There are few places outside South Korea where you can today access and transmit data at 100 megabits per second. Now, the Lightwave Architectures for the processing of Broadband Electronic Signals (LABELS) EU-funded project intends to bring data to European homes at speeds of 1 gigabit per second (Gbps). In this article, IST Results writes that Spanish researchers have developed prototypes of optical Internet Protocol (IP) routers. In preliminary tests, which were using the existing fiber-optic infrastructure, they've already reached transfer rates of 20 Gbps with these IP routers and hope to reach 40 Gbps soon. If all goes well, this technology will be in your homes within five years.
Here is why the LABELS project was initiated.
"Consumers are soon going to want data streams of 100 megabits per second in their homes and eventually 1 gigabit per second," says José Capmany, a researcher at Valencia Technical University in Spain and the coordinator of the IST programme-funded project. "There are two ways to do this: lay more cable, which involves public works and is expensive and disruptive, or create technologies that allow existing cable to be used to its utmost potential, which is what we are doing."
LABELS is developing two key optoelectronic technologies to expand the capacity and speed of fixed-line communications using fibre-optic cables and to improve the processing of radio frequency (RF) signals in wireless networks. Both techniques overcome bottlenecks in the flow of data and, though still in the experimental stage, are proving their potential to vastly improve data flow right along the chain.
Let's focus only here on the first technology.
In the case of fibre-optic networks, the LABELS project is developing a groundbreaking technique to transmit data faster while using fewer resources. The system is expected to play a role in a future generation of optical Internet Protocol (IP) routers, as opposed to the electronic ones in use today. The major advantage of using light wave architectures for processing is that they can send and receive data over multiple wavelengths as opposed to the single bandwidth that electronic systems are confined to, allowing the full potential of optical networks to be utilised.
The LABELS technique relies on subcarrier multiplexing and label swapping in packet data transfer, allowing nodes at different stages along the network to change the wavelength at which the data is being carried. It is considerably more flexible than existing Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) techniques which, though increasing data transfer speeds, lock signals to specific wavelengths.
The more the data banks record about each one of us, the less we exist.
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
And is this multiplexing technique really working and why?
"Existing WDM systems work like a telephone call: you first have to make a connection and then the information is transmitted, which is fine if it is being used for a long duration of time. It is not optimally suited to sending data over the Internet in packets, however, which is precisely what has made IP so successful and which is what we are applying in the optical domain," Capmany says.
Preliminary tests of the LABELS system, which will be fully evaluated later this year in Valencia, have surpassed even the project’s own goals regarding data transfer rates. "We set out to achieve a rate of 10 Gbps but we saw that we could actually reach 20 Gbps with the current system," the coordinator notes. "With further development that could even be expanded to 40 Gbps and beyond."
Still, you'll have to wait until 2010 before watching a movie with a transfer rate of one gigabit per second.
Finally, if you want more information, here is a link to a page which contains links to several publications about this project.
Source: IST Results, August 3, 2005
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Mental health data from the 1950’s on middle-aged women showed them to be a particularly distressed group, vulnerable to depression and feelings of uselessness. This isn’t surprising. If society tells you that your main role is to be attractive to men and you are getting crow’s feet, and to be a mother to children and yours are leaving home, no wonder you are distressed.
—Grace Baruch (20th century)
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