Internet Speed Record Broken.

[Agamalizard]

The world record for the transfer of data across the Internet has been claimed by telecommunications company Sprint and the Swedish National Research and Education Network.

The two organizations announced late last week that they had managed to send nearly 840 gigabytes of data across a distance of 16,346 kilometers (10,157 miles) in less than 27 minutes, at an average speed of 4.23 gigabits per second.

This was equal to 69,073 terabit meters per second (or 69,073 trillion bits sent through one meter in a second), which exceeded the previous record set by CalTech and CERN earlier this year.
Read more (http://news.com.com/Internet+speed+record+broken/2100-1033_3-5242144.html?tag=nefd.top)

[clocker]

So, is that faster than AOL dialup?
I might have to upgrade.

[iMartin]

Pfft, my 56K pwns that. :01:

[UcanRock2]

I read that...amazing!

Wonder what that would cost?

[fred devliegher]

Wait - I thought all data travels at the speed of light ? They just found a way to send more data at the same speed over the same time. Or am I totally wrong ? :huh:

[wontellyagen]

good answer fred....it all travels the same speed, just depends on the lines.

[mogadishu]

Originally posted by wontellyagen@5 July 2004 - 00:24
it all travels the same speed, just depends on the lines.
uh..?

[fred devliegher]

Originally posted by mogadishu+5 July 2004 - 07:11--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (mogadishu @ 5 July 2004 - 07:11)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-wontellyagen@5 July 2004 - 00:24
it all travels the same speed, just depends on the lines.
uh..? [/b][/quote]
Picture a highway. All cars - or bits - travel at the same speed. Now, a 56k line will be a highway with just one lane - all cars travel at the same speed, but only x number of cars can get from the start to the end of the highway in a given period of time.

ISDN would be a highway with two lanes. All cars still travel at the same speed, but twice as many cars can get from the start to the end in the same period of time.

What these scientists have done is create a highway with *hundreds* of lanes - all the cars still have the same speed, but far more can make the journey at once.

Geddit ?

[clocker]

So my cable line is full of cars?

I&#39;d think it would be bigger then.

[MagicNakor]

I&#39;m more amazed by the fact that everyone&#39;s driving the exact same speed on the highway. Must not be any construction, or elderly drivers.

:ninja:

[lynx]

What about multiple occupancy? Don&#39;t they get a faster lane?

[fred devliegher]

<_<

[Donnie Darko]

Originally posted by Agamalizard@26 June 2004 - 02:05
at an average speed of 4.23 gigabits per second.

:o Damn are they useing aol?

[Alex H]

Cool - my only question is: when can I get it a home?

Fred is right - data does travel at the speed of light. What these people are doing is cramming more data into the light spectrum - in stead of pushing, say 1MB through the whole spectrum, they push 1MB through red, 1MB through orange, etc (thats the dumbed down version.)

Also they are using better TCP (Transport Control Protocal) to push more data through. Normal ethernet packets are between 1300 and 1500 bytes. Each packet has an "overhead" (like in business, the cost of sending the packet) so by creating bigger packets, you reduce your overhead (like buying in bulk is cheaper) I remember CERN were using 9000 byte packets called Jumbo Frames.

When sending packets, TCP starts at 0 and pickes up speed as it works out how much it can push through. When a packet is lost (somewhere in the ether, maybe at a clogged router) it slows to 0 and then starts again. FAST TCP (like CERN use) basically just registers that a packet has been lost and then sends it again withough slowing down, making the avarae spped of the transfer stay high.

If you feel like drooling over the equipment, have a look at the Juniper Networks T320 router - this model pumps 1 TB of data from LA to Geneva inunder an hour&#33;

I want one&#33;

[Abe]

........I bet someday you we will be able to transfer objects into data and tranfer them at the speed of light. :huh:

[Arm]

:o Goddamn thats alot of data. I wonder what files they managed to scrounge up to fill in that gap for over 800 gigabytes. Alot of porn and warez? ;)

[iMartin]

Originally posted by Arm@10 July 2004 - 21:13
:o Goddamn thats alot of data. I wonder what files they managed to scrounge up to fill in that gap for over 800 gigabytes. Alot of porn and warez? ;)
I&#39;d also like to know that... :huh:

[Alex H]

If they can download a DVD in under 6 seconds, I reckon they would be able to find or make some big files.

:D

[tesco]

:o WIsh i had that. Sure beats my 128k cable connection. :(

[Keikan]

When will this speed go residential?

[lynx]

So what happened to the rest of the internet while they tried this piece of crap?

Fucking wankers. :angry: :rolleyes:

[Alex H]

Nothing. They are just using the existing cables more efficiently and have better TCP.

[lynx]

I hadn&#39;t read it properly, I thought they had effectively commandeered a section of the internet, causing congestion elsewhere.

However, I think the measurement is nonsensical. The distance involved is largely irrelevent, the routers are the same ones as before so the transmission speed between routers is not changed. But of course, that is only between routers, there will be a delay between a packet being received at a router and it being transmitted on to the next one.

This significance of the number of routers depends on their topology. The more routes you can use in parallel the higher your available bandwidth, and the greater the distance between routers, the lower the end-to-end retransmission lag for a given distance (or the higher the distance covered per router).

This means that by picking their routes carefully, they may have achieved much longer distances. The fact that they only achieved 4.23Gbps compared to Caltech/Cern&#39;s 6.25 Gbps shows that their actual speed was slower, but of course an increased number of routers in the end-to-end circuit could also account for this, or at least some of it.

While I am aware that this is a land speed record, it is important to demonstrate the absurdity of the measurement. To do this we could bounce a signal off the moon using no routers at all, and therefore no retransmission lag. Since the round trip would be about 800,000 km, the data rate would only need to be about 100Mbps to smash the current record significantly. However, the recipients of the large data files (the ultimate purpose of the Internet2 consortium) would be pretty upset about the time taken for them to receive their data.

It is all very well to say that "carefully designed, all-purpose networks" are the way to go (and without a doubt this is true), but the whole point is that they deliberately chose their start and end points and the route between to maximise the result. In real life, data travels from source to destination wherever these may be, over whatever routes are available between them. These variables can&#39;t be picked to maximise an arbitrary measurement.

I am not suggesting that the Sprint/SUNET group did anything significantly different from the Caltech/CERN group, but that the actual measurement used by both groups is not completely meaningful.

[Chame1eon]

Originally posted by Alex H@5 July 2004 - 23:33
Cool - my only question is: when can I get it a home?


by that time media player will be about 500GB