Do you remember when 10 megabit networks were the crux of our networking technology? Transferring your 500mb back-ups over from one computer to another took an age, let alone downloading something large off the internet.

Once again, in comes science to save the day. Researchers from the University of Central Florida and the Eindhoven University of Technology have put their heads together to create a new breed of fiber networking – allowing for up to 255 terabits per second delivery speeds.

Broken down, what do these speeds mean in real-life circumstances? If you’re looking to transfer a high quality 2GB movie file, you’re looking at a lengthy wait of 0.06 milliseconds and a backup of your whole personal photo and movie collection from your family holidays will set you back 31 milliseconds of your precious time. Comparing this to the current 100Gbps offered by fiber on offer, this new technology offers you a 2550 times increase in overall speed.

Unfortunately this blisteringly fast speed is going to be currently capped by the limitations of our network cards, hard drives and solid state devices – but now the technology is there and reachable, there’s no knowing what is going to come out next.

It works by utilizing glass fiber split up into seven different cores arranged in a hexagon pattern. Techspot went into further detail, explaining: “By using spatial multiplexing, they were able to achieve speeds of 5.1 terabits per carrier and wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) to push 50 carriers down the cores. All said and done, it equaled the magic 255 terabits per second.”

Here’s hoping that sometime in the foreseeable future we can see global internet speeds transcending 100Gbps speeds, making loading times a thing of the past.

A man can dream! But for the moment, this technology is actually faster than the total capacity of every glass fiber cable lining the Atlantic Ocean – which currently number in the hundreds.

Image courtesy of Techspot