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A 75 year old woman from Karlstad in central Sweden has been thrust into the IT history books - with the world's fastest internet connection.

Sigbritt Löthberg's home has been supplied with a blistering 40 Gigabits per second connection, many thousands of times faster than the average residential link and the first time ever that a home user has experienced such a high speed.

But Sigbritt, who had never had a computer until now, is no ordinary 75 year old. She is the mother of Swedish internet legend Peter Löthberg who, along with Karlstad Stadsnät, the local council's network arm, has arranged the connection.

"This is more than just a demonstration," said network boss Hafsteinn Jonsson.

"As a network owner we're trying to persuade internet operators to invest in faster connections. And Peter Löthberg wanted to show how you can build a low price, high capacity line over long distances," he told The Local.

Sigbritt will now be able to enjoy 1,500 high definition HDTV channels simultaneously. Or, if there is nothing worth watching there, she will be able to download a full high definition DVD in just two seconds.

The secret behind Sigbritt's ultra-fast connection is a new modulation technique which allows data to be transferred directly between two routers up to 2,000 kilometres apart, with no intermediary transponders.

According to Karlstad Stadsnät the distance is, in theory, unlimited - there is no data loss as long as the fibre is in place.

"I want to show that there are other methods than the old fashioned ways such as copper wires and radio, which lack the possibilities that fibre has," said Peter Löthberg, who now works at Cisco.

Cisco contributed to the project but the point, said Hafsteinn Jonsson, is that fibre technology makes such high speed connections technically and commercially viable.

"The most difficult part of the whole project was installing Windows on Sigbritt's PC," said Jonsson

"The most difficult part of the whole project was installing Windows on Sigbritt's PC," said Jonsson

I wonder how much external hard drives I'd buy after a week with that thing.

Saw this a few hours ago. Just imagine how much you could pirate... err use for educational downloads. But I have no idea where you would get enough hard drive space to store it all. Let alone even get a computer that can even keep up with 40 gigs/sec. Also if setting up windows was the hard part, I'd gladly install it myself if I could get somebody to set that up for me!

Cheesehead3557, on 13 Jul 2007, 12:10, said:

Digg.com user?

hell i would pop out a kid if someone gave me that connection.

Prophet of the Pimps, on 13 Jul 2007, 7:41, said:

I would be willing to undergo gender change surgery, change my name into Fanny and pop out a dozen kids for that kind of connection