A Land Speed Record for Data Flow

A land speed record for data flow, 6.25 gigabits per second (average rate) moving over an 11,000-km course, has been set a consortium of scientists form the CERN lab in Geneva and Caltech in Pasadena. This new result was announced at the Spring 2004 Internet2 Member Meeting in Arlington, Virginia. The World Wide Web got its start at CERN, where particle physicists had to find ways of sending huge loads of data to collaborators. CERN will again need huge flow rates, perhaps at the 10-gigabit-per-second level, when they begin physics experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) now under construction. (More information at Caltech website.)