Researchers: 1Tbps Ethernet by 2015, 100Tbps by 2020

[Emil]

Last week, researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, announced the Terabit Optical Ethernet Center (TOEC), which will work on making the Internet a thousand times faster than it is today. TOEC's researchers are designing an optical fiber that would enable the next generation Ethernet, allowing it to handle 1 trillion bits (Terabit) per second by 2015 and 100Tbps by 2020. Agilent Technologies, Google, Intel, Rockwell Collins, and Verizon are all partnering with the center on its Ethernet Terabit networking effort.

Internet traffic requirements double every two years. With streaming video becoming more and more popular, not to mention the expectations for Internet traffic thanks to cloud computing and mobile phone use, we're not surprised. The solution lies in fiber optics, which is based on glass fibers (the size of human hair) that carry signals throughout the world by sending light over long distances. The efficiency breaks down when routers are used to convert the optical signals to electrical ones and then convert the signals back again for transmission. The capacity of fiber optics cables needs a boost to stay up to speed with our increasing Internet diet. Fiber optics revolutionized telephone communications and researchers are hoping it will do the same for Internet speed.

"We're going to need much faster networking to handle the explosion in Internet traffic and support new large-scale applications like cloud computing," Daniel Blumenthal, Director of TOEC, said in a statement. "Our goal is to make energy-saving technologies that will allow applications and the underlying networks to continue to scale as needed. You could think of it as greening future networks, and the systems that rely on those networks." To achieve Ethernet at 100Tbps, fundamental improvements in the underlying technologies will be required, he adds. "We're going to need dramatic breakthroughs across multiple disciplines, not only in the core Ethernet technologies but in Ethernet-based networking and in the engineering and measurement systems used to develop and test these new technologies."

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https://www.techspot.com/news/40904-researchers-1tbps-ethernet-by-2015-100tbps-by-2020.html

 

[Elitassj4]

How the frack will you write 1Tbps on your HDD/SSD ?

 

[princeton]

Elitassj4 said:
How the frack will you write 1Tbps on your HDD/SSD ?

By 2015 HDDs will be gone. And SSD's will probably start to become obsolete compared to the next great thing.

 

[taea00]

At speeds like this you wouldn't need to write to a hard drive. I think with this kind of technology cloud computing would get a gigantic boost. Especially if they can offer speeds at competitive prices. These speeds, if they can do it in this time frame, would be a tremendous achievement. I'm kind of doubtful they can do it in the time frame they stated. Still I'd rather have a car that drives itself.

 

[princeton]

taea00 said:
At speeds like this you wouldn't need to write to a hard drive. I think with this kind of technology cloud computing would get a gigantic boost. Especially if they can offer speeds at competitive prices. These speeds, if they can do it in this time frame, would be a tremendous achievement. I'm kind of doubtful they can do it in the time frame they stated. Still I'd rather have a car that drives itself.

The US barely has 4Mbps net in most areas. Maybe 1TBps for somewhere like south korea, but not for north america.

 

[TeamworkGuy2]

I have trouble believing that in 5 years you could actually call your internet provide and order a 1 Tbps = (125 Gigabytes per second) internet connection.
It might be real, but I doubt that you will actually be able to use it as an end consumer.
The majority of Americans are still using ~4 Mbps = (500 Kilobytes per second) as of 2010, so to see that number x 250,000 sounds nearly impossible, although I might be forced to eat my words. Time will tell.

 

[TomSEA]

5 or 10 years from now? Wake me when it's here. And when PC hardware can handle that level of transfer rate.

 

[taea00]

princeton said:

The US barely has 4Mbps net in most areas. Maybe 1TBps for somewhere like south korea, but not for north america.

I'm not saying specifically a country. I'm saying in generality if they can achieved that kind of speed is amazing. I have no doubt it'd take years if not decades to roll out to countries, especially as you pointed out, the US.

 

[TwiztidSef]

It makes sense to develop this right now. With processors and SSD increasing in speed, by 2015 we should have computers capable of facilitating those speeds. I just hope they think to also increase the speed and standards of routers and switches. I believe that would be the bottleneck at the moment.

This might spawn some type of strange new internet based machine. With good enough specs to fully utilize the bandwidth, and with enough logic to get what you use the most. I doubt it though.

 

[Neojt]

Man can you imagine at what speed Spam will get to your email !! haha

If this comes true in game lag will be gone for ever

 

[frodough]

nice info but i think they seem to forget to include the prediction on the internet bill from your local telecom monopolistic giants: $175 by 2015, $400 by 2020.

 

[Guest]

These speeds would be for the internet backbone and ISP's not for home use. But how awsome would that be for home use!

 

[Richy2k9]

hello ...

i'm sure when it will come, there will also be major improvements everywhere else & it will look relatively same as today's technology but with some great features, however i'm scared if all goes digital, on the cloud & going too fast, when will we human have time to disconnect from all of these... !?

here comes the time of the matrix .. . or skynet!

cheers!

 

[SSaywell]

If only I had that speed now, I wouldn't be posting I would be able to watch Lie To Me, instead I have a progress bar to entertain me.

 

[mpribe]

Can't wait! Although actual speed realized will probably be subject to end-user system limitations.

 

[9Nails]

princeton said:

Elitassj4 said:
How the frack will you write 1Tbps on your HDD/SSD ?

By 2015 HDDs will be gone. And SSD's will probably start to become obsolete compared to the next great thing.

Potentially skipping past the SATA/SAS interface and putting your hard drive directly into the PCI-E slots, like with the Fusion IO cards, you'll see these kinds of numbers. I haven't looked up the numbers, but even still I doubt current IO cards have this sort of capacity on one card, and I question if a single motherboard has the bandwidth to allow transfer's this high. This solution would probably be found first in massive data centers with an entire rack of servers splitting up the traffic.

 

[Guest]

This is not really that big a deal, hasn't anybody heard of 'The Grid'? CERN, creators of the web, have created the NEXT internet, the Grid, and it's 10,000 times faster than the fastest broadband connection. It absolutely blows these 1tbps connections out of the water, and it already exists, it's not a pipedream.

The Grid is already operational in Europe but only for scientific/medical research purposes. We should have it in North America within a decade. The Grid is being powered by the Large Hadron Collider, CERN's massive particle accelerator.

 

[kevin1212]

This tech might be around by then, but not for the average joe. It takes years before extreme becomes mainstream.

 

[Guest]

"The Grid is already operational in Europe but only for scientific/medical research purposes. We should have it in North America within a decade. The Grid is being powered by the Large Hadron Collider, CERN's massive particle accelerator. " - Guest


That is the funniest thing I have ever heard. I never knew the LHC was a powerplant xD

 

[vangrat]

I have to say this is all pie in the sky stuff. Yes the connection speeds for short distances will probably be that. However, for the majority of people this will be something that will not be seen for at least two decades. Australia is rolling out its National Broadband Network with a theoretical maximum limit of 1Gbps upon release. The average user will still only see half that, however.

On the greener grass side of things. Keep this technology pumping. Without advancement we WONT see these kinds of speeds, ever.

 

[ColdFusion1990]

It does seem a little far-fetched, but that would so unbelievably awesome if it were true. Imagine all that free media in seconds!

 

[maestromasada]

where wireless fit in all this? if we almightly human race put a massive wi-fi satelitte on orbit and then run a super-fiber cable from my house to the satelitte, I can surely broadcast wirelessly to the whole flipping planet! that wold be cool! I will let every human being know my passwd but my neighbord
stop day dreaming people, there are still thousands of 100Mbs devices around that will not be replace till they break (some of them lifetime cisco switches lifetime warranty!), we got to stand 1Gbs for the next 50 ods years

 

[Zoner1501]

We may have 1Tbps Ethernet by 2015, 100Tbps by 2020, but does that really matter when more and more Internet Providers are putting bandwidth caps on?

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

Guys this is for the internet backbone, not data lines that go through neighborhoods to give home users internet access. The backbone is whats slowing us down right now, it simply doesn't have enough bandwidth to support all of us on the internet watching videos at the same time. We don't really need a huge line to each person, it is completely unnecessary. Most people will not need anything over 10mbps, and a compressed 1080p video doesn't hit 10mbps constantly, so this speed would be more than enough to play a 1080p stream in real time.

 

[ceejay949]

That is good news. I hope they will be able to achieve it on the mentioned years.