Microsoft and Facebook’s record-setting undersea cable sets another record

The world’s highest capacity undersea cable could be capable of speeds that are 20 percent faster than thought theoretically possible. A recent experiment using 16QAM modulation achieved record transfer speeds of 26.2 Terabits per second on a 4,000 mile transatlantic cable jointly owned by Facebook and Microsoft. This represents a 20 percent improvement on the 20 Tbps each pair of the cable’s eight optic fibers was originally thought capable of, according to the team of researchers from Infinera that conducted the test.

The speeds were demonstrated on the MAREA cable, which is currently the world’s highest capacity subsea cable with a total theoretical capacity of 160 Tbps. The cable, operated by Telxius, runs between Bilbao in Spain and...

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