Breaking News -
General:
SLAC Sets New Internet Speed
Record
Researchers working at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center used
fiber-optic
cables to transfer 6.7 gigabytes of data -- the equivalent of two DVD movies -
- across 6,800 miles in less than a minute. The center is a national
laboratory operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Department of
Energy.
The team was able to transfer uncompressed data at 923 megabits per second
for
58 seconds from Sunnyvale, California, to Amsterdam, Netherlands. That's about
3,500 times faster than a typical Internet broadband connection.
"By exploring the edges of Internet technologies' performance envelope, we
are
improving our ... ability to implement new networking technologies," observed
Les Cottrell, assistant director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator
Center.
The experiment could "bring high-speed data transfer to practical everyday
applications, such as doctors at multiple sites sharing and discussing a
patient's [heart test results] to diagnose and plan treatment," he added.
On average, the amount of information that can be transferred over the
Internet has doubled every year since 1984, scientists said. That trend is
expected to continue.
Already, Cottrell said he and other scientists have conducted further
experiments that break their own record. But those tests have not been
certified by Internet2, a consortium of 200 universities researching the
future of the Internet, and they must wait for further confirmation before an
announcement, he said.
Initially, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center employees expect to use the
faster data transfer speeds to share massive amounts of research collected by
physicists studying the fundamental building blocks of matter. But in the long
term, Internet users and businesses could benefit from the findings.
"Imagine ... being able to download two full-length, two-hour movies within
a
minute," Cottrell said. "That changes the whole idea of how media is
distributed."
Getting there won't be easy, said Harvey Newman, a physics professor at the
California Institute of Technology who participated in the center's
research.
Scientists were able to get 93 percent efficiency out of their
record-setting
connection because they didn't have to share bandwidth, they received donated
equipment in excess of $1 million and they changed the setting of Internet
protocols to allow faster data transfers, Newman said.
Even if they could transfer vast amounts of data tomorrow at reasonable
prices, Newman noted that present-day computers are unable to handle such
loads.
"You have this inversion where the limitations on advances will not be the
speed of the Internet but rather the speed of your computer," he said.
Scientists said the finding announced Thursday hopefully will help
researchers
develop a clearer plan for faster online technologies.
"We don't have a vision of the future of the Internet yet," Newman said.
"It's
a whole new world for which you can see the first few ideas, but we don't
really know what it will be about."
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