Replacing Fiber With 10 Gigabit/Second Wireless

Chicken_dinner writes "Engineers at Battelle have come up with a way to send data through the air at 10 Gigabits per second using point-to-point millimeter-wave technology. They used standard optical networking equipment and essentially combined two lower bandwidth signals to produce a 10Gb signal from the interference. They say the technology could replace fiber optics around large campuses or companies or even deliver high-bandwidth streaming within the home."

Comments

Limited use; maybe good for backhauls

[Overzeetop]

This sounds good, but it's definitely going to be a limited usage technology. Putting in backhauls to a remote telco might be a real option. The biggest concerns are:

1. this seems to be line of sight only, so no broadcasting HDTV from a closet to the TV
2. point to point means backhaul only, distribution would still be by copper/fiber/wifi
3. mm waves are subject to attenuation by atmospherics, so "rain fade" might be a stumbling block
4. line of sight limits maximum distance between receiver/transmitters due to earth curvature

All in all it's a great leap to get higher bit density over wireless, but this is clearly a commercial-level component...us peons won't get to use it.

Re:Call me when it's reliable

[Amouth]

what would be considred consumer grade wireless equipment can't hold a stick to true enterprice level equipment.

you talk about your wifi dropping out - hey i have the same thing with my WRT54G... but all of the aironet equipment i use never has issues.. but hey my 54g was 50$ compared to 800$