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No more glass in fiber optic cables? Hollow fibers deliver lightning-fast speeds
China Telecom, Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable and Dekoli have joined forces under the auspices of China's National Research Initiative to conduct data transmission over a hollow-core optical cable, setting a new benchmark in the industry. Using an optimized transmission system, the team achieved a total transmission capacity of 51.3 Tb/s over a distance of approximately 206 km, without the use of signal amplifiers along the way. The test was conducted on the world's longest commercial cross-border hollow-core cable.
Unlike traditional fiber optic cables, where light travels through glass, this new technology uses a hollow core to transmit light signals through air. This design overcomes the physical limitations of traditional glass, reduces signal latency, and significantly increases bandwidth. These properties make hollow core fiber optics a key technology for future backbone networks and large data centers.
It is worth noting that high-performance data transmission in a real-world environment outside the laboratory brings with it a number of stability challenges that will need to be addressed in the long term. Chinese engineers have attempted to address stability by introducing an adaptive rate control mechanism and flexible channel power allocation. The system dynamically adjusts data transmission for each wavelength individually, enabling hybrid operation with different speeds and settings.
Another important part of the system is the new amplifier architecture, which with two amplification stages ensures a stable signal and a maximum output power of 33.5 dBm (approximately 2.2 W of optical power). Since these are high values, advanced protection mechanisms have been built into the system. These include continuous stability monitoring, automatic shutdown when dangerous conditions are detected, and alarm systems. These measures quickly identify anomalies, thereby preventing damage to expensive equipment and increasing the reliability of the entire network.
