German Researchers Hit 40 Gbps On Wireless Link 104
judgecorp writes "German researchers from the Fraunhover and Karlsruhe institutes have achieved 40Gbps transfers over 1km using a wireless link. The new record raises the hope that point-to-point wireless could be used instead of expensive fibers in some rural broadband applications."
Partially thanks to transmitting between 200GHz and 280GHz.
Re:2 obligatory questions (Score:3, Insightful)
What part of "point to point" did you not understand?
Re:2 obligatory questions (Score:5, Insightful)
1. How the hell is this going to fare in a real world test where a metropolis of people oversaturates the frequency?
From the summary.
...used instead of expensive fibers in some rural broadband applications
Re:I'm sure weather will have no effect at all (Score:2, Insightful)
The important facts are missing from both the summary and the English article. The german original has more info:
http://www.kit.edu/visit/pi_2013_12950.php [kit.edu]
Basically, the important news is that they build new send/receive integrated chips that can be feed directly a optical link, transmit over radio waves and on the other side feed directly back to optical (fibre).
Formerly, you either have to:
* transcode from optical to radio link, and back on the other side, which is expensive (extra components), draws more power and is bulkier.
* OR use a laser, which is optical, and thus skips the transcoding, but fares bad in wether conditions like rain and fog
The new system combines the advantage of having an small 84x1.5mm) integrated chip system, which uses less power and can thus be cheaper with the advantage of a radio link over a laser link.
Of course it won't be unaffected by weather like a fibre laying in the ground - but it is still better (smaller, more robust, and still as simple as) than the existing laser links. And it is meant to be used where you can't just lay a cable, anyway.
Re:2 obligatory questions (Score:5, Insightful)
A 1km range is next to nothing for rural Australian
For Texans, 1 mile is "neighbors" . . .
. . . 100 miles is "just down the road" . . .
. . . 1000 miles is "just down the road, aways" . . .
Heh, I know people in the US like to think Texas is big, but the truth of the matter is that the area of the state of Texas is just under 700 thousand sq km, while the area of the state of Western Australia is a bit over 2.5 million sq km.
That's about 3.5 Texii*.
* I know - Texii probably isn't the correct plural for Texas, but Texases just sounded wrong.