14 DAY TRIAL // A Japanese company has announced the establishing of a new speed record in sending data over a high-speed fiber optic network. Kansai Electric claims it had sent a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds, the world's fastest speed obtained with fiber optic cables.
Signals travel at the speed of light through optical fibers, but overall, optical communication is much slower than light speed because signals are switched on and off and routed through networks using electronic rather than light-based devices.
The speed the Japanese claim to have reached is basically 100 times bigger than inter-city data transmissions currently offered. Kansai Electric used fiber-optic cables on power-transmitting steel towers to achieve the speed of one terabit per second.
Kunsai Electric is the second largest power supplier in Japan and, until now, there aren't any indications that it will offer this solution as a commercial product anytime soon. At best, it is possible to put the technology into practical use sometime around 2010.