Faster wireless data – a new record!

A new world record in wireless transmission, promising faster and more reliable wireless communications, has been set by researchers from UCL

The team successfully sent data over the air at a speed of 938 Gigabits per second (Gb/s) over a record frequency range of 5-150 Gigahertz (GHz).

This speed is up to 9,380 times faster than the best average 5G download speed in the UK, which is currently 100 Megabits per second (Mb/s) or over1. The total bandwidth of 145GHz is more than five times higher than the previous wireless transmission world record.

Typically, wireless networks transmit information using radio waves over a narrow range of frequencies. Current wireless transmission methods, such as wi-fi and 5G mobile, predominantly operate at low frequencies below 6GHz.

But congestion in this frequency range has limited the speed of wireless communications.

Researchers from UCL Electronic & Electrical Engineering overcame this bottleneck by transmitting information through a much wider range of radio frequencies by combining both radio and optical technologies for the first time. The results are described in a new study published in The Journal of Lightwave Technology.

Abstract from the journal:

The next-generation radio access network (RAN) requires high speed wireless transmission between base stations exceeding ≥ 100 Gb/s to connect access points and hubs. This has motivated research exploring how to fully utilize wireless spectrum from sub-6 GHz to millimeter (mm) waveband (e.g. D-band up to 170 GHz) for data transmission, using either all-electronic or optoelectronic approaches. However, to date, all-electronic and optoelectronic methods have been used separately due to the challenge of generating broad-band signals with synchronized carrier frequencies. Here, we demonstrate an ultra-wide 145 GHz bandwidth wireless transmission of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) signals over the air, covering 5–150 GHz frequency region. This is achieved by combining the merits of high-speed electronics and microwave photonics technologies. Specifically, the signals over 5–75 GHz are generated using high speed digital-to-analog converters. The high frequency mm-wave band signals, including W-band (75–110 GHz) and D-band (110–150 GHz) signals, are generated by mixing optically modulated signals with frequency-locked lasers on high-speed photodiodes. By frequency-locking two pairs of narrow linewidth lasers and referring to a common quartz oscillator, we generated W-band and D-band signals with stable carrier frequency and reduced phase noise compared to free-running lasers, maximizing the use of spectrum. By using OFDM format and bit loading, we achieve 938 Gb/s transmission data rate with less than 300 MHz gap between different RF and mm-wave bands.