Japan's satellite Internet project made FIOS look like peanuts at 1.2 Gbps, but now France has managed to send data 1500 miles over a wire at 16.4 terabits per second!

The project is part of an effort to upgrade the backbone of the internet and speeds like this won't be reaching consumers anytime soon, but it's pretty amazing.

The technology involved in obtaining this speed was very complex and even included "a highly linear, balanced optoelectronic photoreceiver and an ultra-compact, temperature-insensitive coherent mixer." This leaves me to ask, "Why didn't they think of that earlier?!"

Labels: WTF