Researchers break speed record on Internet2

Not sure why it took so long to get the news out but media sites reported this week that researchers at the University of Tokyo broke the Internet speed record in December 2006.

Actually they broke it twice. The first time was on December 30 by transferring data at a speed of 7.67Gbps (gigabits per second) and a day later they managed to reach 9.09Gbps. The data was send over a 20,000-mile path using standard communications protocols .

The researchers say the Internet2 currently has a maximum theoretical limit of 10Gbps, that's about 1280MB/s.

However, the Internet2 consortium is planning to build a new network with a capacity of 100 Gbps. With the 10-fold increase, a high-quality version of the movie "The Matrix" could be sent in a few seconds rather than half a minute over the current Internet2 and two days over a typical home broadband line.

Researchers used the newer Internet addressing system, called IPv6, to break the records in December. Data started in Tokyo and went to Chicago, Amsterdam and Seattle before returning to Tokyo. The previous high of 6.96 Gbps was set in November 2005.

Speed records under the older addressing system, IPv4, are in a separate category and stand at 8.8 Gbps, set in February 2006.