Imagine a world where you could download every episode of Game of Thrones before you'd even lifted your finger off the 'Buy' button?
Well researchers at University College London have brought us one crucial step closer to this utopian world by creating a record-breaking data transfer speed of 1.125 terabits per second.
To put that into perspective, the average download speed in the UK is just 22.8Mbps.
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The results of their experiment have been published in the scientific journal Nature and reveal that by combining multiple lower-speed transmitters together they were able to boost the speed exponentially to the eye-watering amount.
Senior research associate Robert Maher spoke to Mashable and explained, “This super channel is then routed as a single entity, however, at the receiver, we detect the entire super channel in one go. Using this very high bandwidth receiver, we can record greater amounts of information.”
Maher is just being modest, that 'greater amount' is an eye-watering increase in data transfer speeds and is the result of a massive five year project by the research team at the Optical Network Group.
Sadly don't expect this technology to be boosting your internet anytime soon, the experiment was carried out in a closed off environment. What it does mean however is that the potential is now there.