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New High Speed Wireless Chipset from IBM
YesSir writes to tell us IBM scientists are reporting that they have created a new low-cost wireless chipset that could allow devices to communicate up to ten times faster than current technology. From the article: "Using the IBM-pioneered chip-making technology called silicon germanium, the chipset is able to send and receive information in a portion of the radio spectrum that is both unlicensed and can carry a much higher volume of data, a key advantage as data-intensive digital media formats, such as HDTV, become more pervasive."
540Mb/s. Wow. Admittedly, this would be excellent for desktop usage in the average organization, but I still can't see wireless being used for servers - gigabit is just too essential to give up, plus there's the issue of setting up the infrastructure to handle 540Mb/s via wireless - I mean, hell, it's hard enough to share 54Mb/s for one access point as is when you've got 10 users on it, but still...
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
Even if this is a short range technology, it sounds like it could do away with just about every cable connection going into the back of my desktop box except the power cord. Let it be super Bluetooth... that would be great!
If IBM actually makes the chips, probably not so long. They're not Broadcom, y'know :)
At 300GHz, you have to have line of sight between transmitter and receiver. The wavelength is only 1mm, and you're not going to diffract around anything bigger than a broom handle. This will work more like an IR link.