Ultrafast Terabit Ethernet connectivity is coming fast - but it won’t be cheap

0.8Tb Ethernet technology is on its way

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

An exponential increase in the demand for data has driven the recent announcement of a new 800 Gigabit Ethernet technology from the Ethernet Technology Consortium.

AnandTech reports the standard is based around current 106.25G lanes (pioneered for 400Gb) but doubles the number of total lanes from four to eight - it is essentially two bonded 400Gb lines.

The primary application of the technology will be in data centers, where hyperscale operators,website hostingcompanies and HPC will make the most of the increase in bandwidth.

Terabit

800 Gigabit is still not 1Tbit though and it’s likely the next iteration of this technology will see engineers finally break the Terabit per second barrier.

Will end users ever see such speeds coming to their devices? Well, most laptops on sale no longer come with an Ethernet connection andcloud computingand mainstream legal streaming services have madeserversandNAS(network attached services) less of a fixture in the technophile’s household.

In practice, it means that GbE technology (which is 1/800 slower than the recently announced breakthrough), is likely to stick with us for quite some time, with 2.5GbE the next logical step, followed by 5GbE and 10GbE. Fewmotherboards, for example, carry a 10G connector and the average cost of10G switches, routers and plug-in cards is still relatively high.

It is worth noting that, despite the latest advancements in wireless technology, wired Gigabit connectivity still remains the most reliable method for data transmission.

Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!

ViaAnandTech

Désiré has been musing and writing about technology during a career spanning four decades. He dabbled inwebsite buildersandweb hostingwhen DHTML and frames were in vogue and started narrating about the impact of technology on society just before the start of the Y2K hysteria at the turn of the last millennium.

VIPRE Security Group says its new endpoint protection tools can stamp out even the latest cybersecurity threats

This new phishing strategy utilizes GitHub comments to distribute malware

I’m a die-hard Apple fan, but even I’ll admit that the Google Pixel 9 Pro is the best-looking phone of the year