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"Twisted" OAM Beams Carry 2.5 Terabits Per Second
MrSeb writes "American and Israeli researchers have used twisted, vortex beams to transmit data at 2.5 terabits per second. As far as I can discern, this is the fastest wireless network ever created — by some margin. These twisted signals use orbital angular momentum (OAM) to cram much more data into a single stream, without using more spectrum. In current state-of-the-art transmission protocols (WiFi, LTE, COFDM), we only modulate the spin angular momentum (SAM) of radio waves, not the OAM. If you picture the Earth, SAM is our planet spinning on its axis, while OAM is our movement around the Sun. Basically, the breakthrough here is that researchers have created a wireless network protocol that uses both OAM and SAM. In this case, Alan Willner and fellow researchers from the University of Southern California, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Tel Aviv University, twisted together eight ~300Gbps visible light data streams using OAM. For the networking nerds, Willner's OAM link has a spectral efficiency of 95.7 bits per hertz; LTE maxes out at 16.32 bits/Hz; 802.11n is 2.4 bits/Hz. Digital TV (DVB-T) is just 0.55 bits/Hz. In short, this might just be exactly what our congested wireless spectrum needs."
Finland is a small country in Europe. The USA is a big country, comparable to the size of all of Europe and then some more. Comparing what you have for internet in Finland is like comparing what is found in New York City (or one of the other larger cities in the US) (population wise) and then having a few million (3) left over. Yeah, your beloved Finland is smaller than New York City (population).
I'm sick of people in Europe figuring what works for their dinky small country will work here in America. Stop doing it, or we'll start comparing how things run in Wyoming to how things work in your crappy country (e.g. Open Carry gun laws). One size fits all mentality is small thinking.
The US is a big place, with a varied population density that is quite broad. What works for a small country doesn't work here. Go figure.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.