Chinese researchers and telecommunications engineers have launched what they claim is the world’s first internet service with line speeds over one terabit per second.
Called the backbone network, the 3 000-kilometre fibre optic line runs from Beijing to the southern city of Guangzhou, via Wuhan in central China, and transmits data at 1.2 terabits per second – fast enough to download 150 high-definition motion pictures every second.
The breakthrough comes two years ahead of industry expert forecasts which predicted the terabit threshold would not be surpassed before 2025.
Jointly developed by the global internet giant, Huawei Technologies, state-owned telecommunications firm, China Mobile, Tsinghua University and the China Education and Research Network, the high-speed line passed its final reliability and operational tests before its launch on November 13.
The backbone network is a decade-long endeavour and forms part of China’s Future Internet Technology Infrastructure (FITI) project.
The core nodes of the line are distributed between 40 universities in 35 cities, supporting more than 4 000 parallel networks, according to Tsinghua University.
China has more than one billion internet users, and the project is considered fundamental to the country’s growing need to connect its public transport, industry and education institutes.
The success of the FITI backbone network could provide a platform for China to build an even faster internet moving forward, said Wu Jianping, project leader and China Academy of Engineering associate.
At its current speed, the line is roughly ten times faster than the world’s internet backbones which, according to the South China Morning Post, operate at an average of 100 gigabits per second. Even the US, which recently transitioned to its fifth-generation, Internet2, has a reported speed of 400 gigabits per second.
While speaking at the launch ceremony held at Tsinghua University in Beijing, Huawei Technologies vice-president, Xu Mingwei, compared the network to a modern rail system that could carry the same amount of cargo that ten older tracks were capable of, while requiring significantly less maintenance.
The network’s software and hardware, including the state-of-the-art core router and ultra-fast IPv6 interface, were developed domestically, marking a significant technological advancement for China’s internet industry, which had previously relied on integral components from foreign countries, including Japan and US.
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