There is a new breakthrough and we can now expect our internet getting 100 times faster. Scientists at University of Sydney have taken four gruesome years to develop it but now, due to a small scratch on a piece of glass they say our internet is going to be faster than current Telstra networks.
The scratch means we will have almost an instantaneous access to the Internet which will be error-free anywhere in the world.
"This is a critical building block and a fundamental advance on what is already out there. We are talking about networks that are potentially up to 100 times faster without costing the consumer any more," says Federation Fellow Professor Ben Eggleton, Director of CUDOS, based within the School of Physics at the University of Sydney.
Eggleton, whose team beat their deadline by a year, says that up until now information has been moving at a slow rate but optical fibres have a huge capacity to deliver more. "The scratched glass we've developed is actually a Photonic Integrated Circuit," he says.
"This circuit uses the 'scratch' as a guide or a switching path for information - kind of like when trains are switched from one track to another - except this switch takes only one picosecond to change tracks. This means that in one second the switch is turning on and off about one million million times. We are talking about photonic technology that has terabit per second capacity."
This initial demonstration proves it is possible to achieve speeds 60 times faster than current Australian Networks. With further development, the process is likely to produce even faster results.
"Currently we use electronics for our switching and that has been OK but as we move toward a more tech-savvy future there is a demand for instant web gratification. Photonic technology delivers what's needed and, more importantly, what's wanted."
Keywords: cudos, fast internet, scratch glass, university of sydney