Submitted via IRC for BoyceMagooglyMonkey
Society has an insatiable desire for data. In fact, it is rather astonishing to think that average Internet traffic is several hundred terabits per second and consumes about eight percent of our electricity production. All of that for instant cat videos—and our desire for new cat videos is apparently insatiable, driving the need for more capacity and even more energy.
[...] The fiber that transported the signal consists of 30 light-guiding cores, surrounded by a single cladding. That means that each core is capable of transporting data at a rate of 25Tbps, bringing us to a grand total of 768Tbps. That, however, is the raw data rate. Data is always transmitted with some redundancy to allow for errors to be corrected, called forward error correction. Once redundancy is accounted for, the net data transfer rate is 661Tbps.
Source: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/661tbits-through-a-single-optical-fiber-the-mind-boggles/
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday August 04 2018, @02:11PM (2 children)
In other words, less than a million people could max out a 1 Gbps connection, globally. Without causing huge strain on the network.
Seems like we have a long way to go. We can waste a lot more throughput on streaming 8-16K, VR, holograms, AI, etc. We need home users to max out their 10 Gbps connections. Growth growth growth.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 04 2018, @02:47PM (1 child)
If you look up how many pixels you need for a realistic VR headset as well as the current rate of node reduction in the display industry, you'd be able to guesstimate how long would it take before the "Growth growth growth" ends at most.
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday August 04 2018, @05:14PM
No, man, you are wrong here. I want way better than what your poor eyes can see. I want to be able to zoom at my virtual flee's pussy from 10 virtual miles away.
Say virtual view of protons colliding with enough zoom - that would put a limit I guess.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.