U.S. telecom provider Sprint and the Swedish National Research and Education Network (SUNET)are claiming the world record for Internet data transmission around the world, saying it could have meaningful implications for disaster recovery offsite storage applications and other tasks.
The two said they sent almost 840 gigabytes of data from a San Jose, Calif. personal computer to a personal computer at the University of Lulea, in northern Sweden, using no special hardware or special connections but going over Sprint's world Net backbone, SprintLink, and the GigaSUNET IP backbone at a reported speed of 4.23 gigabits per second. The two say that's three times better than the speed acknowledged by The Guinness Book of World Records.
Sprint and SUNET said a land speed record judging committee of the Internet2 consortium verified the data speed record, with formal recognition said to be coming at the I2 meeting in Austin this fall.
"For Internet users whose need for speed is a priority," said Sprint director of data systems engineering Chase Cotton, "this feat would be equal to streaming 600 full-length movies simultaneously out to movie theatres."
"During the record attempt, sustained speeds of more than 4.2 gigabits per second of network traffic were achieved over the SUNET and Sprint networks," said SUNET chief technology officer Borje Josefsson. "As both we and Sprint are using the Cisco GSR 12000 series of routers, we were confident that the routers could handle this type of traffic without disturbing normal network usage. The amazing thing about our record versus others is that we have done this transmission on the production infrastructure while in use by other GigaSunet and SprintLink customers."
Sprint said this was the third major transport technical achievement they pulled off in the past year, including the first live production 40 gigabit data transmission on an Internet backbone earlier in June, and a successful test of asynchronous data replication over an Internet protocol network last July, traveling over 3,600 miles as opposed to a previous known limit of a 150-mile radius from the point of origin.
"True to our namesake, Sprint has cost-effectively demonstrated an unprecedented capability for high-speed data transfer," said vice president of technology development Oliver Valente. "This is of particular importance for business continuity initiatives where data preservation requires rapid movement to safe haven, and also applies to any bulk distribution of large files over great distances."
