By: John Shepler

Bandwidth is expanding at an incredible rate. Currently, a major infrastructural development is the shift towards 100 Gbps (100 GigE) wavelength services for national and international connections. It seems like only yesterday Gigabit Ethernet was a new concept, impractical for most businesses. These days, GigE is a basic requirement in some fields. What’s driving this huge need for more bandwidth?

Video Started It All

Video now makes up most of the world’s internet traffic. Not phone calls, large file transfers, or even complex graphics. Video content consumes a massive amount of bandwidth. This trend will likely continue. SD video is being replaced by HD and 4K video, and 8K is on the horizon.

Higher resolution video requires more bandwidth to maintain quality. Compression can help, but it impacts picture quality. Broadcasters and video producers aim to use uncompressed video, addressing compression issues only for the final product delivered to the consumer.

Cloud Computing’s Impact

When cloud services were just a backup solution for local storage, requiring overnight uploads, bandwidth demands were much lower. Things are different now. The cloud is no longer just a backup; it’s the primary data center for many organizations.

Moving essential processes to the cloud increases the strain on your WAN (Wide Area Network). Networking within your building is cost-effective, but transmitting that same data to a distant data center or cloud provider significantly increases bandwidth requirements. What used to be a tool for linking locations and external communication is now the core of business operations.

Consequently, WAN bandwidth needs have increased tenfold, a hundredfold, or even a thousandfold. Factors like jitter, latency, and packet loss significantly impact cloud processes. Compromising in these areas can result in inefficient processes and reduced productivity.

The Internet of People Is Only the Beginning

Online business applications are generating increasingly large amounts of potentially valuable data, including data from mobile apps with location services. Almost everything done online has value for customizing services or generating marketing statistics. All of this data relies on wireless and fiber optic connections.

The data generated by humans is nothing compared to what’s coming with the Internet of Things (IoT). Every person online will be accompanied by countless “things” communicating and generating huge amounts of data. If this data can be analyzed and used effectively, it will place a significant burden on communication channels.

Can existing infrastructure handle this? Not without substantial upgrades. Wireless channels are being expanded rapidly, with 4G evolving into 5G and eventually 6G. But what about terrestrial lines?

Fortunately, fiber optic cables offer almost limitless bandwidth. The 1 to 10 Gbps capacity of each strand can be amplified by multiplexing dozens or even hundreds of wavelengths. These wavelengths can be combined to create even larger services of 100 Gbps and beyond. While the current focus is on 100 Gbps, we’ll soon see 400 Gbps and then 1 Tbps, and it will happen faster than we expect.

Is outdated bandwidth limiting your company’s potential? Bandwidth costs are decreasing as demand increases, so the upgrade you need might be affordable. To find out, get prices and availability on high performance fiber optic bandwidth services today.

Note: Products with the humorous theme “Big Data On Board” shown on this page are available through the Gigapacket Zazzle Store.