BONN, Germany -- Researchers at Telekom Innovation Laboratories (T-Labs) have succeeded in realizing a 512 Gbit/s transmission over a single optical-fiber wavelength channel for the first time. This corresponds to a usable bit rate of 400 Gbit/s, or the simultaneous transmission of 77 music CDs. While the bar is higher for fiber-optic transmission in a laboratory setting, this record was set under realworld conditions in the Telekom optical network on a route of 734 km from Berlin to Hanover and back by speed of light.

Optical fiber forms the backbone of data networks, transporting vast amounts of data between nodes. The maximum bit rate in backbone networks today is 100 Gbit/s per channel. When using all of the channels of an optical fiber, much like a four-lane highway, the new process permits a throughput of up to 24.6 Tbit/s (24,600,000,000,000 bit/s) to be attained on the maximum of 48 available channels (comparable to 48 lanes) of the data highways. A collection of 3,696 CDs could thus be transferred over a single optical fiber - a strand thinner than a human hair - at the same time. With the new method, existing networks can double their current transmission capacity by merely replacing the technology in the terminal stations.

"Together with our technology partner Alcatel-Lucent and the experts at Telekom Network Production, we are very proud of having attained this tremendous transmission performance over the Internet under real-world conditions," said T-Labs Manager Heinrich Arnold. "With them, we have successfully developed an innovative method by which the transmission capacity of optical fiber can be increased significantly in network operation."

Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT)