Japan has set a new standard for internet speed, boasting a network that can download Netflix’s entire catalog in just one second. Their internet speed is measured at 1.02 petabits per second, making it 3.5 million times faster than the average speed in the United States.
This record was achieved by a team from Japan’s NICT working with Sumitomo Electric and European collaborators. They developed a fiber optic cable with 19 cores, capable of transmitting data over 1,800 kilometers per second.
The cable’s diameter is the same as traditional ones, but the technology allows for a total data transmission of 1.86 exabits per second times kilometers—an all-time high.
The system’s design includes 19 loops of fiber optic cable, each 86.1 km long, with signals passing through multiple loops to send 180 data streams efficiently.
This speed means downloading massive files, like the entire English Wikipedia multiplied 10,000 times, or streaming millions of 8K videos simultaneously, is possible in seconds. Steam’s full game library can be downloaded in just 10 seconds, and music fans could enjoy over 127,000 years of songs instantly.
While this is an incredible achievement, the U.S. is still far behind in internet innovation, so experiencing such speeds might require a trip to Japan.
