Protection from sharks, ultralight drones and teleportation of photons: The present and the future of information “delivery” technologies
Over the past 16 years, the number of Internet users has increased by as much as 900% - the Internet has most actively spread in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. However, despite the colossal growth, today only 49.2% of the world's population have access to the World Wide Web.
Physicists, power engineers and entrepreneurs are fighting to change the situation - let's talk about what methods of uninterrupted “delivery” of information exist today and what technologies are waiting for us in the near future.
/ photo by Guilherme Yagui CC
Most of the modern transatlantic cable networks is a complex system built on fiber optic technology, which was actively used only in the late 20th century.
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The first transatlantic cable was laid in 1858 - it was a telegraph wire. Unfortunately, he did not work for long - materials and manufacturing technology were not allowed. However, over time, the technology has changed dramatically and by the early 1900s, an extensive network of telegraph submarine cables had already been created , which reduced the message delivery time from several weeks to several minutes. After this, the technologies continued to evolve, and subsequently the telegraph cables were replaced by telephone and then fiber optic ones.
The construction is carried out by a special vessel, on board which is usually placed about 2,000 km of cable. Modern ships "unwind" up to 200 km of cable per day. Cables are laid along the telegraph routes, since the development of new routes takes a lot of time (for more information on the installation process, read here ).
The modern network of 900 thousand kilometers consists of 350 cables, some of which run through the oceans, and some - along the continents. In order to resist the unfriendly underwater environment, modern “wires” have several layers : a top layer of polyethylene and several waterproofing and protective layers covering the optical fiber.
But sometimes this is not enough. According to the International Committee for the Protection of Cables, sharks often snack on or damage them. Back in 1987, the inexplicable predilection of sharks for fiber optic wiring at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean was written in The New York Times.
Shark is trying to eat underwater cable
Another common cause of ruptures is ship anchors. In 2012, in one month, two different vessels damaged cables connecting East Africa to the Middle East and Europe, causing problems with communication in nine countries. Thus, the "underwater" method of delivering data is not without flaws, so it is not surprising that today there is an active development of alternative technologies.
One of the latest Facebook developments in this direction is the Aquila drone. Mark Zuckerberg is confident that the invention will provide access to the Internet for everyone. In his opinion, in the long term this will help to cope with poverty, as well as raise the standards of education and health care. Although at the moment the company is engaged in more “mundane” tasks: it is trying to solve the problem with ensuring the work of the new generation Facebook services (artificial intelligence and virtual reality projects that require a greater width and reliability of the channel).
So what is the Aquila? Being in the air at an altitude of 18–27 kilometers, the drone uses very accurate lasers for data transmission, which increase the broadcasting speed by 10 times compared to existing technologies. During the test flight, the drone stayed in the air for only 30 minutes, but in the future Aquila will be able to spend several months in flight mode, recharging with solar batteries.
The first flight of the Aquila drone / Video: Facebook
One of the main external features is the impressive wingspan of 43 meters, which is almost 10 meters more than the span of the Boeing 737. At the same time, the weight of the drone, made of carbon fiber, was about 408 kg. “When designing a conventional aircraft, engineers are trying to find a way to increase its speed [...] In the case of Aquila, the opposite is true: it is important for us that the drone should keep it in the sky for as long as possible. This saves energy and increases flight time, ”says Zuckerberg.
However, the question arises: why the drone? There are other ways to improve the availability of the Internet, not requiring the development of the aircraft. But Facebook is sure that every such method has flaws. Satellite Internet is suitable only for areas with low population density (otherwise the channel will “clog” very quickly). Cell towers have a small coverage, because they need too much to cover the entire population of the planet.
In 2014, Facebook conducted a study and concluded that drones would be an ideal solution for medium-sized cities and their suburbs. In addition, they fly below the satellites, so the signal strength will increase.
Another method is offered by the largest American telecommunications company AT & T. Wireless broadband Internet can come to every home on the grid . The equipment developed by AT & T makes the access point to the Internet from the power poles.
In the new project, called AirGig, power lines are used for high-speed wireless data transmission over long distances. The technology has already been tested in AT & T offices, and next year it is planned to test it in the conditions of the city.
AT & T's Strategic Director, John Donovan (John Donovan), said that the use of power grids makes AirGig technology much cheaper than laying conventional cables, building towers and installing antennas. Therefore, AirGig can make broadband Internet more accessible to people in rural areas in any part of the world.
The technology involves the installation of small plastic antennas on power lines that carry out wireless signal transmission. According to AT & T, each such connection can work at a speed of several gigabits per second, and users will connect via cellular or Wi-Fi. The company is confident that this technology will dramatically reduce the cost of Internet infrastructure. Other companies have already started to work with similar developments: Google has launched Fiber’s “wireless” project, and Facebook is testing a super-fast Wi-Fi network.
So far, scientists are able to "teleport" only particles of light, but this technology promises to be very promising: the researchers claim unprecedented reliability of such a connection (and this is not science fiction: the process of "quantum teleportation" scientists call "the practical implementation of [quantum communication mechanism]). The first experiments in this field were carried out back in 1997, when the photon was able to teleport several millimeters. During a new study, the team of Wolfgang Tittel (University of Calgary) was able to move the photon to 6.2 kilometers using conventional fiber-optic urban communications lines.
The experiment is based on a quantum entanglement mechanism called “eerie long-range action”. Tittel explains : “Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon in which the quantum states of two or more photons are interdependent. We sent one photon to the City Hall, and its connection with the photon at the University of Calgary has been preserved. ”
The photon, whose state was teleported to the university, was recreated at the third point in Calgary and sent back to the mayor's office. There he met with a photon from a connected pair. The process of teleportation itself was not the most difficult stage of the experiment. Much more important was to make the photons “meet” in the city hall building - the researchers had to solve the difficult task of synchronizing the arrival of photons at a given point with an accuracy of 10 picoseconds.
For registration, superconducting single-photon detectors developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory were used. And although it is too early to talk about any serious technological breakthrough, it is safe to say that the achievement of scientists from Calgary in the future will contribute to the creation and development of the quantum Internet. In the meantime, we can only observe their success.
Even more of our materials on the topic: IaaS-digest - 25 materials on the transformation of technology and business .
Physicists, power engineers and entrepreneurs are fighting to change the situation - let's talk about what methods of uninterrupted “delivery” of information exist today and what technologies are waiting for us in the near future.
/ photo by Guilherme Yagui CC
Internet delivery - as they do now
Most of the modern transatlantic cable networks is a complex system built on fiber optic technology, which was actively used only in the late 20th century.
')
The first transatlantic cable was laid in 1858 - it was a telegraph wire. Unfortunately, he did not work for long - materials and manufacturing technology were not allowed. However, over time, the technology has changed dramatically and by the early 1900s, an extensive network of telegraph submarine cables had already been created , which reduced the message delivery time from several weeks to several minutes. After this, the technologies continued to evolve, and subsequently the telegraph cables were replaced by telephone and then fiber optic ones.
The construction is carried out by a special vessel, on board which is usually placed about 2,000 km of cable. Modern ships "unwind" up to 200 km of cable per day. Cables are laid along the telegraph routes, since the development of new routes takes a lot of time (for more information on the installation process, read here ).
The modern network of 900 thousand kilometers consists of 350 cables, some of which run through the oceans, and some - along the continents. In order to resist the unfriendly underwater environment, modern “wires” have several layers : a top layer of polyethylene and several waterproofing and protective layers covering the optical fiber.
But sometimes this is not enough. According to the International Committee for the Protection of Cables, sharks often snack on or damage them. Back in 1987, the inexplicable predilection of sharks for fiber optic wiring at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean was written in The New York Times.
Shark is trying to eat underwater cable
Another common cause of ruptures is ship anchors. In 2012, in one month, two different vessels damaged cables connecting East Africa to the Middle East and Europe, causing problems with communication in nine countries. Thus, the "underwater" method of delivering data is not without flaws, so it is not surprising that today there is an active development of alternative technologies.
Internet from the sky
One of the latest Facebook developments in this direction is the Aquila drone. Mark Zuckerberg is confident that the invention will provide access to the Internet for everyone. In his opinion, in the long term this will help to cope with poverty, as well as raise the standards of education and health care. Although at the moment the company is engaged in more “mundane” tasks: it is trying to solve the problem with ensuring the work of the new generation Facebook services (artificial intelligence and virtual reality projects that require a greater width and reliability of the channel).
So what is the Aquila? Being in the air at an altitude of 18–27 kilometers, the drone uses very accurate lasers for data transmission, which increase the broadcasting speed by 10 times compared to existing technologies. During the test flight, the drone stayed in the air for only 30 minutes, but in the future Aquila will be able to spend several months in flight mode, recharging with solar batteries.
The first flight of the Aquila drone / Video: Facebook
One of the main external features is the impressive wingspan of 43 meters, which is almost 10 meters more than the span of the Boeing 737. At the same time, the weight of the drone, made of carbon fiber, was about 408 kg. “When designing a conventional aircraft, engineers are trying to find a way to increase its speed [...] In the case of Aquila, the opposite is true: it is important for us that the drone should keep it in the sky for as long as possible. This saves energy and increases flight time, ”says Zuckerberg.
However, the question arises: why the drone? There are other ways to improve the availability of the Internet, not requiring the development of the aircraft. But Facebook is sure that every such method has flaws. Satellite Internet is suitable only for areas with low population density (otherwise the channel will “clog” very quickly). Cell towers have a small coverage, because they need too much to cover the entire population of the planet.
In 2014, Facebook conducted a study and concluded that drones would be an ideal solution for medium-sized cities and their suburbs. In addition, they fly below the satellites, so the signal strength will increase.
Electricity of the net
Another method is offered by the largest American telecommunications company AT & T. Wireless broadband Internet can come to every home on the grid . The equipment developed by AT & T makes the access point to the Internet from the power poles.
In the new project, called AirGig, power lines are used for high-speed wireless data transmission over long distances. The technology has already been tested in AT & T offices, and next year it is planned to test it in the conditions of the city.
AT & T's Strategic Director, John Donovan (John Donovan), said that the use of power grids makes AirGig technology much cheaper than laying conventional cables, building towers and installing antennas. Therefore, AirGig can make broadband Internet more accessible to people in rural areas in any part of the world.
The technology involves the installation of small plastic antennas on power lines that carry out wireless signal transmission. According to AT & T, each such connection can work at a speed of several gigabits per second, and users will connect via cellular or Wi-Fi. The company is confident that this technology will dramatically reduce the cost of Internet infrastructure. Other companies have already started to work with similar developments: Google has launched Fiber’s “wireless” project, and Facebook is testing a super-fast Wi-Fi network.
"Teleportation"
So far, scientists are able to "teleport" only particles of light, but this technology promises to be very promising: the researchers claim unprecedented reliability of such a connection (and this is not science fiction: the process of "quantum teleportation" scientists call "the practical implementation of [quantum communication mechanism]). The first experiments in this field were carried out back in 1997, when the photon was able to teleport several millimeters. During a new study, the team of Wolfgang Tittel (University of Calgary) was able to move the photon to 6.2 kilometers using conventional fiber-optic urban communications lines.
The experiment is based on a quantum entanglement mechanism called “eerie long-range action”. Tittel explains : “Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon in which the quantum states of two or more photons are interdependent. We sent one photon to the City Hall, and its connection with the photon at the University of Calgary has been preserved. ”
The photon, whose state was teleported to the university, was recreated at the third point in Calgary and sent back to the mayor's office. There he met with a photon from a connected pair. The process of teleportation itself was not the most difficult stage of the experiment. Much more important was to make the photons “meet” in the city hall building - the researchers had to solve the difficult task of synchronizing the arrival of photons at a given point with an accuracy of 10 picoseconds.
For registration, superconducting single-photon detectors developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory were used. And although it is too early to talk about any serious technological breakthrough, it is safe to say that the achievement of scientists from Calgary in the future will contribute to the creation and development of the quantum Internet. In the meantime, we can only observe their success.
Even more of our materials on the topic: IaaS-digest - 25 materials on the transformation of technology and business .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/312036/
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