UCL smashes speed record for wireless data transfer

Using a record frequency range of 5-150GHz, the UCL team hit wireless speeds of 938 Gigabits per second (Gb/s), nearly 10,000 times faster than the UK’s average 5G speed of 100Mb/s. The total bandwidth of 145GHz is over five times higher than the previous wireless transmission world record.

According to the UCL team, this wide bandwidth range was a key innovation, allowing data to be transferred by radio and optical technologies for the first time. The researchers used advanced electronics for the 5-50GHz range, relying on photonics to transfer data in the 50-150GHz range. If commercialised, the technology could transform public and home WiFi as well as industrial connectivity and IoT. The research is published in the Journal of Lightwave Technology. 

“Current wireless communication systems are struggling to keep up with the increasing demand for high-speed data access, with capacity in the last few metres between the user and the fibre optic network holding us back,” said senior author Dr Zhixin Liu, from UCL Electronic & Electrical Engineering.