The global record for internet speed has been surpassed by a group of Japanese researchers.

The group achieved a data throughput of 402 terabits per second using a commercially accessible optical fiber, which is almost 1.6 million times faster than the median average broadband bandwidth in the US.

The research team set the record by building a system that included all of the transmission bands of common optical fibers and utilizing various amplification technologies, all under the supervision of the Photonic Network Laboratory at Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT).

According to NICT, future telecom networks may make use of this novel method of accessing wavelength bands that were previously unutilized.

NICT stated in a synopsis of the work that “the newly developed technology is expected to make a significant contribution to expand the communication capacity of the optical communication infrastructure as future data services rapidly increase demand.”

Willingness to Increase the Transmission Distance

With an upload speed of 34.23 Mbps, the average internet speed in the US was 248.27 Mbps as of May 2024.

A test of the top fixed broadband providers in the United States in Q4 2023 revealed that Cox had the quickest average speed.

Almost 12,500 movies could be downloaded in a single second at the data rate of 402 Tb/s set by the Japanese team, which is three times faster than the quantity of movies that Netflix now offers.

The ultimate goal of NICT researchers is to increase the transmission range to enormous transoceanic lengths, but there will need to be some caution over the immediate consequences of success. The achievement of setting a new world record with conventional fiber optic was made possible by the ideal lab circumstances.

Even a small percentage of the groundbreaking data transmission would need to be replicated in the real world, which would take a lot of resources and further research.