TRANSNET researchers set new transmission record

Dr Jiaqian Yang and Romulo Aparecido have set an incredible new record - the fastest recorded rate of data transmission both for field-deployed single-mode fibre (SMF) and in the O-band. They achieved a throughput of 300.28 Tb/s, about 2 million times faster than the average home internet speed! While laboratory experiments have achieved up to 402 Tb/s in SMF systems, this is the fastest recorded data transmission rate using existing fibre infrastructure, demonstrating the applicability to real-world scenarios.

A major focus of our TRANSNET programme has been ultra-wideband transmission. Enhancing the capacity of existing fibre infrastructure through adding wavelength bands will ensure that the next generation of digital communications keeps up with growing data demands. This work incorporates the O-band into S+C+L band deployed fibre transmission systems, almost doubling the useable bandwidth. Over 39km of single-mode fibre (part of the National Dark Fibre Facilities) between UCL and the Telehouse data centre in East London, the result shows a 50% improvement from previous SCL-band transmission demonstrations - with the same launch power and using only doped fibre amplifiers.

This is a very significant development in demonstrating the compatibility between coherent O-band transmission and existing S+C+L band systems, achieving record-high throughput without requiring additional power budget or new fibre infrastructure. The work was completed in collaboration with our partners Lightera, NICT and Keysight Technologies.

This groundbreaking result will be presented as a post-deadline paper at IEEE Photonics Conference (IPC) 2025 in Singapore by Dr Jiaqian Yang on Thursday 13th November!