<p> Slow internet and 'rush hour' - the peak time when data speeds drop by up to 30 per cent - could soon be history, thanks to scientists who have developed new hardware that consistently provides high-speed broadband connectivity.<br /><br />The new technology enables dedicated data rates at more than 10,000 megabits-per-second (Mb/s) for a truly super-fast, yet low-cost, broadband connection, researchers said.<br /><br />"By 2025, average speeds over 100 times faster will be required to meet increased demands for bandwidth-hungry applications such as ultra-high definition video, online gaming, and the Internet of Things," said Sezer Erkilinc, from University College London in the UK.<br /><br />"The future growth in the number of mobile devices, coupled with the promise of 5G to enable new services via smart devices, means we are likely to experience bandwidth restrictions; our new optical receiver technology will help combat this problem," said Erkilinc, lead researcher of the study published in Nature Communications.<br /><br />Scientists, including those from the University of Cambridge in the UK, developed a simplified receiver to be used in optical access networks: the links connecting internet subscribers to their service providers.<br /><br />"To maximise the capacity of optical fibre links, data is transmitted using different wavelengths, or colours, of light. Ideally, we'd dedicate a wavelength to each subscriber to avoid the bandwidth sharing between the users," said Polina Bayvel, from UCL.<br /><br />Although this is already possible using highly sensitive hardware known as coherent receivers, they are costly and only financially viable in core networks that link countries and cities.<br /><br />The new, simplified receiver retains many of the advantages of coherent receivers, but is simpler, cheaper, and smaller, requiring just a quarter of the detectors used in conventional receivers.<br /><br />Simplification was achieved by adopting a coding technique to fibre access networks that was originally designed to prevent signal fading in wireless communications.<br /><br />This approach has the additional cost-saving benefit of using the same optical fibre for both upstream and downstream data.</p>
<p> Slow internet and 'rush hour' - the peak time when data speeds drop by up to 30 per cent - could soon be history, thanks to scientists who have developed new hardware that consistently provides high-speed broadband connectivity.<br /><br />The new technology enables dedicated data rates at more than 10,000 megabits-per-second (Mb/s) for a truly super-fast, yet low-cost, broadband connection, researchers said.<br /><br />"By 2025, average speeds over 100 times faster will be required to meet increased demands for bandwidth-hungry applications such as ultra-high definition video, online gaming, and the Internet of Things," said Sezer Erkilinc, from University College London in the UK.<br /><br />"The future growth in the number of mobile devices, coupled with the promise of 5G to enable new services via smart devices, means we are likely to experience bandwidth restrictions; our new optical receiver technology will help combat this problem," said Erkilinc, lead researcher of the study published in Nature Communications.<br /><br />Scientists, including those from the University of Cambridge in the UK, developed a simplified receiver to be used in optical access networks: the links connecting internet subscribers to their service providers.<br /><br />"To maximise the capacity of optical fibre links, data is transmitted using different wavelengths, or colours, of light. Ideally, we'd dedicate a wavelength to each subscriber to avoid the bandwidth sharing between the users," said Polina Bayvel, from UCL.<br /><br />Although this is already possible using highly sensitive hardware known as coherent receivers, they are costly and only financially viable in core networks that link countries and cities.<br /><br />The new, simplified receiver retains many of the advantages of coherent receivers, but is simpler, cheaper, and smaller, requiring just a quarter of the detectors used in conventional receivers.<br /><br />Simplification was achieved by adopting a coding technique to fibre access networks that was originally designed to prevent signal fading in wireless communications.<br /><br />This approach has the additional cost-saving benefit of using the same optical fibre for both upstream and downstream data.</p>