New internet speed world record is 5 million times faster than UK broadband

Researchers have smashed the data transmission world record using a commercially available optical fibre.

A team at Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) set a data-rate of 402 terabits per second – roughly 5 million times faster than the average broadband speed in the UK.

Led by the Photonic Network Laboratory at NICT, the researchers said they achieved the feat by constructing a system capable of covering all transmission bands of standard optical fibres, while also using various amplification technologies.

NICT said the new method to open previously unused wavelength regions could be adopted within future telecommunication networks.

“The newly developed technology is expected to make a significant contribution to expand the communication capacity of the optical communication infrastructure as future data services rapidly increase demand,” NICT noted in a summary of the work.

According to Ofcom, the average home broadband speed in the UK in 2023 was 69.4 Mbps, with the fastest currently advertised at 1.13 Gbps. Even this speed is still roughly 400,000 times slower than the new record.

A data-rate of 402 Tb/s could download roughly 12,500 films in a single second – more than three times the number of movies currently available on Netflix.

Despite using standard optical fibre to set the new record, the latest speed was only achieved under optimal lab conditions and more research is required to realise even a portion of the potential in the real world.

NICT researchers said they hoped to eventually extend the transmission range to trans-oceanic distances.