Verizon's new fibre optics technology that delivers 10 Gbps broadband speeds

Verizon reported that it had tested a new fibre optics technology that would deliver superfast broadband speeds up to 10 gigabytes (GB) per second, or 10 times faster than Google Fiber's data transmission rate.

The company's wireless service NG-PON2 could use Cisco hardware to download songs or movies 100 times faster than average broadband connections, and provide up to 80 GB per second via fibre optics.

Compared to standard broadband connections, the wireless carrier's new service was ultra-fast and the company tested it by zipping data from one of its Massachusetts offices to a house located three miles (4.8 km) away.

The NG-PON2 network could be used to download a two-hour high definition movie in just eight seconds, NBC News reported, as against 17 minutes on the company's existing system.

Fibre optic cables, including the ones used by Verizon FiOS and Google Fibre send light signals over extremely thin strings of glass. According to Verizon, the new technology added four additional colours, or light wavelengths, to the current strands and peak speeds of 40 to 80 GB per second were possible.

Though customers would mostly not need such lightning-fast internet speeds, as bandwidth techs such as the Internet of Things (IoT) grew in popularity, customers might later be willing to pay more for such connections.

The test further demonstrated backward-compatibility of kit supporting the NG-PON2 standard, as the fibre used in the test were also carried live GPON traffic at the time.

The kit the company used – from Cisco and PT Inovacao, the technology R&D arm of Portugal Telecom – currently allowed a maximum of 10 Gbps, but Verizon's announcement noted that NG-PON2 also supported wavelength division multiplexing (WDM).

According to the company, switching on extra wavelengths, would support download speeds up to 80Gbps. The optical line terminal (OLT) that the test used ran four wavelengths, each able to support 10G/2.5G customer connections.

According to Verizon's director of access technology Vincent O'Byrne future NG-PON2 implementations would support symmetrical connections, 10Gbps in both directions. The company planned to issue calls for proposals later in the year for the hardware and software needed for a full NG-PON2 rollout.

In a major breakthrough that would make the internet superfast and cheap, researchers have successfully increased the maximum power (See: Breakthrough research could spur faster, cheaper internet).