Nokia Bell Labs, Deutsche Telekom T-Labs, and the Technical University of Munich will demonstrate a technique called Probabilistic Constellation Shaping, or PCS. The new technology is being developed to give us speeds that reach blistering 1Tbps over fiber optic connections.
The project provides greater potential for boosting, which could make terabit networks a reality very soon, as well as another breakthrough presented earlier this year by researchers at University College London, who achieved speeds reaching 1.25Tbps.
To give you an idea of the size, you could watch the entire Games of Thrones series in a second.
Terabit networks seem to be coming, and they are coming to meet the growing demand that does not seem to be satisfied by today's speeds of 40Gbps to 100Gbps.
For comparison, Google Fiber in the US offers connections at 1Gbps.
“Probabilistic Constellation Shaping (PCS) uses quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) formats to achieve higher transmission capacity on a given channel to significantly improve the spectral efficiency of optical communications,” Nokia says.
We currently don't know when or if we'll see this technology in real networks, although the demonstration is described as having been achieved in "real-world conditions."
According to Nokia Bell Labs, it is now part of the evolution of networks in preparation for 5G, which is expected to be commercially deployed from 2020.
The new technology will be presented at the European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC) 2016 in Dusseldorf, on September 19.
