Europe Is Testing 12.5 Gbps Wireless

Lorien_the_first_one brings word that in Europe, a breakthrough for post-4G communications has been announced. A public-private consortium known as IPHOBAC has been developing new communications technology that is near commercialization now. Quoting: "With much of the mobile world yet to migrate to 3G mobile communications, let alone 4G, European researchers are already working on a new technology able to deliver data wirelessly up to 12.5Gb/s. The technology — known as 'millimeter-wave' or microwave photonics — has commercial applications not just in telecommunications (access and in-house networks) but also in instrumentation, radar, security, radio astronomy and other fields."

Comments

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[Anonymous Coward]

Im already using it. Its awesome.

Take the stairs? Take the elevator?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

When we look at how far behind the American wireless industry is compared to the overseas systems, it's not always correct to simply look at the current status. It's much more important to look at the growth over time, because it is only when you do that do you realize that the American system is keeping pace with European and Asian cellular systems.

Yes, at any particular moment in time the American system may seem far behind, but at some point we do upgrade to the latest and greatest. It just takes a lot more time to decide which version of the latest and greatest we will implement.

So it's much more like taking an elevator to go from one floor to another here in the US. We don't bother with every individual step in between and we get to the same place as the stair-climbers eventually too.

Re:Take the stairs? Take the elevator?

[Jurily]

We don't bother with every individual step in between and we get to the same place as the stair-climbers eventually too.

Meanwhile, Japanese are upset because they're getting throttled to 900 Gb upload a month. Awful slow elevator, that. Notice how this was 8 months ago.

Re:Take the stairs? Take the elevator?

[rolfwind]

Your analogy would make more sense if America were making big leaps every few years in communication tech. However, just looking at the internet alone, so many people are still left with dial-up and will be there indefinitely while others here have Verizon Fios, the other side of the residential spectrum. Now, the old argument is population density one, but I feel that is a dead horse in many ways, with communities in Europe (Sweden) with comparable or lower density getting top notch speeds. Hell, just look at the gauge of wire for electricity that get to the super high % amount of population except the most, most remote, and also being able to provide telephone service for those same people too - and then tell me laying fiber optic is too expensive.

The only time I saw Verizon move in my area to provide better service the last 10 years (Fios) was when comcast started offering voip phone service (they already have a strong cable internet following). Suddenly Verizon felt threatened. But otherwise they stayed slothful, providing as little service as possible while extracting the greatest price. They only moved when they felt threatened (how Verizon shat itself and went to court when Philadelphia proposed ubiquitous wireless internet). It seems that way with many of the monopolies. Hell, even regular old cellular service is abysmal in this country once you go past the population centers of the east and west coast. Nevermind cellular data service.

Which is too bad. So much of the internet is really hampered by the traditional view of it being on the desktop. In a stationary place. The notebook boom coupled with WiFi spots moved to alleviate that but it really isn't on the go yet. The iPhone was probably the first mainstream product but service is still very expensive and no matter what you choose, pretty slow. Just as the internet was the killer app of the last 20 years, changing how we live; cheap, relatively speedy, ubiquitous wireless internet would probably be the next killer app the next 20 years.

Re:Take the stairs? Take the elevator?

[wisty]

Too bad if you live in Australia. :(

Re:Take the stairs? Take the elevator?

[Runaway1956]

Horse shit. Did Europe have internet twenty years before the United States did? This seems to be what you are suggesting. Fact is, the US has fallen behind because our "business leaders" are to busy having huge circle jerks, trying to figure out how to use modern technology to rip off the consumer. Witness the number of lawsuits filed to prevent towns and counties from implementing internet service in areas that no corporation was interested in supplying service anyway. Yes, look at how far behind we are today. And, think about how far behind we'll be in another ten years. Then, write you congressman to make things happen, and stop whining out your excuses for substandard performance on America's part.

Re:Take the stairs? Take the elevator?

[ion.simon.c]

Add to that the fact that most rural America sees a higher price because it is ... usually dominated by a single monopoly ... and there is your reason uptake is slow out here in the boonies.

This is the PP's point. :)

Re:Take the stairs? Take the elevator?

[hobbit]

Sure, if we were on an island

You are on an island. We have several countries on ours too :)

Fry

[pmarini]

and how many of those radiowaves are going to fry our brains ? let me see:
- 10 thousands satellites beaming down their TV programmes and GPS coordinates
- 1 thousand TV stations beaming up their programmes (that's very high power)
- 500 millions of cordless phone handsets (frequencies anyone ?)
- 100 millions cordless keyboards and mice (ranging from 40MHz to 2.4GHz)
- 2 billions cellphones and millions of related cellular-comms-towers
- billions of wi-fi connections from portable phones, laptops, VoIP, ...
- billions of bluetooth-enabled devices
- brand new wireless video devices...

bar the obvious tinfoil jokes, we are going to use a new excuse for calling sick, like "my brain is upset this morning, it must be the new access point that I installed yesterday... sorry, you'll have to cover for me until I finish restoring my brain backup from yest#%@ - what is this email that I sent to myself with a password for a new access point ?"

Re:Fry

[MichaelSmith]

Most of us bathe in kilowatts of infra red radiation at shorter wavelengths (and higher photon energy) than microwaves. I don't see how photons of lower energy could be causing us problems.

Re:Fry

[should_be_linear]

Photons are dangerous, ask Schroedinger's cat !

Re:Fry

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of us bathe...

Speak for yourself, mate.

Re:Fry

[sakdoctor]

You're talking crap.

Whilst IR photons have a higher energy than microwaves, so do visible light photons.

On the other hand, opacity and absorbtion of various human tissues, is a complex relationship with wavelength.

Re:Fry

[BlueParrot]

Most of us bathe in kilowatts of infra red radiation at shorter wavelengths (and higher photon energy) than microwaves. I don't see how photons of lower energy could be causing us problems.

It is all about how people perceive risks and fail to consider them rationally. A bit of a similar example is how a number of people are up in arms about the rates of violent crime, and are willing to sacrifice their liberties and privacy if the government merely suggests it might perhaps help, yet consider the prospect of biking to work unthinkable, despite the benefits it would grant them in terms of reduced risks of heart diseases and stroke. From a rational point of view the latter is a much greater risk to people's quality of life and wellbeing, but the former sells more newspapers and hence receives a results in a disproportionate amount of concern.

Re:Fry

[famebait]

I don't see how photons of lower energy could be causing us problems.

And so the question inevitably arises:
Do you in fact know enough about photons and radiation for your failure to see any problems to imply with any degree of probability that there are no problem problem?
Or should our conclusion be simply "no, you don't, do you?".

Your implicit assumption that higher energy photons are universally more dangerous than lower energy photons would seem to speak for the latter.

Re:Fry

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of us bathe...

Speak for yourself, mate.

Good to see the English (1) are represented on slashdot.

1) By English, I mean English.

The Scotts, Welsh, North Irish, Cornish, Manx, Jersey islanders etc - all know what a shower is.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaah, I love the smell of reverse racism in the morning (or any time of day really).

Re:Fry

[fastest fascist]

In Soviet Russia, SchrÃdinger's cat observes YOU!

Re:Fry

[Barsteward]

there's no point washing your hands, you've already cleaned your hands by pulling up your pants and then dried them by tucking in yur shirt

Re:Fry

[jschen]

Your implicit assumption that higher energy photons are universally more dangerous than lower energy photons would seem to speak for the latter.

This has been experimentally verified in experiments on the photoelectric effect. Indeed, Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1921 "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect" (emphasis mine; notice that Einstein did not win the prize "because of relativity", as many would assume). Below a certain energy level per photon, nothing happens no matter how intense the light. Above the threshold, something happens (with the rate dependent on the intensity of the light).

Of course, thermal warming can also happen. In recent years, microwave-assisted organic synthesis was a big fad. But the most careful studies have demonstrated that the so-called "microwave effect" is simple thermal heating in all known cases, and despite theoretical explanations for why a non-thermal microwave effect might exist (going so far as to predict the types of reactions for which the largest effect might be found) and papers claiming the discovery of such effects, effects seen to date are purely thermal. See this J Org Chem paper. Any effect we see from a cell phone in the pocket would appear to be the same effect as simply warming our thigh a miniscule bit.

Yikes, you can't compare this to 4G

[George_Ou]

4G is a mobile solution where the signal is radiated every direction and cells get blanketed by signals that are useful to mobile devices. Millimeter wave is a point-to-point technology that requires a clear line of sight and should be compared to free space optic laser solutions. You so much as block the beam with a tree branch and it doesn't work. Can we try to get some quality reporting on slashdot? We have plenty of experts in this community and headlines like these need to get slapped down. We don't need another clueless USA bashing headline.

Re:Yikes, you can't compare this to 4G

[qc_dk]

You find "Europe Is Testing 12.5 Gbps Wireless" to be USA bashing????
<sarcasm>Well I am truly sorry that someone outside the US is trying to do research. I'll stop mine immediately and wait for our benevolent super power for life to do the research and give me what I need. I'll just be over in this cave eating raw animals. I wouldn't want to be the reason for another US "bashing".
</sarcasm>
This post was tagged to comply with the Sarcasm-impaired Aid Directive (SAD)

great....overage-city in no time.

[MoFoQ]

12.5Gbps which means 1.5625GBps and the data transfer limits we have in the states here, it will take 3.2 seconds to be in overage-city.
Hmmm...isn't that faster than a Porsche's or Ferrari's 0 to 60 speed?

[sarcasm]The good thing is....it'll be at least 5 years since they have it in Europe until we have it here[/sarcasm]

Whoa, This Can Be Big

[aoheno]

Land line went years ago. Fiber will be next together with the 1Gbps wired LAN and everything hanging off it - especially the not so green power adapters, quaint WAPs, Switches, and Routers.

Imagine no more ISPs. Netflix can stop throttling. Computers only need RAM and boot from the cloud.

Will my 4G Google phone need a small power station or will a standard adapter do?

I for one

[atarione]

welcome our new 12.5Gbps brain tumor inducing overlords

Sorry you didn't get the point

[George_Ou]

The article is comparing 4G performance at 150 Mbps using only 20 MHz of spectrum to to millimeter wave technology which uses tens of GHz for line-of-sight application for multi gigabit links. Then it suggest that the rest of the world is lagging because of this bogus comparison. OK, maybe it's not just US bashing, but it's bashing the rest of the world.

Re:Sorry you didn't get the point

[jabithew]

You're missing the point.

We don't need another clueless USA bashing headline.

Europe Is Testing 12.5 Gbps Wireless

What exactly could be done to the headline to mollify you?

Godless Communists in Europe Testing Unwholesome, Anti-Family Services

This is not a criticism of America, though the comments make some still-valid criticisms of US telecoms services.

Re:Sorry you didn't get the point

[Ginger Unicorn]

The point he was making is that you said specifically that the headline was US bashing, but all the headline says is the some research is being conducted in Europe. You'd have to work very hard at being insecure and over-sensitive to read that as some kind of slight against America. From a purely pedantic standpoint, it's the article/summary that you should have denounced, the headline was entirely innocuous.

wrong link in article

[Anonymous Coward]

the correct link is http://www.ist-iphobac.org/, not http://www.iphobac-survey.org/

Association with 3G misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

The comparison with 3G/4G systems is misleading, as these terms denote wide-area cellular telephone networks. Our cellular links are mobile, work over long ranges, and do not require a line-of-sight path from transmitter to receiver. 60 GHz wireless links, by comparison, typically require highly directive antennas, ie. the transmitter radiates energy directly at the receiver in a narrow beam. This makes it more suitable for fixed point link, rather than mobile, at this stage of development. Also, 60 GHz wireless signals are highly attenuated as they pass through solid objects, hence the need for a line-of-sight path. So, while its true mm-wave communications offers unparalleled wireless data rates, the comparison with cellular networks is not necessarily a good one.

Re:Resonance

[Sockatume]

Actually, resonant processes are the ones that depend absolutely upon the photon energy, and the energy of a microwave photon is too low to do anything interesting. Microwaves can do work by a nonresonant, thermal process, but that's it.

A resonant process is one in which the photon has the right energy to trigger a particular transition. Ionising radiation (UV, x-rays, etc.) works by a resonant process, and depends on the quantum of radiation having enough energy to eject an electron from the molecule. As you go down in energy from there, you have enough energy per photon to resonantly electronically excite molecules (visual light, used in the eyes to detect light) or vibrationally excite (IR), or down at the bottom, to rotationally (microwave), and then translationally excite molecules.

Correspondingly, it gets harder and harder to cause any chemistry with those photons. It's trivial to break up a molecule by shifting its electrons around or ejecting them altogether, or to a lesser extent it's possible to chop something up by exciting a particular molecular stretching vibration such that the bond(s) dissociate(s). However it's a serious challenge to cleave a bond with a rotational excitation alone.

So, how could a microwave do any chemistry, and thus damage, to your tissues? It's a simple thermal process. When you rotationally excite a molecule, in the gas phase, the molecule, or part of it, changes its rotational motion in some way. There are couplings between rotational and vibrational motions, and upwards to electronic excitations. In the solution or solid phase, there are also couplings to the translational motion of the molecules, meaning that ultimately the energy from the microwave can end up speeding up the molecule's motion, which is plain old heating.

So the energy you dump in with the microwaves becomes "thermalised", spreading over the whole range of states evenly, with a pretty huge chunk of it going into heating up the material. That heat lets you do old-fashioned collision-activated chemistry. What the anti-EM movement don't want you to think about is that this thermal process is entirely dependent on your exposure. It's like standing next to a furnace. A foot away, you're toast. Six feet away, you're warm. One hundred feet away, you don't know it exists.

In summary, it is not possible for radio to cause you thermal damage because the exposure is simply too low. No non-thermal, resonant process for damage has been shown to exist, and trivial physical chemistry makes it clear that one probably never will be found.

Re:Resonance

[Muad'Dave]

Google around for papers by Dr. Eleanor Adair. She was an expert on RF exposure, and has done thousands of Simian and Human exposure tests as described in this NY Times Article. She claims to have personally tried every test before using it on her subjects, with no ill effects, ever. I tend to believe it, since the frequencies involved are 10^6 times lower than ionizing radiation that is proven dangerous.

Re:Resonance

[Ginger Unicorn]

It depends what you mean by "no chance". Nothing we've learnt scientifically to date suggests this would cause cancer. Of course that doesn't mean there is "no chance" since we may learn something new that does suggest it would cause cancer.

And if you retreat to the position that something must create absolutely zero risk to be worth doing, then absolutely nothing is safe enough for you. Going out in the sun and breathing carry a risk of causing cancer.

From our current understanding, there is absolutely no rational reason to believe that microwaves from cellphones/wifi give you cancer, in the same way that there's no reason to believe that touching wood fends off bad luck. People still swear blind that it does, but there's no scientific reason to think so.

Zero to...

[akeyes]

Zero to Capped in no time flat!

IPHOBAC

[ghostis]

Fear of Anonymous Cowards is a serious issue. They should get help.