Official Blog
The latest news from the Fiber team
Exploring 1 billion times faster speeds
Friday, April 01, 2016
Nearly 6 years ago, we started Google Fiber with the goal of making the web faster and better for everyone. We began with a fiber to the home solution delivering symmetrical gigabit speeds. The impact has been significant - on people, businesses and local economies. The days of loading bars, pixelated video streams and dropped Hangouts are now a thing of the past for many people and businesses in our Fiber cities.
While gigabit speeds are fast, we have come across an application where 1,000 Mbps is actually quite slow. Terribly slow. Research organizations that wish to remain anonymous have been working on an application that would enable the teleportation of a 160 pound person a distance of 60 miles in 1.2 seconds. This application requires a tremendous amount of bandwidth, because a 160-pound person represents a vast amount of data.
How much data? Our partners developed a compression algorithm that allows us to compress matter with only imperceptible levels of quality degradation. As one of the engineers put it:
“If 1 GigaQuad (GQ) = 109 = 1,000,000,000 Quads, where one quad is 2 GiB or 8 x (2 x 109) x (109 x 109) = 1.6 x 1028 bits, what speeds would we need to send an animal, object, or person 60 miles in under 1.2 seconds?”
They found that at 1 Gbps, it would take 1.6 x 1028 / 109 = 1.6 x 1019 seconds. This means that we need speeds that are 10^9 or 1 billion times faster than gigabit speeds.
Here’s how it might look:
To be clear, we are not a teleportation company. Nor do we intend to become one. We simply want to provide the data transfer speeds required to enable teleportation. The team will be tackling a number of unique scientific challenges – not only figuring out how to break down physical objects into discrete packets of data, but determining how to leverage fiber optic technology to transmit that data across distances at incredible speeds. Innovating on fiber optic infrastructure and moving data really fast is something we are deeply passionate about.
Our partners are using the quantum entanglement of the photons that move through our network to make teleportation happen, which is only possible on a pure fiber optic network. Clearly gigabit speeds are too slow. Even on a pure fiber network with gigaquad transfer rates, it would take weeks to transmit uncompressed physical data a few miles. We want these transfers to be complete in under 1.2 seconds.
The potential benefits of teleportation are tremendous. Imagine a world where you could live anywhere and commute instantly. Imagine traffic and urban congestion becoming a thing of the past. That's what teleportation can do: allow us to live gently and efficiently, spending less energy on getting from place to place, and more on the people and projects that matter.
We will continue to not have data caps – the last thing we want is for our subscribers to be trapped in the Internet because they ran out of data.
Want to see how teleportation might look for you? Use our
spreadsheet
to calculate how far you’ll be able to go, and how long it will take.
This is a massive challenge. And an important one. We are thrilled to help advance teleportation science to create a world in which distance and travel time will not constrain our physical presence.
Posted by Pál Takácsi, Director of Engineering
Labels
3d
Android
announcement
app
apple
April Fools
Austin
CBRS
channels
channels tv
choose dubs dread service plan
cinemax
Community Connections
Connected Communities
construction
deadlines
digital divide playbook mbit
Digital Inclusion Fund
Discovery
education
education schools students
en espanol
Español
expansion
Fiber behind the scenes
fiber poles
Fiber Space
fiber tv
fiberhood
fiberhood deadlines
fiberhoods deadlines signup
fiberhoods installation
Gladstone
Grandview
gybo
hbo
installations hanover heights
iPad
kansas
kansas city
Leawood
lee's summit
local government
Merriam
Mission
Missouri
nashville
North America
olathe
On Demand
otmr
Prairie Village
premiere
premium package
Provo
Raleigh
raytown
SAS
shawnee
sign up installation
signup
small business
spectrum
True Blood
tv
website
Archive
2018
Nov
Oct
Jul
May
Mar
Feb
Jan
2017
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Mar
Feb
Jan
2016
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
Apr
Mar
Feb
2015
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
May
Apr
Mar
Jan
2014
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2013
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
2012
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Feb
2011
Dec
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Mar
2010
Dec
Oct
Jul
Mar
Feb
Feed
Google
on
Follow @googlefiber
Follow
Follow