World’s fastest internet speed sees download speeds 1 million times faster than current broadband

Researchers in Australia have achieved a world record internet speed of 44.2 terabits per second, allowing users to download 1,000 HD movies in a single second.

A team from Monash, Swinburne and RMIT universities used a “micro-comb” optical chip containing hundreds of infrared lasers to transfer data across existing communications infrastructure in Melbourne.

The highest commercial internet speed anywhere in the world is currently in Singapore, where the average download speed is 197.3 megabits per second (mbps).

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In Australia, the average download speed is 43.4 mbps – 1 million times slower than the speeds achieved in the latest test.

“There’s a bit of a global race on at the moment to get this technology to a commercial stage, as the micro-comb at its heart is useful in a really broad range of existing technologies,” Dr Bill Corcoran from Monash University, told The Independent.

“I’d guess that we could see devices like ours available to research labs in two to three years, and initial commercial use in about five years.”

The coronavirus lockdown has placed significant strain on internet infrastructure in recent months.

Shape Created with Sketch. 7 people who helped create the internet and don’t get any credit Show all 7 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. 7 people who helped create the internet and don’t get any credit 1/7 Claude Shannon (1916-2001) Shannon took the work done by Boole and re-purposes it for computers, allowing us to understand how to share information with the. It begun “information theory” — a system of thought that would let us build the internet Getty 2/7 Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) The internet now is largely algorithms: formulas or procedures that computers can run to solve problems. Those are so deeply integrated into our world that they are almost invisible. But Lovelace created the first one, in the early 19th century, helping lay the groundwork for the machine learning and artificial intelligence that now runs the internet Getty 3/7 George Boole (1815-1864) Boole helped formulate the kind of logic that would allow the internet and the binary that powers it to flourish. The structures of thinking that he proposed would eventually come to allow computers to understand us, and power the search engines that we use to get around the internet Getty 4/7 Leonard Kleinrock (1934-) Kleinrock helped formulate the idea of packet switching, a central part of the way that computers are able to share information with each other over networks. The theoretical frameworks that he proposed would eventually become the same technology that allows almost every computer in the world to send and receive information from the internet Getty 5/7 Vint Cerf (1943-) and Robert Kahn (1938-) Together Cerf and Kahn helped invent the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP). Those two technologies decide how computers communicate each other — in essence creating the internet as we know it Getty 6/7 Ray Tomlinson (1941-) Life online wouldn’t be what it is today without email. Tomlinson created a system to allow people to send messages to each other over ARPANET Andreu Veà 7/7 Larry Roberts (1937-) Larry Roberts helped create ARPANET, a military network that helped uncover and prove many of the technologies that would go on to power the internet. While Tim Berners-Lee often gets hailed for creating the web, Roberts also contributed to the early work that went into helping him Michel Bakni 1/7 Claude Shannon (1916-2001) Shannon took the work done by Boole and re-purposes it for computers, allowing us to understand how to share information with the. It begun “information theory” — a system of thought that would let us build the internet Getty 2/7 Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) The internet now is largely algorithms: formulas or procedures that computers can run to solve problems. Those are so deeply integrated into our world that they are almost invisible. But Lovelace created the first one, in the early 19th century, helping lay the groundwork for the machine learning and artificial intelligence that now runs the internet Getty 3/7 George Boole (1815-1864) Boole helped formulate the kind of logic that would allow the internet and the binary that powers it to flourish. The structures of thinking that he proposed would eventually come to allow computers to understand us, and power the search engines that we use to get around the internet Getty 4/7 Leonard Kleinrock (1934-) Kleinrock helped formulate the idea of packet switching, a central part of the way that computers are able to share information with each other over networks. The theoretical frameworks that he proposed would eventually become the same technology that allows almost every computer in the world to send and receive information from the internet Getty 5/7 Vint Cerf (1943-) and Robert Kahn (1938-) Together Cerf and Kahn helped invent the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP). Those two technologies decide how computers communicate each other — in essence creating the internet as we know it Getty 6/7 Ray Tomlinson (1941-) Life online wouldn’t be what it is today without email. Tomlinson created a system to allow people to send messages to each other over ARPANET Andreu Veà 7/7 Larry Roberts (1937-) Larry Roberts helped create ARPANET, a military network that helped uncover and prove many of the technologies that would go on to power the internet. While Tim Berners-Lee often gets hailed for creating the web, Roberts also contributed to the early work that went into helping him Michel Bakni

In Europe, streaming providers were asked to degrade their services in March in order to cope with increased traffic. Netflix and YouTube were among those who agreed to reduce picture quality for users.

Implementing the micro-comb device would alleviate this problem, according to the researchers.

“In the UK, daytime data demands have more than doubled, and there have been special efforts to make sure that connections are reliable,” said Dr Corcoran​.

“What this extra usage gives us is a sneak-peek at capacity issues networks will see in just a few years time – especially as we start bringing on line data hungry tech such as 5G, self-driving cars and the ‘internet of things’ more broadly.

“So, we’re going to need new compact technologies like our fingernail-sized device to expand the data carrying capacity of our networks gracefully – to reduce space and power consumption, as well as costs, while increasing overall data rates. Our demonstration also shows that the device we produced is compatible with the optical fibre infrastructure that is already in place.”

The findings were published in the journal Nature Communications on Friday.