A group of engineers have set a new record for the world’s fastest internet speed.

Engineers at University College London (UCL) have delivered a speed of 178 terabits per second, which equals 178,000,000 megabits a second. To put these numbers into perspective, this speed would enable a user to download the whole of the Netflix library in just one second. 

This is a record that is a fifth faster than the previous world record that had been held by a team in Japan. 

The team worked with Xtera and KDDI Research and achieved this feat by transmitting data through a much wider scope of wavelengths. According to UCL, current infrastructure uses a limited spectrum bandwidth of 4.5 terahertz (THz), with 9THz commercial bandwidth systems entering the market, whereas the researchers used a bandwidth of 16.8THz.

“Internet traffic has increased exponentially over the last 10 years and this whole growth in data demand is related to the cost per bit going down, said Dr. Lidia Galdino who is the lead author of the study.  

“The development of new technologies is crucial to maintaining this trend towards lower costs while meeting future data rate demands that will continue to increase”.