I know that's a very iffy question, everyone saying "my pipe is bigger than yours!" topic. Well I found this over on Slashdot where Lucent now claim to have one heck of a big pipe! Now stick, that in our pipe and smoke it! ;)
Scientists from Bell Labs, the research and development arm of Lucent Technologies, have doubled the distance record for high-bandwidth, ultra long-distance transmission by sending 2.56 terabits (trillion bits) of information per second over a distance of 4000 kilometers (2500 miles), roughly the distance between Orlando, Fla., and San Diego. The previous transmission record was 1.60 terabits of information per second over 2000 kilometers (1250 miles).
The ultra long-haul all-optical transmission record was achieved using a 64-channel dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) system, where each channel carried information at 40 gigabits per second. (Sending a gigabit of information per second is equivalent to transmitting the information content of approximately 1,000 novels every second; sending 40 gigabits per second over 64 channels is equivalent to transmitting the information content of 2,560,000 novels.) The DWDM technique, invented at Bell Labs, makes it possible to send multiple streams of information down the same optical fiber.
The transmission breakthrough was made possible using the differential phase shift keying (DPSK) method, a new coding scheme for high-capacity communications developed at Bell Labs. When coupled with other leading-edge Bell Labs technologies - such as extended L-band amplifiers, Raman amplifiers, forward error correction and optimal dispersion compensation - DPSK allowed the research team to achieve error-free transmission over 4,000 kilometers (2500 miles) for all 64 channels, each of which had a signal of 40 gigabits per second.
News source: Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs - scientists set new fiber optic transmission record
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