@Mark Ollig
In March, AT&T achieved a data transmission speed of 1.6 terabits per second (tbps) on a single fiber-optic wavelength.
At that speed, one could transfer a mind-boggling 200 gigabytes of data per second.
Data was transmitted at 1.6 tbps over 184 miles of AT&T’s fiber network from Newark, NJ, to Philadelphia, PA, and was managed using Ciena Corp.’s WaveLogic 6 Extreme optics and DriveNets’ software-defined networking.
This 1.6 tbps data ran parallel to live customer traffic on existing 100-gigabit (gbps) and 400-gigabit systems, proving terabit speeds can coexist with current network traffic.
In November 2024, Verizon also transported 1.6 tbps of data over its 73.3-mile metro fiber network route using Ciena’s WaveLogic 6 Extreme technology and nine reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers.
Traveling back to the 1870s, French telegraph engineer Émile Baudot invented a multiplexed printing telegraph system, allowing simultaneous multi-message transmission on one telegraph line.
He developed the five-bit Baudot code for alphanumeric characters, where each of 32 unique combinations was represented by five equal-duration ‘on’ or ‘off’ signals.
This fixed-length method made transmissions faster, more reliable, and standardized compared to the Morse code, which used varying lengths of dots and dashes.
Patented in 1874, Baudot’s telegraph system significantly improved telegraphic communication.
The modem (modulator-demodulator), developed in 1949 at the Air Force Cambridge Research Center, converts digital data into sounds and vice versa over regular telephone lines.
The US military first used modems to transmit radar signals.
During the 1950s and 1960s, modems connected computers and teletypewriter (TTY) terminals to remote mainframe computers over telephone lines.
Bell Labs’ 1958 Bell 101 SAGE modem, used in US military air defense, operated at 110 bits per second (bps) or in this instance (baud) to enable data communication over phone lines.
It converted digital data to analog audio signals using frequency-shift keying (FSK).
This technique encoded binary “bits” via distinct audio tones; a specific frequency (in hertz) indicated a “1” bit, another a “0.”
Since each FSK tone (symbol) in the Bell 101 modem represented one bit, its symbol rate of 110 baud equaled its bit rate of 110 bps.
The unit of symbol rate was named “baud,” after Émile Baudot’s contributions.
In 1962, Bell Labs introduced the Bell 103 modem, which replaced the Bell 101.
The Bell 103 operated at 300 bps, nearly three times faster than the Bell 101. It used FSK encoding, with each symbol representing one bit, so its symbol rate of 300 baud matched its bit rate of 300 bps.
The Bell 103 improved data transmission efficiency and speed over analog phone networks, and it was widely used by corporations, government agencies, universities, and early remote computing service providers.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the Winsted Telephone Company, where I worked, installed Bell 103 and other modems for local businesses over dedicated telephone lines.
The International Telecommunication Union’s Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) modem speed over the years included:
- 1980: The Bell 212A and ITU-T V.22 standards supported 1,200 bps full-duplex (simultaneous two-way data transmission).
- 1984: The ITU-T V.22bis standard supported 2,400 bps full-duplex.
- 1988: The ITU-T V.32 standard supported up to 9,600 bps, with fallback to 4,800 bps.
- 1991: The ITU-T V.32bis standard supported speeds from 4,800 to 14,400 bps.
- 1994: The ITU-T V.34 standard supported up to 28,800 bps (28.8 kbps).
- 1996: The V.34+ update (also known as V.34 Annex 12) supported up to 33.6 kbps.
- 1998: The ITU-T V.90 standard supported download speeds up to 56 kbps and upload speeds up to 33.6 kbps.
Dial-up bulletin board services (BBSs) thrived as data speeds improved, allowing users to enjoy being “online.”
BBSs enabled message exchange, gaming, file downloads, email, news reading, content sharing, tech skill learning, and community interaction.
Some will remember commercial BBS services like CompuServe, Prodigy, and AOL, along with hobby BBSs like my own, “WBBS Online.”
You’ll also likely recall the loud modem screeches during dial-up connections and shouts of, “Hey! Hang up. I’m online,” when someone picked up an extension phone.
Many people now have access to broadband, which the Federal Communications Commission defines as 100 mbps download and 20 mbps upload. Urban areas often provide faster gigabit “Gig” (gbps) internet via fiber.
Telecom and internet providers are upgrading their backbone, metro, and data center networks to achieve terabit speeds, using optical networking transport solutions from companies like Cisco, Ciena, Nokia, Juniper Networks, Ericsson, Infinera, and Corning.
From March 3 to 6 of this year, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Jio Platforms, AMD, Cisco, and Nokia discussed the “Open Telecom AI Platform,” which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance telecommunication carriers’ optical network operations.
The telecommunications industry’s migration from legacy circuit-switched digital platforms to IP-based software-defined networking (SDN) enhances network management flexibility, scalability, and efficiency.
These solutions include adopting cloud-native session border controllers and virtualized network processes in modern cloud and SDN architectures.
Before I retired from the telecom industry, I saw AI’s initial adoption across optical networks, cloud servers, and software-defined switching platforms.
I worked with the GTE/Leich electromechanical relay central office telephone switch, the Nortel Digital Multiplex System (DMS) 10/100/250/500 circuit-switched telephone exchange switch, the Siemens DCO (digital central office) electronic telephone switch, and the Metaswitch, my final voice switching platform.
The Metaswitch is a provisioning softswitch that enables Voice over IP (VoIP) services for residential and business customers.
It is a software-based replacement for the legacy telephone switches I was decommissioning before my retirement.
Telecommunications companies are using AI and machine learning (ML) to improve network efficiency and reliability for data-intensive services working with the networking suppliers I previously mentioned.
AI enhanced telecom networks can autonomously forecast data traffic, detect faults, perform predictive maintenance, and identify real-time anomalies indicating errors, fraud, or security breaches.
AI accelerates dynamic data rerouting for telecommunication voice traffic to prevent congestion and equipment software issues, enhances data security, supports ongoing network optimization, and promotes self-optimizing networks (SON).
Many feel AI may ultimately lead to fully autonomous network operations; I am one of them.
Along with AI, we are witnessing lightning-fast data speeds.
As the 1.6 tbps transfer rate of 200 gigabytes of data would take just one second, using the 63-year-old 300-bps Bell 103 modem would be a surprising 169 years.
The data transfer rate and type of AI being used 63 years from now would undoubtedly seem magical to those of us living today.
 |
| (ChatGPT generated image based on my text input) |