The Mercury News is reporting Bell Labs, the research arm of Lucent Technologies, has doubled the distance and the speed at which data can be sent over fiber-optic networks. In a demonstration, Bell Labs were able to send a massive 2.56 terabits of data a second over a distance of 2,500 miles - That is close enough to 320 gigabytes per second. The previous record was 1.6 terabits a second over 1,250 miles, they totally shattered it.

 

Bell Labs achieved the 2.56 terabit-a-second speed by sending 40 gigabits-a-second of data over each of 64 separate channels in fiber-optic cable, which uses light waves to carry data.

This remarkable achievement is twice the size of the largest IDE HDD currently available.