[cycomanic]

Almost correct. You typically need 2-4 transmitters to emulate the system. So you modulate one or two channels under test and modulate the rest of the band with a single modulator and use some decorrelation tricks to be realistic. Then you scan your channels under test through the whole band. This is in typically a lower bound of performance, i.e. a real system would likely perform better. As you said, using individual transmitters is economically unfeasible even for the best equipped industry labs.

[Dylan16807]

Does that mean "We experimentally demonstrate transmission of 1.84 Pbit s–1" in the paper abstract is a lie?

[henrikeh]

I worked on this project and cycomanic summarizes the practice well. I’ve written more on it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33321506

[Dylan16807]

Well, the technology is just as impressive either way, but I think "we experimentally demonstrate transmission of 1.84 Pbit s–1" is misleading. The capacity was demonstrated piecewise but that data rate was not demonstrated.