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In fact you can do exactly that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-space_optical_communication

Search for "FSO laser". Example: http://www.lightpointe.com/freespaceoptics.html

While LED based internet is a nice idea, the technology is still immature. You should look at Laser based systems (Free Space Optical). They are deployed and running now. I am just about to sign up for such a service in Los Angeles. They offer up to 100Mb/s at rates about 1/4 to 1/5 the cost of hard fiber. I did a lot of research and the latency is extremely low on these laser based systems (near zero since it works at layer 1) but the downside is the attenuation in space due to rain, snow and fog. Basically, rain and fog increase the bit error rate and decrease the effective distance between two end points. However, the charts showed that this technology was viable at 500+ meters. In Los Angeles, the downtime will be negligible due to the weather. Also, the provider I am looking at doesn't have very large gaps between lasers so the weather will affect the system even less. Also, it's nice having a very fast connection to my datacenter in one wilshire from the office. Note, some of the FSO systems go up to 10Gbps.

Here is the ISP for the FSO system: http://www.aerioconnect.net/

Here is the equipment manufacturer for FSO systems: http://www.lightpointe.com/products/default.cfm

There are already FSO (Free Space Optics) approaches for outdoor use that are superior to this new approach (see http://www.lightpointe.com/ for example).

see: http://www.lightpointe.com/home.cfm

Screw digging a ditch.

Lay zero cable:
http://www.lightpointe.com/products/fl_100.cfm

Saw this at a trade show this year (see boss I do learn from these things) http://www.lightpointe.com/home.cfm and from what I saw they have the technology and the bandwidth to handle most LAN's today. I did ask the rep if fog, rain, and snow etc... plays a part in the reliability of the connection. He said yes it does but you have to have major conditions (hurricane) for the connection to drop completely. If you go this route I would ask for a demo of it and research more QOS issues.

Narrow the beam more and more, up the frequency more and more, and eventually you get a laser modem :-)

Exactly - here's an 850 TeraHertz wireless product (if I did my powers of 10 right...)

Maybe if they marketed it like that they'd get more "oooh, big number" customers. Oh, right, that market segment doesn't understand "tera" yet. Maybe in 2 years when computers start coming with 1TB disk.

PoE (802.3af) is incredibly useful in for business deployments of video cameras and wifi access points, not to mention mini-switches and outdoor wireless bridge equipment. You can even power a laser link with PoE. It makes life easier for those averse to paying out huge amounts of cash to have an electrician come in and put in new outlets. I've been playing with PoE splitters recently to power non PoE gear at 5 & 12V DC - the splitters are $35 ea and are switchable between voltages.

Preferably, fiber optics will be used. However, it is very difficult to have a good overview of possibilities, and fiber optics technology is apparently very expensive to implement.

You can ditch the fiber but keep the optics. Free Space Optics (FSO) has been around for a long time. Despite being somewhat obscure, it is a very mature technology with a lot of things going for it. It provides fiber level bandwidth without the cost of digging up the ground to lay down fiber. Rapid deployment and high mobility can save not only money but time as well. You didn't mention how far apart the residences are in the neighborhood, but unless you're rural and very spread out, FSO may perform satisfactorily with allowance for bad weather. Bad weather being fog and scintillation.

Fog is a problem if you're near the coast or a large body of water that can produce a lot of mist. A heavy mist can really hammer the signal by several dBs over long distances on the order of a mile/kilometer. Currently it is the largest obstacle faced by permament/semi-permanent FSO implementations. Atmospheric scintillation is the phenomenon that makes stars twinkle at night. It is caused by variations in atmospheric temperature that change the index of refraction an optical signal encounters as it zooms to its destination. This problem, however, is more or less solved by making the signal take parallel paths to the reciever.

you may be interested in the following companies among others.

tellaire

terabeam

fsona

airfiber

lightpointe

industry news and references:

http://www.freespaceoptics.org/
http://www.wcai .com/fsoalliance/

It I am not sure how this is article bestows very interesting or novel information. Granted, the article mentions the wavelengths used are "visible", and "red". My guess is that they are emitting somewhere between 600 and 800 nm (typical visibly range is from 400 nm (purpleish) to 700 nm (red) however this is not a strict cut off, and if bright enough, even above 830 nm is visiblish).

Most telecom takes place at about 1550 nm, well into the infrared, but this is primarily because the typical fiber has nice properties in this range (absorption and dispersion). Therefore I am not sure there is much fundamental difference between infrared light telecom and visible telecom. Indeed they use very similar laser material (GaAs-based or InP-based diodes), are modulated the same way, etc.

Possibly this is neat because it is free-space optical stuff. However this (as pointed out previously) is not new. There are companies that are in place as we speek. Maybe deregulation may be of interest, but if the light it kept at the same wavelength as in fiber, then there is no need for an electronic klugey transceiver (detect the light in the fiber at 1550nm and drive a laser to re-emit the same signal at 6xx nm). Instead, an add-drop filter could be slapped on to the end, pick off the right wavelength, and feed that to a fiber which could be collimated as the source. This collimated beam then could travel over kilometers with no trouble. An all optical solution has a much

just a thought

Free Space Optics was originally developed more than three decades ago. Initially, it was used by the military and space aviation pioneers to provide secure and rapidly deployable communications links. Recent developments in FSO technology have advanced it to mainstream communications applications, including a short-term solution for short-haul network bridges to an attractive and viable alternative for service providers to deliver the promise of all-optical networks. As an optical technology, FSO is a natural extension of the metro optical network core, bringing optical capacity to the network edge by connecting the ultimate end-user cost-effectively, reliably and quickly.

While fiber-optic communication has gained acceptance in the telecommunications industry, FSO communication is still a relatively new entrant. FSO enables similar bandwidth transmission abilities as fiber optics, using similar optical transmitters and receivers and even enabling WDM-like technologies to operate through free space.

Free Space Optics was originally developed more than three decades ago. Initially, it was used by the military and space aviation pioneers to provide secure and rapidly deployable communications links. Recent developments in FSO technology have advanced it to mainstream communications applications, including a short-term solution for short-haul network bridges to an attractive and viable alternative for service providers to deliver the promise of all-optical networks. As an optical technology, FSO is a natural extension of the metro optical network core, bringing optical capacity to the network edge by connecting the ultimate end-user cost-effectively, reliably and quickly.

While fiber-optic communication has gained acceptance in the telecommunications industry, FSO communication is still a relatively new entrant. FSO enables similar bandwidth transmission abilities as fiber optics, using similar optical transmitters and receivers and even enabling WDM-like technologies to operate through free space.

Free Space Optics was originally developed more than three decades ago. Initially, it was used by the military and space aviation pioneers to provide secure and rapidly deployable communications links. Recent developments in FSO technology have advanced it to mainstream communications applications, including a short-term solution for short-haul network bridges to an attractive and viable alternative for service providers to deliver the promise of all-optical networks. As an optical technology, FSO is a natural extension of the metro optical network core, bringing optical capacity to the network edge by connecting the ultimate end-user cost-effectively, reliably and quickly.

While fiber-optic communication has gained acceptance in the telecommunications industry, FSO communication is still a relatively new entrant. FSO enables similar bandwidth transmission abilities as fiber optics, using similar optical transmitters and receivers and even enabling WDM-like technologies to operate through free space.

Free Space Optics was originally developed more than three decades ago. Initially, it was used by the military and space aviation pioneers to provide secure and rapidly deployable communications links. Recent developments in FSO technology have advanced it to mainstream communications applications, including a short-term solution for short-haul network bridges to an attractive and viable alternative for service providers to deliver the promise of all-optical networks. As an optical technology, FSO is a natural extension of the metro optical network core, bringing optical capacity to the network edge by connecting the ultimate end-user cost-effectively, reliably and quickly.

While fiber-optic communication has gained acceptance in the telecommunications industry, FSO communication is still a relatively new entrant. FSO enables similar bandwidth transmission abilities as fiber optics, using similar optical transmitters and receivers and even enabling WDM-like technologies to operate through free space.

The NYTimes article is not very well researched, there is another company in San Diego, that I have some experience with Lightpointe that makes these units and has sold 400 or so. These guys target companies with multiple buildings in an office park or within a few blocks of eachother in a city. These lasers mounted on each rooftop are going to be much cheaper than tearing up the ground and laying fiber so it's almost a no brainer as far as costs go. The biggest issue with these is the weather (snow, rain, fog) but these can be accounted for with stronger lasers and shorter distances. Don't try and max out the range of these units in a city like Seattle, but in Houston or dry hot places you could push the limits of them a little more.