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Looking down the LAN road, the Terabit Ethernet milestone is very much in sight. While 3.2Tbps and 6.4Tbps speeds were demonstrated in test environments by Siemens/WorldCom and NEC/Nortel respectively starting in 2001, the first set of viable solutions are just now taking shape.

The Feb. 16th edition of Optics Express included a paper detailing the efforts of researchers from Australia, Denmark and China who joined forces to demonstrate the feasibility of a Terabit Ethernet over regular fiber-optic cables. Terabit speeds bring us to the x1Million improvement in speed from where Ethernet started in 1976.

By focusing on materials research related to fiber-optic circuits, Australia's Center for Ultra-high bandwidth Device for Optical Systems (CUDOS) achieved a breakthrough with the introduction of an exotic compound called "Chalcogenide" that could make commercializing Terabit circuits practical. Although CUDOS Research Director Ben Eggleton says it will take years to reach production readiness, this does coincide with Bob Metcalfe's prediction that we may start seeing the first commercial use of Terabit Ethernets by 2015.

Source: http://www.networkworld.com/news/tech/2009/033009-tech-update.html