Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Broadband By Laser: Promises, Promises

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the and-more-promises dept.

Digital Quartz writes: "There's all manner of ways to get last-mile broadband access these days, from cable to DSL to microwave, but QuantumBeam, a Cambridge based company, wants you to surf by laser. Check out the article at The Wall Street Journal. I wonder how well it performs in the rain?" The promise of optical wireless is alluring, but it's also been said before ... I hope it actually pans out before it becomes old tech.

2 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. No way is this going to work by seizer · · Score: 4

    Pardon me if I'm wrong, but I had this strange idea that lasers require a direct line of sight. Any bouncing, and they lose their coherency.

    So.

    How the hell is this going to solve the "last mile" problem? For consumers in fairly large metropolises (any other takes on the plural?) there are too many bloody buildings in the way. Plus, the problem has already been solved with DSL, cable, etc. For consumers not in the last mile - well, the laser's going to max out at 5 kilometers, right? So those farmers still plodding along on a 28k are going to stay plodding.

    I fail to see how this can be of any use at all.

  2. This is not very new really... by DavidpFitz · · Score: 4
    This is not the newest technology out there...

    Lucent have a division called Lucent Optical which are (unsurprisingly) world leaders at this sort of thing.

    A good article about what they do can be found here

    Incidentally, a company called Global Crossing plan to implement a network based upon lasers.