Imagine you could download the entire Game of Thrones series in high-definition in a fraction of a second.

That dream is one step closer to reality after British researchers simulated download speeds 50,000 times faster than 'superfast' 24 megabits per second (Mbps) broadband, breaking a world record.

Game of Thrones broke records for illicit downloads.

The University College London team achieved speeds of 1.125 terabits per second (Tbps), the highest throughput ever recorded using a single receiver.

To put that in perspective, the National Broadband Network is promising to deliver download speeds of 25Mbps to all Australians by 2020. One terabit is a million megabits, making the speeds in the study 45,000 times faster than the NBN target speed.