Using common infrastructure and technology, German cable provider Kabel Deutschland has reached a new Internet speed record, hitting 4.7Gbps. The speed was seen at a school in the German city of Schwerin in the northern part of the country.
Local infrastructure included optical fiber and coaxial cable. The HFC plant was recently upgraded to 862MHz, which is considered a cut-off for quality coax. The speed was accomplished by bonding twelve DOCSIS 3.0 Arris Touchstone CM820 cable modems, aggregating eight data channels at 8MHz per channel (total of 768MHz).
Internet speeds constantly improve as technology develops and grows. Most computers can use 1Gbps, so even if four were downloading at optimal speeds, they could not use all of the bandwidth available on the record-setting Kabel Deutschland connection. The ISP notes that a feature-length DVD movie could be downloaded in 8 seconds on the 4.7Gbps connection.
Such speeds are not exactly realistic in residential or commercial settings, but it has the tech world excited, nonetheless. With faster and faster speeds available for residential and commercial users, Usenet users can expect to access their services faster than ever. Don’t expect to hit the 4.7Gbps mark anytime soon, of course, but the push for faster and faster speeds is encouraging for anybody
