Dr. Ian Philips. Courtesy of Aston University

Remember the annoying 2000s buffering icon that would pop up after every second YouTube video online? Well, it became more of a rarity as the years went by, and broadband connections went from 50 Mbps to 69.4 Mbit/s in 2023. At 69.4 Mbit/s, you can download large files like games and films, and stream 4K videos effortlessly.

But let’s say a broadband connection got even faster; a reasonable estimate would be 100, maybe even 1000 times faster. An international team of researchers just cranked that estimate up by 4.5 million times. The team of experts behind this groundbreaking innovation consisted of Dr. Ian Philips and Professor Wladek Forysiak from the Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies, as well as researchers from the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) in Japan, Nokia Bell Labs in the US, and Amonics Limited in Hong Kong. This international collaboration allowed the team to transfer data at a rate of 301 terabits (301,000,000 megabits per second) “using a single, standard optical fiber.”

Taping into untapped wavelengths to expand broadband connections

The demand for data has skyrocketed since the birth of the Internet. “It is expected that the newly developed technology will help keep up with future demand,” says Dr. Philips. The scientist manipulated optical fibers, intricate tubular strands of glass that pass information using light. “The development effectively uses different colors of light to transmit the optical signals. And while this has been done for some time, our development widens this further by using a combination of newer optical amplifier technologies and optical processor units to increase the number of colors (or wavelengths),” explained Dr. Philips.

To tap into these different wavelengths or colors of light, the team developed “new optical amplifier and optical processor technologies.” At present, most commercial broadband systems utilize the “so-called C-band, or L-band” to transmit data. In developing new optical technologies, the team chose to experiment with S-bands and E-bands, aside from the C-bands, on devices that supported E-bands. An E-band offers an extended frequency range from 60 GHz to 90 GHz, unlike a C-band that only spans from 4 GHz to 8 GHz. “Over the last few years, Aston University has been developing optical amplifiers that operate in the E-band, which sits adjacent to the C-band in the electromagnetic spectrum but is about three times wider. Before the development of our device, no one had been able to properly emulate the E-band channels in a controlled way,” Dr. Philip reveals.

So, what does this faster broadband mean?

At present, several optical core networks worldwide have nearly reached full capacity. Based on Dr. Philip and his team’s findings, “When full, the network provider will have the choice to install a new optical fiber (which is often costly and time-consuming) or try to use more of the available bandwidth on the existing fiber infrastructure.” Though this development offers a cutting-edge solution to the world’s growing appetite for high-speed data, this investigation must mature to become viable. “As always, this is driven by the demand of the end-user and the economics of providing that service,” adds Dr. Philip.

But with new technological leaps comes a conscious responsibility for the planet. Aston University’s new broadband technology “takes advantage of existing fiber infrastructure, which means a new fiber network won’t need to be installed. Thus, dropping costs, saving time, and not causing any lags in the internet speeds we already exploit. A simple “upgrade to the optical amplifier and terminal equipment” is all that’s required to facilitate this massive upgrade.

Surfing the internet may have just gotten quicker than a blink of an eye with experimental tweaks to existing tech like Aston University’s broadband boost.

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