Researchers have made progress in the development of wireless broadband underwater with the use of a technique known as acoustic time delivery, according to new reports.

William Kuperman of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, has been conducting testing in the Mediterranean Sea, along with researchers from the NATO Undersea Research Centre in Italy.

The groundbreaking method gets around the problems of wireless communications in the sea - water molecules absorb radio raves - by the manipulation of the way acoustic sounds work underwater.

Speaking to the New Scientist, which published the report, physicist Geoffrey Edelmann, who works at the US Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC paid his respect to Mr Kuperman and his colleagues.

He said: "Their work is the best. I think they are leading the charge at the moment."

In testing, the technique is said to have worked over a distance of some 3,500 kilometres.

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