Forget rolling out optic fibres to your home: String is the technology of the future!
Engineers at a small British internet service provider have successfully made a broadband [ADSL] connection work over 2m (6ft 7in) of wet string. The connection reached speeds of 3.5Mbps (megabits per second), according to the Andrews and Arnold engineer who conducted the experiment.
The point of the experiment appears to have been purely to see if it was achievable.
The string used in the experiment was first put in salty water - chosen because salt is a good conductor of electricity.
Prof Jim Al-Khalili from Surrey University's department of physics explained how it worked: "Although wet string is clearly not as good a conductor of electricity as copper wire, it's not really about the flow of current. Here the string is acting as a waveguide to transmit an electromagnetic wave. And because the broadband signal in this case is very high frequency it doesn't matter so much what the material is."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @04:27AM
It's a high-resistance, broadband conductor?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @04:51AM (5 children)
Do you hire people to keep it wet? I suppose it is job creation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @05:01AM
You use yarn for the next undersea cable project.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @06:50AM (1 child)
If they'd use a G-string, staying wet would have been easy.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday December 14 2017, @08:41AM
Remind me never to borrow your fiddle.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Thursday December 14 2017, @09:47AM (1 child)
Not needed. The string will be routed through your bathroom.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @11:39AM
you pee on it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Thursday December 14 2017, @05:20AM
no one tell the Australian Government..
If it gets out that *string* is better than some of our coax cable connections, we might just get upset enough to whinge on the internet.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-17/nbn-users-key-complaints-centre-around-slow-speeds,-drop-outs/8031356\ [abc.net.au]
http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/nbn/nbns-constipation-problems-go-much-deeper-than-a-lack-of-fibre/news-story/b82532222d97fa2fb338dbd23d437f50 [news.com.au]
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/accc-acts-on-nbn-internet-speed-complaints/news-story/f4621c330652c30f6ffeffbda47945c2 [theaustralian.com.au]
http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/speed-check-what-nbn-speed-promises-really-mean-20130802-hv180.html [smh.com.au]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @09:06AM
JunkID Category Location ItemNM
=if(or(D2="string",D2="yarn",D2="salt",D2="coax",D2="ethernet"),"internet","worthless")
I am finally at a point in my life where my number of miscategorized ethernet and coax cables vastly outnumbers the amount of salt, string, or yarn.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday December 14 2017, @10:50AM (1 child)
We need a fallback for connectivity that doesn't rely on a government or corporation, who can and will take it away. I've been thinking quantum entanglement would be best, but wet string? OK, sure, but let's hope there aren't birds around hunting for nest-building material.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @04:01PM
I see that string theory is finally gaining acceptance!
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday December 14 2017, @11:47AM (2 children)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @01:26PM
I made/installed a set of spark plug wires made out of 3/16" rubber vacuum hose on a co-workers car, his car started and ran fine on vacuum hose. There's no wire in the hose and no conductivity testing it with a DVOM. Figure that one out.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Thursday December 14 2017, @06:47PM
Well, salt ((sodium|calcium|potassium) chloride) is an insulator, not a conductor. I think one of the major problems with its use as such, though, is that its insulating properties are easily weakened in the presence of moisture.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @01:16PM (1 child)
Oh you thought we were going to run "fiber" to your home? No, we're running "fibre" string. Guess you thought it was a typo in the contract. ;)
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @02:14PM
Americans use fiber, Brits use fibre. Maybe that's why UK internet is faster than US internet. :-)
(Score: 2) by leftover on Thursday December 14 2017, @04:09PM
I have long wanted to offer "non-metallic monster cables" for the audiophile market. They could be said to reduce the 'metallic twang' from copper wiring,you see, by replacing that conductor with a piss-filled tube.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday December 15 2017, @04:51AM
So, tin cans and string really *would* be faster than what I get from CenturyLink....
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.