25 years ago internet was the future for the common man, now internet speed is the future for us. At present an expected 4.5 billion people use internet on daily basis which is about 60% of the world population. This requires a huge amount of data transfer at a reasonable speed of data transfer. But with the requirement of internet for practically all purpose of life now, we require a higher rate of data transfer. Now people are hooked to watching videos and gaming which is a huge data guzzler. As internet will not stop so the only way is to increase the data speed and that is what scientists are constantly working on.
Our initial experience of internet connection was through telephone lines coming to our homes and from that telephone connection a modem was set up which was connected to the computer. It was all wired connection and the speed was extremely slow as per modern standards. There was high latency and therefore the download speed was very slow and we had to see the buffering screen so often.
With the mobile technology came the Wi-Fi where radio signals were used to connect to the modem and then further connect to the computer through a Wi-Fi setting. Now we did not require any wires though and the speed increased.
After this came the optical fiber cables which increased the speed of the connection significantly, It was a combination of a wired connection and Wi-Fi, where the optical cable fiber comes to our home and then connects to a modem to convert it into a Wi-Fi signal which further connects to our computer. So these were the three basic steps of internet connectivity and speed seen by us.
Internet speed which used to be in kbps is now experienced in mbps. In 2019 the average speed in USA was 33 mbps, in Taiwan around 85 mbps and 16 mbps in Australia. Though we see a large variation in speed but mostly people were able to watch videos and movies and read online books with relative ease.
Fiber optics has been the revolution in matters of internet speed. In fiber optic cables light pulses are the information carriers. The unique feature of this is that it has a large bandwidth which helps in transferring several terabits of data per second. It can carry data at huge distances without loss of data and any electromagnetic interference. The fiber optic cable under the Atlantic Ocean connecting USA and Spain is called the MAREA transatlantic cable. It covers a distance of about 6600 kms and carries data at 160 terabits per second. This actually clears another misconception about internet; it is that it is not transmitted through air but through a network of optical fiber cable network across the world. Not only internet but it is also used to transfer telephone calls and even the cable TV.
In 2015 the Japanese researchers made a major breakthrough in internet speed and were able to transfer data at the rate of 2.5 petabits per second. To understand the potential of this speed is that a 8k video can be seen by 10 million people at the same time without any latency or buffering – all these was possible due to optical fiber and its improvement. Next the same group of scientists in collaboration with two other Japanese companies could achieve a speed of 10 petabits per second. But it doesn’t mean that we are going to get it by year end, these speeds are still in experimental stage.
Let’s dig a little deeper into this optical fiber thing. Inside the optical fiber cable is threads though which light pulses pass. A single mode fiber has one thread and a multi mode more than one one ray of light can pass simultaneously. Now this will not be enough to increase the speed vastly. For this we will need more fibers carrying more number of light pulses within them to increase the bandwidth. It looks simple in these few lines but this is what scientists are working on to be realistically feasible in mass scale usage.
These 10 petabits per second is the ultimate till now. Through once cable 114 light streams passed and each carrying 739 wavelengths creating 84246 wave forms. Imagine a highway having this many lanes to travel from one place to another. To reach such speeds of connectivity in our home we will have to wait for some more years.
On the other side of this is Elon Musk with his Star link project which plans to orbit 42000 satellites around the earth and provide internet to every corner of the earth. This way he will be able to tap into a trillion dollar internet communication booty. Though there is criticism to it as it will create a lot of space debris and also obstruct future space programs.
We have seen the stages of internet development in the form of 1G,2G,3G,4G and now 5G is coming. 1G came in the eighties and provided analog voice, 2G came in the nineties and delivered digital voice with CDMA technology, 3G came in the 2000's and gave us mobile data and 4G came in 2010's enabling mobile broadband services. 5G will enable a network that will virtually connect everything and everyone with more reliability and higher capacity.
There is about 28000 kms long fiber optic network around the world mostly running under sea with servers on land. These are veins through which the data is transferred around the world. Antarctica is the only continent not connected with this submarine cable network.
The development of internet and its penetration has been phenomenal in a relatively short period of time and has been the most life changing development for all of us. The future seems all the more interesting.
Thank you Telesfor sir.