Replacing Fiber With 10 Gigabit/Second Wireless 107
Chicken_dinner writes "Engineers at Battelle have come up with a way to send data through the air at 10 Gigabits per second using point-to-point millimeter-wave technology. They used standard optical networking equipment and essentially combined two lower bandwidth signals to produce a 10Gb signal from the interference. They say the technology could replace fiber optics around large campuses or companies or even deliver high-bandwidth streaming within the home."
Re:Call me when it's reliable (Score:5, Interesting)
While there's certainly a engineering difference between a prototype and a consumer-ready model, most of the problems you mention probably won't apply to this. It's point-to-point (so, line-of-sight) communications, so it will require an unobstructed path. However, proper transmitters and receivers for line-of-sight communications won't have nearly the sort of interference problems you experience with something like a Bluetooth. Line-of-sight communications also means you can use quite efficient antennae, so should get quite good range.
Its about time.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Its about time.... 10 MegaBits would do.
There are a lot of homes that the Broadband
suppliers will not touch, the 12 people on
my street are only a few 10/th of a mile from
a main back bone... But There is noting but
dial up here...
So who is going to supply cheap hardware and
backbone connections.. that should put the big
Broadband suppliers out of business.
Re:Call me when it's reliable (Score:2, Interesting)
...someone else use the same model in a 90 foot radius
This made me laugh. I had to stop using a wireless mouse at school because I got so much 'noise' from the other 20 or 30 wireless mouses in the same classroom.
Re:Call me when it's reliable (Score:3, Interesting)
All of my experience with wireless devices is in consumer based products, I don't know a whole lot about point-to-point/line-of-sight wireless transmission -- I just assumed (don't hurt me!) that they were very similar.
Based on your comment it sounds like this type of implementation would be more reliable than the wireless I am familiar with; I'm interested enough to do some reading on point-to-point wireless transmission in general and in other specific applications.
Thanks for the info!
Re:Call me when it's reliable (Score:2, Interesting)
I run a wireless network at home that goes through 4 walls before it hits my girlfriend's computer, and no problems there. Small house, yes, but it still works. I also have a wireless keyboard and mouse. Replacing batteries does suck, but when you're only replacing them once a month, it's really not that bad. Your experience with wireless has been dismal, but mine hasn't. And thanks to that experience, I'll continue using those devices.
Re:Call me when it's reliable (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't get me wrong, I still use a lot of wireless devices and they are a great tool! I use it at home for my network and I can browse easily and usually play online games without trouble. I still, and this is the key part here, don't replace my ethernet line to my web server or anything else I'd like to use with some sort of reliability.
That's what they are talking about here (replacing what would have been a fiber network with wireless), which I was at first against. However, according to a reply to my original post, the type of wireless implementation they are going to use is vastly different than my omni-directional consumer wireless devices. So until I have read and reasearched further, my position has changed from "skeptical" to "neutral"
Re:Call me when it's reliable (Score:3, Interesting)
They're very different beasts.
Unfortunately, as point-to-point or line-of-sight sort of implies, they're also completely useless in most consumer applications. Both transmitter and receiver have to point directly at one another. So it doesn't work like cellular, 802.11, BlueTooth, etc.
In fact, it'll probably never make it to consumer devices. We have a tough enough time with satellite television, which is sort of a sloppy line-of-sight transmission.
Re:Call me when it's reliable (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What's new about it? (Score:5, Interesting)
No, this is millimetre wave. It's NOT microwave. Millimetre wave is kind of a weird area that's not really radio as we know it, but isn't quite optical either. It's not used much because it's a real pain to generate a modulated signal in that region.
From the article it sounds like what these guys did is used two HIGHER frequency off the shelf laser beams and mixed them (optically). The interference between the two produces a millimetre wave signal. That IS cool, when you think about it, and it means that a big, neglected region of the spectrum can now be utilized cheaply.
Also, since it's high frequency point to point you don't get bombarded by significant amounts of radiation unless you stand directly between the transmitter and receiver. For high power, long distance applications both of those would tend to be on towers or high roofs.
Canada has long used a system of microwave towers to carry telecommunications across the country. The radio system was much cheaper than laying (and maintaining) thousands of kilometres of cable.
Re:Call me when it's reliable (Score:5, Interesting)
I had lots of dropouts with my WRT54G also, until I switched *away* from the shit Linksys firmware to Tomato (currently running 1.07). It's been rock-solid ever since.
Just my two cents.. ;)