Swift chip to make most of broadband

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Alcatel-Lucent has released the world's fastest network processor with an eye to remove bottlenecks in the Government's ultra-fast broadband scheme.

The company's FP3 chip can carry internet traffic at a rate of 400 gigabits per second and is apparently four times faster than others of its kind on the market.

"This is the key to unlock a new world of online communications. It's easy to think the internet of today does all it will ever be capable of, but we have scarcely scratched the surface of its potential," said Alcatel-Lucent chief executive Ben Verwaayen.

"This chip creates tremendous potential, not just in terms of technology, but in terms of how people connect and interact with each other." .

The company's New Zealand development manager, Gary Fehr, said the product is designed to help internet providers improve the capacity of their equipment in anticipation of the UFB scheme.

The Government's UFB programme plans to lay fibre internet cables around 75 per cent of the country by the end of 2019, delivering internet speeds of 100 megabits per second.

"UFB has opened up the 'last mile' of the network to homes to 100 megabits per second and that's going to put enormous pressure on [telecommunications companies] to deliver traffic ... especially as people take advantage of bandwidth hungry services like video," Fehr said.

Video will make up 70 per cent of internet traffic worldwide by 2014, he said.

Fehr said the chip can carry 235,000 simultaneous YouTube clips or 160,000 viewings of iSky and is extremely energy-efficient.