Internet2 Consortium Sets New Internet Speed Record

The Internet2 consortium announced that a research team based at the University of Tokyo set a new IPv4 transmission speed record in November. The team successfully sent a multiple stream data transmission with a transfer rate of 7.21 gigabits per second over a distance of 20,645 kilometers " more than half the circumference of the earth.

The Internet2 land speed record measures the data transfer rate by the distance traveled. The Tokyo team, which includes members from Fujitsu Computer Technologies and the Widely Integrated Distributed Environment Project, surpassed the previous record, set by a joint SUNET-Sprint team, by more than 20%.

University of Tokyo professor Kei Hiraki said that, despite his team's impressive results, new technologies have opened the way to even higher network speeds. "The record demonstrates that the data transfer bottleneck is no longer at the network layer," he said in a statement. "As I/O technology evolves, the data transfer possibilities may be endless."

The record was set using hardware supplied by Foundry Networks, including a the BigIron MG8 switch, NetIron 40G routers, and WAN PHY. Foundry vice president and general manager of Layer 2/3 switching and routing solutions Ken Cheng was expressed satisfaction by the impressive demonstration his company's products' performance. "Enterprises and service providers are looking to develop more economical and efficient high-speed networks to carry voice, video, data and other business-critical application traffic," he said in a statement. "High-performance, wire-speed switching platforms such as Terathon and the 10-GbE WAN PHY are critical components that will help our customers build their next-generation networks."

Internet2 is a consortium of universities, research institutions, networking companies and government working to develop and deploy advanced internetworking technologies. The consortium also recognized an IPv4 single stream Internet2 speed record set by a team from the California Institute of Technology, CERN and CENIC.