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CSIRO Develops 10 Gbps Microwave Backhaul
theweatherelectric writes "James Hutchinson of iTnews writes, 'CSIRO has begun talks with global manufacturers to commercialise microwave technology it says can provide at least 10 Gbps symmetric backhaul services to mobile towers. The project, funded out of the Science and Industry Endowment Fund and a year in planning, could provide a ten-fold increase in the speed of point-to-point microwave transmission systems within two years, according to project manager, Dr Jay Guo. Microwave transmission is used to link mobile towers back to a carrier's network where it is physically difficult or economically unviable to run fibre to the tower. Where current technology has an upper limit of a gigabit per second to multiple towers over backhaul, the government organisation said it could provide the 10 Gbps symmetric speeds over ranges of up to 50 kilometres.'"
These guys need hire some scientists instead of lawyers.. It's called innovation guys!
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
You sure it was CSIRO's innovation and not recycling of ideas that are otherwise trivial and done by someone else?
See? The CSIRO engages in actual research, and patents its own work, and licences its own patented work to others.
It doesn't go around buying up patents from other companies with the aim of litigation.
The result of non-Australians paying for the use of CSIRO patents will be further research by CSIRO that could improve technology for the rest of the world - not just for Australians. If patents are to exist at all, this is how it should work.
I am anarch of all I survey.
Ubiquiti just announced their AirFiber product (http://www.ubnt.com/airfiber) which can get 1.4 Gbps symmetric at 13km. It'll be interesting to see the price point of this 10 Gbps system, as Ubiquiti's runs only $3k per endpoint. I was considering getting a pair of the Ubiquitis to connect a branch office to HQ.
10 Gbps would be nice, but I'm guessing the cost of this system would be at least a magnitude greater than the AirFibers.
They did hire the scientists. Then they hired the lawyers to defend their exclusive rights in what the scientists developed. CSIRO is not an NPE any more than ARM or any other R&D company is.
Now they can implement this into the NBN and allow those that can only have wireless access and not cable have this.Actually at this speed it could exceed the cable part of the NBN.
A vital point not explicitly highlighted in the summary - the Science and Industry Endowment Fund providing some of the funding for this work was the main beneficiary of last year's settlement around CSIRO's wireless patent.
That is, the settlement money is being directly reinvested in new research to further develop wireless technologies, as well as public good research in other fields.
... the usage caps will not increase.
Bit of a bummer that once it ends up a standard they'll come around for some fees after all, though.
I don't actually mind even governmental organisations getting paid for their hard work (though since tax funded it should go back to the people, not so much that one organisation). I do mind effectively submarining the fees. That hidden sting is enough to think twice before touching their tech ever again.
Make patents non-tradable. If a company is sold or goes under, the patents go to the public domain. Same thing if a person holds the patent. Person dies, patents evaporate. Even better? Extend the law to also include copyright.
I mean, sure, it's a clever hack, but what would be the point of a microwave transmission system?
Are they that much cheaper than a proper router? Does the net go down if you heat a TV dinner in one of them?
Microwave transmission is/can be blocked/degraded by precipitation which is not a good thing. If this is a problem with this technology it will likely be implemented in only the most extreme locations -- where laying cable is very very expensive and utilization will be light.
No. CSIRO are trolls.
I've been meeting them for quite some years now and the CSIRO guys I've met are about protectionism. Since they lost their .edu status, they are about turning a buck. They will lie, cheat and steal their way through any bit of technology and pawn it off as their own. They may once have had skill but those days have gone.
The CSIRO are pretending to be elite. They plant themselves into the University system and pinch any idea that has the smallest amount of creativity. They will take established conferences and hijack them as their own. I bet you they had meetings about the recent attention of the WIFI thing and thought about how they can try and keep the momentum going. You wouldn't believe the extent they will advertise because they know that this is how you attract research and development money in Australia. Glossy mags and smiling pictures with MPs and popular projects as backdrops are taking research dollars from .edu and into putting it into .com. I wouldn't mind so much except they never deliver on more than 90% of projects. Just Word documents.
Sure, there may be a couple of greybeards that still create, but none of the new guys do. But when the chief scientist, ceo type, publicly states that the future of energy is fossil fuels and not renewable energies, something is very, very wrong. That was until it was popular to be green.
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CSIRO develop technologies, patent them, then license them at fair terms. They then use that licensing revenue to develop new technologies, patent them, and license them at fair terms. And repeat.
It's not like CSIRO are patent trolls. The WLAN thing only got dragged out in course because greedy companies were not interested in fair licensing terms.
i see through the facade and this is just the next generation of patent trolling
we've been complaining for over a decade now that patent trolls just collect up ip then sue everyone hoping they'll just settle. i believe is the first in a game changing breed of patent trolls. this has all been planned in advanced and is now set to payout unprecedent dividends
you see, this so called "CSIRO," in all likelyhood, predicted a point where they simply couldn't just be an "IP agency". a company that only exists to collect IP then sue others for infringing on said IP would eventually lose respect from all facets of society. to avoid falling into disrepute, they endeavoured on the next logical step. they labelled themselves as a "research organisation". you see, by calling themselves a research organisation, it's significantly more difficult to claim they are only trying to make money simply off IP.
but that's just evolutionary.
this CSIRO's plan was game-changing.
you see, while labelling themselves as a "research organisation" may garner some respect from people not in the know. however, if they were to be put under scrutiny, experts in the field and any quality journalist would realise this "research organisation" doesn't produce any intellectual property. they would eventually be exposed as a sham and lose whatever goodwill attributed from being a research organisation. so they made the bold move of producing intellectual property. companies like IBM, HP, Apple, Microsoft have been filing patent after patent on the most mundane of things. so this "research organisation" they started filing to. this would mean they could legitamately be called a "research organisation".
but that's just revolutionary.
the CSIRO's plan was game-chaning
see after a while, constantly filing IP, suing, and collecting would pay massive dividends and would even gain respect among experts in the industries. but again their foresight was unmatched. they predicted that a small subset of people would realise this "research organisation" does produce IP, but has no intention of actually implementing or producing anything with said IP. again this would expose them as a money-grabbing machine abusing the legal system to leech off corporations that infringe on their IP. while most people wouldn't bat an eyelid, CSIRO knew even the smallest blemish could become cancerous. so with their great foresight they changed the game.
they went about creating, producing, and implementing original IP.
the wheels for this mind-blowing move were put in motion a scant few decades ago and we're only now realising the true potential of their plan. you can see it in all the other comments relating to CSIRO where they are all highly defensive. "no, no, no. this is a real RO. they do things to help people" and "this isn't a patent troll. they have produced things that have benefitted society".
so this "CSIRO" not only claims to be a government "research organisation", but to the public has the full appearance of, and apprent operation of a research organisation. while this makes it look quite legitimate to the general public, don't be fooled by the facade. underneath this sheeps clothing the CSIRO is still a black-hearted IP agency with the sole goal of making money off the IP they obtain.
reinforce your tin-foil hats my brothers.
we must expose this CSIRO for what they truly are.
Oh no, CSIRO are inventing wireless tech again, quick someone tell Joe Mullins so he can claim someone else did it!
Shannon puts a limit on what you can do with a given radio channel.
To date, nobody has managed to exceed this limit.
From time to time folks, not expert in the field, claim to do so.
If you run at these guys max rate, range, with noise and weather, I'd bet that you would.
Their web site provides few details on what their radios can actually do.
It would be interesting to see thier link budgets to see if they are real.
Am I the only person who had to look up what a 'backhaul' was? In >15 years of working with IT I have never heard this term.
As I am reading about it, it looks like this applies to phone networks almost exclusively. It seems to be the same thing as a 'backbone' when discussing a network.
I suppose as we get closer and closer to phones=internet=telecommunications=data becoming true it becomes hard to distinguish.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Just don't use ANY patented crap from anybody in open standards. It always comes back to bite us.
Or if you are, Isn't there some sort of a contract that says "yup it's our tech, but if it is used in this XYZ standard we will never sue. Licenses available for everyone else (or not)"? That might solve the problem.
Shannon's limit isn't only for free space. The limit applies to ANY channel.