Customers of the popular Sky Broadband (BSkyB) service look set to benefit from a significant internet capacity upgrade after the UK media giant added a new 100Gbps (Gigabits per second) fibre optic cable link between Birmingham and London.

Sky has also introduced Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technology to the new link, which craftily uses the different colours of laser light to transmit more information at the same time. This method allows Sky to turn their physical 100Gbps link into one that can move data at speeds of more than 7Tbps (Terabits per second).

As if that wasn't enough, Sky envisages having to deploy five more links of a similar style around the country in 2012. This, they claim, should keep the operator up to speed with the ever growing capacity demands of their internet access customers; especially at peak times.


Naturally Sky has 3.5 million broadband customers and so nobody should be surprised that its numbers are big, really.. really.. BIG. The core network already has 7,000 Kilometres of fibre optic cables and it's average data usage has grown by 60% per customer, which is expected to double again by June 2012 when Sky will hit an overall total of 700Gbps!