Hollow fiber-optic cable supports near-light speed transmission

VR-Zone's Jack Taylor has reported that researchers at the University of Southampton in the UK have created a hollow, air-filled fiber-optic cable that's been demonstrated to be 1000x faster than current cable designs. As light propagates in air at 99.7 percent of the speed of light in a vacuum, the new hollow fiber-optic cable is able to reach an incredible data speed of 10 terabytes per second, say the researchers.

As noted by Engadget, while similar, previous experiments have been hampered by signal degradation when light travels around corners, the new fiber-optic cable's mega-low latency design reduces data loss to a very manageable 3.5 dB/km. Because the cable is hollow and air-filled, light is able to move without any interference, much like it does in our natural surroundings.

The new cable's target use will be supercomputer and data center applications. The technology is described in a paper published by Nature Photonics, Towards high-capacity fibre-optic communications at the speed of light in vacuum.

Full Stories:A fiber optic network that operates at 99.7% the speed of light? (vr-zone.com)

Researchers create hollow fiber optic cable, almost reach the speed of light (engadget.com)