Siemens announced yesterday that its researchers set a record for the electric transmission of data over a single fiber-optic cable, achieving rates of 107 Gb/s.

Siemens said in a statement that the test involved the 100 percent electrical processing of data rates of 107 Gb/s -- roughly the equivalent of two full DVDs per second -- and its transmission over a 100-mile-long fiber-optic route in the US -- the first time this has ever been done outside the laboratory. The testing was done in partnership with Micram Microelectronic of Bochum, Germany, Berlin's Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications and Eindhoven Technical University of The Netherlands.

Siemens said it has developed a transmission and receiving system that processes the data by purely electrical means directly before and after its conversion into optical signals. The test, which Siemens said was 2.5 times faster than the previous transmission record, was conducted using the long-haul network at a large optical network operator, where Siemens previously deployed a 40 Gb/s optical network for commercial use.

The increasing number of Internet users wanting to download online games, music and video is pushing technology companies to increase network bandwidth and speed. Market researchers estimate that by 2011 legal music downloads alone will account for 36 percent of the entire music business in Europe.

"In the spring of 2006 we demonstrated the system with a fully electric receiver," said Rainer H. Derksen, project coordinator at Siemens Corporate Technology in Munich. "At that time we were still using optical multiplexing in the transmitter. Now we've designed a complete system with 100 percent electrical processing of the data in both the receiver and the transmitter."

Derksen said he expects that the first products based on the prototype will be available on the market within a few years.

For more information, visit: www.siemens.com