The cable allows light to travel through air instead of glass, at a speed of 300 meters per second.
Researchers from Microsoft and the University of Southampton have developed a new hollow fiber optic cable. Microsoft acquired the company Lumensity a few years ago, and those same employees have described the cable in an article.
Light through Air, not Glass
According to them, the fiber optic cable would represent a breakthrough in optical networks. The cable results in less signal loss and can transmit data traffic up to 45 percent faster than conventional fiber optics. Instead of sending light through glass, this “hollow-core fiber” (HCF) uses an air-filled core. This allows light to travel through air at about 300 million meters per second. Traditional fiber optics reach a speed of about 200 million meters per second.
“However, HCF long struggled with high signal losses,” co-author Francesco Poletti tells The Register. Microsoft’s new version solves that problem. The team recorded a record low loss of just 0.091 decibels per kilometer. Traditional fibers are at 0.14 decibels per kilometer.
Faster and Ready for AI
“You need to amplify the signal less often, so the network consumes less energy,” says Poletti. He expects the technology will later be able to handle larger bandwidths, up to ten times more than today. Think faster AI training, real-time communication between data centers, or self-driving cars.
The cables have already been tested at British telecom provider BT and are currently only available for internal use at Microsoft. Other data centers can expect the technology within five years, once it’s further developed.