Previously, the researchers at Alcatel-Lucent have broken records in speed by sending data at a speed of 25.6Tbps. This transfer was only 50 miles long and the company is now looking for a distance record. They recently performed a great feat by sending data over a whopping 1584 mile link at 16.4Tbps. This was accomplished by bundling many 100 Gbps cables together at different wavelengths. The signals were then split at the receiving end (I hope by a hardware decoder, I have a feeling that using a computer to decode the signal might cause it to slow down.) The most recent trial required 164 different channels and updated transmitters and decoders.

    A recent report from a group of IT managers at over 2200 colleges and universities called EDUCAUSE has outlined an interesting plan. They propose that the government should support a program to roll out a fiber optic infrastructure across the U.S. that would allow for 100 megabits per second at any location.

The plan totals at a cost of $100 billion and would be supported over the next four years by the federal and state governments, each paying $8 billion (that’s a total combined contribution of $64 billion.) For comparison, the federal government could pay for this entire investment if they used the money currently used to support only 116 days of the Iraq war.The rest would be paid by the public or private-sector entity that would maintain and also construct the network. Read the rest of this entry »