A new internet standard, L4S (Low Latency, Low Loss, and Scalable throughput), has been successfully validated in real-world tests by Vodafone and Nokia Bell Labs.
In laboratory trials that simulated a heavily congested fibre-to-the-home broadband connection using Wi‑Fi, the partners cut latency from about 550 milliseconds to roughly 12 milliseconds. When the same scenario used an Ethernet connection instead of Wi‑Fi, latency fell further to approximately 1.05 milliseconds.
Delays above 100 ms can produce noticeable lag during fast-paced online gaming, interactive cloud applications, and video calls. Vodafone performed the first full end-to-end trial across a complete fibre broadband network at its Newbury, UK laboratory to assess L4S under realistic conditions.
Gavin Young, Head of Fixed Access Centre of Excellence at Vodafone, explained: “Our aim is to provide customers with faster, more responsive, and more reliable connectivity that remains free of lag even at peak times.
“L4S is an exciting technology with the potential to deliver that experience and enable a more interactive, tactile internet for users.”
Developed at Bell Labs and standardised through the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), L4S addresses network queuing delay—the latency spikes that occur when packets wait in router and modem buffers before being forwarded.
Although the tests were performed on passive optical networks commonly used for residential fibre broadband, L4S is transport-agnostic and can operate over any access technology. That means latency-sensitive applications such as telesurgery, autonomous vehicle control, and smart factory systems can benefit.
Azimeh Sefidcon, Head of Network Systems and Security Research at Nokia Bell Labs, said: “These encouraging results show that L4S can free real-time applications that would otherwise be constrained by high latency.
“Video conferencing, cloud gaming, augmented reality, and remote drone operations could run smoothly over the internet without suffering significant queuing delays.”
The initiative reflects Bell Labs’ broader UNEXT vision to evolve networks into self-optimising systems that avoid interoperability barriers between network elements and applications, enabling more adaptive and efficient service delivery.
(Photo by Mike van den Bos)
Related: FCC denies a spectrum request for Starlink’s mobile service.
Unified Communications is a two-day event held in California, London, and Amsterdam that explores the future of workplace collaboration in a digital world. The event runs alongside Digital Transformation Week, IoT Tech Expo, Edge Computing Expo, Intelligent Automation, AI & Big Data Expo, and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo.
Find other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars presented by TechForge.