Plastic fantastic for Siemens

Researchers at

have succeeded in transmitting data at a rate of one gigabit per second through optical polymer fibre cables, setting a new record.

A new data transmission technique allowed the fast rate, which is ten times faster than with products currently on the market. This performance sets the stage for the use of polymer cables in home entertainment and factory automation.

In polymer fibre cable transmission, small converter boxes convert the electrical signal from the copper cable into an optical signal and thin plastic cables transport the optical signal to receivers. Because of the very high transmission rate of these polymer fibre cables, television signals with high data volumes could also be transmitted within the home in this way in the future.

Until recently, polymer fibres’ transmission capacity has been limited to 100Mbit/s, sufficient for DSL but not enough for internet telephony and television, which require closer to 1Gbit/s.

To obtain a fast, reliable transmission, the Siemens researchers applied an algorithm that changes the light signals in such a way that more information fits into the available bandwidth of the polymer fibres. They adapted the familiar multi-carrier modulation technique used in DSL and WLAN so that it is also applicable to light signals.