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Wired and Wireless At the Same High Speed

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the zoom dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "The next generation of optical networks needed to satisfy our appetite for bandwidth is currently under development. And researchers from Georgia Tech have built a new architecture which delivers super-broadband wired and wireless service simultaneously. This hybrid system 'could allow dual wired/wireless transmission up to 100 times faster than current networks.' In fact, this optical-wireless network can carry as many as 32 different channels, each providing 2.5 gigabit-per-second service to your home or your office. And companies such as NEC and BellSouth are already working on such hybrid optical-wireless communications networks."

10 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. Is this internet, or broadcast TV? by CustomDesigned · · Score: 4, Informative
    Because the capacity of optical fiber is so high, this optical-wireless network could use wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) to carry as many as 32 different channels, each providing 2.5 gigabit-per-second service. That would allow users within buildings to subscribe to services from many different providers, each with their own content.

    At first I was confused, because the article seemed to be talking about internet access. But then I noticed that Bell South was one of the sponsors. So, welcome to the future of the internet as envisioned by Bell South.

  2. WARNING! by Toasty16 · · Score: 3, Informative

    This article has been submitted by Roland Piquepaille, proceed to the linked articles with extreme caution!

    1. Re:WARNING! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      One of the links is to his ZDNET blog. He is avoiding criticism by "existing" at primidi but blogging at ZDNET, however nothing else has changed.

  3. Re:catch? by erick99 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Pure line-of-sight and signals at those frequencies are absorbed by all sorts of things including tree leaves (of all things). You need a really straight shot from transmitter-to-receiver. You also cannot run a great deal of power at those frequencies which can affect range. We play around with gigahertz range transceiving in ham radio and there are a lot of variables to take into consideration. I imagine they have so far tested it mostly in fairly ideal conditions(?). Erick KE3PB

    --
    http://www.busyweather.com/
  4. Re:One thing I've wondered... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    "I mean 2.5 Gb per port on a 24-port switch would require a 60 Gb backplane - way higher than anything available today."

    Really?

    http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6421/prod_bu lletin0900aecd8036889f.html

    "Full bisectional bandwidth for all ports, providing 2.8 Tbps (Cisco SFS 7012) and 5.4 Tbps (Cisco SFS 7024) of bandwidth"

  5. Re:One thing I've wondered... by LoRdTAW · · Score: 2, Informative

    There are core routers that can do over 300Gbps. Here is an example: http://www.juniper.net/products/tseries/

  6. Wonald by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    One link to Wonald's ZDnet blog, 6 links from there to his link farm, with up to 10 links per page to other Wonald blogs. Remind me again how much Wonald pays Slashdot for his slashverts?

  7. Outside a controlled environment by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you go all the way up to 60 you hit a band which is absorbed by oxygen molecules. Signals don't go very far.

    Before then you're in a range that the military has used, at least experimentally, to image runways when landing in fog.

    Think short ranges (1 km for sure), shorter in humid environments, and a relatively benign interference environment since there are so few natural sources in that range and it's so easy to make a small highly directional antenna.

    People have only been holding off on deployments because the equipment was still loaded with unaffordable amounts of early adopter tax.

  8. I wish their technical paper were available by Interstices · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's too bad that the paper isn't available online, because it would be interesting to read the source documents. Descriptions of technical papers intended for general audiences often lose quite a bit in translation. As an example, it's hard to tell what the article means by "100 times faster than existing networks," as an earlier poster pointed out (I'd guess the comparison is to gigabit ethernet, as 2.5 x 32 = 80, which is sort of like 100). Researchers always know their subject better than reviewers, so summary articles can often be unintentionally misleading.

    I'd also like to point out that Bell's sponsorship probably has little to do with the type of content that can be transmitted over this medium. University researchers certainly like to partner with corporations (money is scarce in academia), but Bell likely has little to do with the research itself. Typically companies merely want to have a stake in promising new technologies. OFC/NFOEC does appear to be a conference geared towards both researchers and businesspeople, so partnerships might be closer.

    One aspect of the article that I find confusing is that its examples of wireless devices are PDAs and cellphones. Wireless on those devices is most useful when it is available everywhere; I want broadband speeds anywhere I can use my phone. But the wireless network described seems to be site-local. The bandwidth improvement is wonderful, but the lead-off example is perhaps confusing.

  9. Re:One thing I've wondered... by mplex · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here's one that does 92 TB/sec. Granted, you have to scale it up but it's a fairly impressive router with some decent software for once:

    http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps5763/index.h tml

    The routers/switches we use at work say they'll scale to 720GB/sec, but we'll never come close to that. Those sup720 cards are almost universal these days.