We have seen the future, and it is not the number of the beast that will feature prominently – instead, it will be 448Gbps that will be lingering on everyone’s lips. After all, this new benchmark is extremely impressive, since it was actually achieved using commercial fiber hardware that is readily available, thanks to the efforts of a few teams of researchers. Among them are the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, the National Inter-university Consortium for Telecommunications (CNIT), and Ericsson, working in tandem to develop what is touted to be the first transmission line operating at 448Gbps in the world. Further tests are expected to run on other network segments in the near future, so hopefully a practical, working service will be made available to the masses sooner rather than later. Makes us wonder just what kind of monthly subscription fee one would need to fork out to enjoy such blazing speeds. Makes 4G feel like a snail who has been cast with a Slow spell, ten times over.