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US Scientists Enjoy Big Bandwidth Boost

According to New Scientist:

"The world's biggest fibre optic network entirely dedicated to scientific research is now in place in the US. The National Lambda Rail will allow scientists to exchange more data at faster speeds than via the internet."

To find out how it does this either click the link above or read on.

"NLR is entirely owned by the US research community and offers users 10 gigabits per second each. In contrast, Internet2 is a slice of internet infrastructure currently designated to the US academic community and provides a total transfer rate of 10 gigabits per second to be shared between all its users.

Both networks use a technique called Wave Division Multiplexing (WDM) to send different wavelengths or “lambdas” of light through an optical fibre simultaneously, with no interference. Light is routed to its destination using prisms which extract particular wavelengths.

Whereas Internet2 dedicates just one lambda to the whole US research community, NLR dedicates 40. Its creators are now distributing cards embedded with lasers of different frequencies to the first four users of NLR, allowing them each to hook into their dedicated channel.

“NLR is another landmark in the progression towards ubiquitous high-speed computing, which is essential for our research,” says Julian Bunn, a particle physicist at the California Institute of Technology, US. "

The possibilities are endless.

27 Oct 2004 9:28 | (0) comments | Technology | www

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