Data transmission reaches 16.4 Tbps Over 1,500 MilesArrives before it leftBy Nick Farrell: Friday, 29 February 2008, 7:42 AMLES BOFFINS ET BOFFINETTES at Alcatel-Lucent have managed to send optical data at speeds of 16.4 Tbps over a distance of over 1,500 miles.The work was part of a research programme to get a stable 100 Gbps Ethernet connection.According to Gizmodo, les boffins suddenly hit on the idea of using a highly linear balanced photoreceiver and an ultra-compact, temperature-insensitive coherent mixer.It was just as well they had one lying around the lab to plug in.Anyway, it means that you will be able to shove a Blu-ray movie down the wire in three seconds instead of the 15 seconds the fastest technology can currently manage.Of course if it goes too fast the data would arrive before it had left and the boffins will have aged 20 years. Damn you, Einstein.
