monkeys needed to type the works of Shakespeare in a specified amount of time.
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Re:second.kilometer (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe old hat to you network engineers, but I was previously unfamiliar with "bits per second.kilometer".
Thanks for the info. No, this is not old hat to network engineers. I've never heard of it and I've been working in the industry for more years than I care to admit. I think it might be old hat to marketing people though, since it appears to be a classic BIG MARKETING NUMBER. Normal networking people would call 15.5 Tbps * 7000 km... 15.5 Tbps.
Maybe it's true that optics geeks really do use numbers this way, I dunno. But the fact it comes from an AlcaLu press release doesn't lend it a whole lot of credibility.
I am massively unimpressed by the headline on the Slashdot story. Maybe another article headlined "kdawson swallows inflated AlcaLu marketing fluff hook, line and sinker" would be in order?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Given that optical fibre capacity is limited by dispersion (different parts of the signal travelling at different speeds, causing adjacent symbols to overlap), it's a reasonable number - both a longer distance and a faster symbol rate make the problem worse. So if this is what's limiting you, you can double the distance by halving the speed, or vice versa. Of course, that's not the only limiting factor, and IIRC some forms of dispersion don't scale proportionally with distance, so it's not the only relevant
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At the very least I assume we can agree that "100-Petabit Internet Backbone" is a gross misrepresentation of what the press release describes. "15.5 Tbit long haul" would have been accurate.
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Yes, the story headline is talking about something totally different. I mean, how do YOU read "100-Petabit Internet Backbone"? Most people would not interpret it to mean "15.5 Tbps delivered over 7000 km." (The headline error is repeated in TFA. Ironically if you click all the way through to the AlcaLu press release [alcatel-lucent.com] the headline is more accurate: "Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs announces new optical transmission record and breaks 100 Petabit per second kilometer barrier".)
I will grant you that optics geeks ma
Who cares, solve the last mile already. (Score:5, Insightful)
I would trade this in a second for a guarantee that the last mile problem will be resolved in my lifetime.
It's been 10 years and I'm still stuck with a crappy 1.5m/256k (1.2/180 actual) ADSL line.
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While the telcos are exaggerating the scenario with too many people using up too much bandwidth, that doesn't mean it can't / won't happen. The telco's should be laying down new cables, but that infrastructure exists in their country only. At some point, that country will saturate the bandwidth of the undersea cables.
So yeah, this is part of the overall picture for better speeds.
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I know in my area in PA, we have the same options you list above. The only one missing is the Fibre-to-the-home... but that can be had in the Pittsburgh, PA area via Verizon's FIOS. I know here in the middle of PA with comcast's cable modem I get around 14Mbits/sec down and about 3Mbit/sec up.
Will we notice? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Confusing units (Score:2)
Sorry, I'm not quite up to scratch with those new-fangled DVDs-per-second-7000kilometers. How many library of congresses per leap-year.light-year is that?
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1901? (Score:2)
Wow, I wasn't aware there was such an extensive transcontinental cable system in 1901: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1901_Eastern_Telegraph_cables.png [wikipedia.org]
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http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html [wired.com]
already have this at home (Score:4, Funny)
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10( years)
12 (months)
365.25 (days)
24 (hours)
60 (minutes)
60 (seconds)
------------
29731345.93 (bits per second)
29034.52 (kilobits per second)
28.35 (megabits per second)
This new line transfers the equivalent of one decade of fully-saturated domestic ADSL2 line (24Mb) traffic every second.
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112589990684262400 (100 petabits)
Actually, 100 petabits is 1000000000000000 bits. Communications technology uses traditional power-of-10 SI units, not the power-of-2 units.
I think you also made another mistake, not sure where. Because I get:
100 * 10^15 / 10 / 365.25 / 24 / 60 / 60 / 10^6 = 316 Mbps.
So, this new line transfers the equivalent of one decade of more than 13 fully-saturated ADSL2 lines' traffic every second.
(Calculated by typing "2k100 10 15^*10/365.25/24/60/60/10 6^/p" into 'dc')
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12 what?
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I've had 100-Petabit/decade internet at home for a while now.
Google is perfect if you want it in hogsheads per forthnight, in this case:
100 (petabits per decade) = 340.255519 megabits per second
But just between us, if you want to brag about your connection I'd use a more common unit.
second.kilometer? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yep. Decoherence/absorption/dispersion happens. Packets get dropped.
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Electrons are people too! When you have to run a few kilometers, you'll start to slow down as well!
That faint "thump" you heard in the background (Score:5, Funny)
That was MPAA chairman Dan Glickman fainting and hitting the floor 'cause nobody cared enough to catch him.
and yet (Score:2)
All these advances in speed and yet consumer ISPs can't seem to offer more than 6Mbps down and 1.5Mbps up for less than $70 a month.
If Internet bandwidth were like hard drives, we would have passed the $1/Mbps mark last year. Instead, it's still $30/Mbps.
What are these companies doing with these multiple Tbps backbones right now if consumers are being bottle-necked on purpose?
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All these advances in speed and yet consumer ISPs can't seem to offer more than 6Mbps down and 1.5Mbps up for less than $70 a month.
Thats because we don't have real competition in the US, so why should they give you more for less?
Compare this to Germany for example, were you can get 16 Mbps for as little as 15 euros/month, 50 Mbps is available and Kabel Deutschland just announced that they are going to start selling 100 Mbps starting next year [teltarif.de]. Amazing what competition will do.
Conversions? (Score:4, Funny)
This is the US... Can we get this in Libraries of Congress/mile?
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Re:Conversions? (Score:4, Informative)
I had to substitute 1 LoC for 10 terabyte myself, but according to google 100Pb/s*km = 2863278 LoC*mph. So if you give everyone in Chicago a copy of the library of congress and they drive around at 1 mph, it'll have the same bandwidth. Simple, right?
Parent
4chan (Score:2)
Petabit backbones still won't be enough to keep 4chan online through all those DDoSes they suffer.
Gee, that's nice (Score:2)
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I think it's about 14 gigabytes per hogshead, which averages out to eleven teraflops per cubic kilowatt.