New technology to dramatically speed up home broadband

Slow internet speeds and the Internet 'rush hour' - the peak time when data speeds drop by up to 30% - could be history with new hardware designed and demonstrated by UCL researchers that provides consistently high-speed broadband connectivity. The new receiver technology enables dedicated data rates at more than 10,000 megabits-per-second (Mb/s) for a truly super-fast, yet low-cost, broadband connection to every UK home. "UK broadband speeds are woefully slow compared to many other countries, but this is not a technical limitation. Although 300 Mb/s may be available to some, average UK speeds are currently 36 Mb/s. By 2025, average speeds over 100 times faster will be required to meet increased demands for bandwidth-hungry applications such as ultra-high definition video, online gaming, and the Internet of Things," explained lead researcher Dr Sezer Erk'l?nç (UCL Electronic & Electrical Engineering). "The future growth in the number of mobile devices, coupled with the promise of 5G to enable new services via smart devices, means we are likely to experience bandwidth restrictions; our new optical receiver technology will help combat this problem." For the study, published today and funded by the EPSRC UNLOC Programme and Huawei Technologies, scientists from the UCL Optical Networks Group and the University of Cambridge developed a new, simplified receiver to be used in optical access networks: the links connecting internet subscribers to their service providers. "To maximise the capacity of optical fibre links, data is transmitted using different wavelengths, or colours, of light.