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Military Laser/Radio Tech Proposed As Alternative To Laying Costly Fiber Cable
An anonymous reader writes "Californian comm-tech company Aoptix is testing new laser+radio hybrid communications technology with three major U.S. internet carriers. The equipment required can be bolted onto existing infrastructure, such as cell-tower masts, and can communicate a 2gbps stream over 6.5 miles. The system was developed over 10 years at a cost of $100 million in conjunction with the Air Force Research Laboratory, and the military implementation of it is called Aoptix Enhanced Air Ground Lasercom System (EAGLS). The laser component of the technology uses a deformable mirror to correct for atmospheric distortion over the mast-hop, in real-time. The laser part of the system is backed-up by a redundant radio transmitter. The radio component has low attenuation in rainy conditions with large refracting raindrops, while the laser is more vulnerable to dense fog. The system, which features auto-stabilization to compensate for cell-tower movement and is being proposed as an alternative to the tremendous cost p/m of laying fiber cable, is being tested in Mexico and Nigeria in addition to the three ISP trials.
And certainly easier to tap. I hear that fiber optic is a bitch..
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The OP says that "The radio component has * low attenuation* in rainy conditions with large refracting raindrops". I think they mean "high attentuation". TFA says that radio is disrupted by rain.
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I don't understand why this is the trend even with the military to avoid laying fibre infrastructure. Looking at that site citing the costs of previous installs and listing the lifetime of the fibre as "20 Years" fibre is a 100 year infrastructure and even if your military base moves or you get a new technology that fibre in the ground will still be there and still be valuable.
45+ years ago when I was a kid and before cellphone towers dotted the landscape there were these funnel shaped microwave repeating towers everywhere that carried long distance phone traffic across the country without wires.
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But it sounds inferior in many respects. Lasers require line of sight, which is obviously a problem. We really ought to be investing in quality infrastructure.
Most property already has utility easements unless they're very rural, even then it's simple enough to seize with Imminent Domain for "the greater good"
Is the domain about the happen any time now?
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A few university set-ups in Germany tried this, (e.g. Hamburg), albeit probably with far simpler specifications as it was some years ago. They had surprisingly frequent problems with birds; birds perching on the towers, birds flying between the source/sink, uzw. Packet loss got enough at one point to contact a local falconer to see if his bird of prey could scare them away. It turned out that the local bakery was too much of a draw. There was whimsical talk of adding a TCP/IP error for bakery janitorial events. I believe they eventually just went with fiber pulled through the sewers ..ja-da
This seems kinda familiar. Kinda like a project I read about over a decade ago. They just added adaptive optics and a radio link for automation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Sure I suppose it's good enough for a single user, but I think it'll be a bit more expensive to add these in rather than run a set of fiber cables down the road.
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...aren't interested in quality infrastructure; they're interested in keeping new players out of the markets they currently "serve", continuing to collect rents from the areas they currently "serve", and keeping the FCC impotent and unable to regulate common carriers of internet traffic.
The benefit of these devices is that they also can help alleviate a good portion the back-haul fiber necessary. I am assuming that this tech is highly similar to what Google and Elon Musk are looking to accomplish. The red tape of entrenched monopolies makes it easier to move the backbone into LEO (Low Earth Orbit). These towers can last mile without needing local fiber to a POP. Somehow it is cheaper to build a global network of satellites/drones than it is to run fiber. That is the extent of the power of the ISP's/telcos in the US.
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Hearing about lasers and raindrops puts me in mind of this recent XKCD What-If posting.
The same goes for any new parking garages that may happen to get built.
XDInd
Why can't Fiber be run along telephone poles, same as power or cable? Fiber is always tagged as expense, but I don't see why it's any different than any other wire that's run to your house. You can combine hundreds or thousands of thin fiber strands into a thicker line that will still fit on a pole.
Terabeam Networks, c. 1999. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terabeam
And they weren't the first.
Multiple technologies are used by mobile comm units in the military. Setting up the Satellite downlink on one side of the cantonment area and using a laser link to transmit to the ops area sure beats laying fragile cable.
Or satellite downlink at a single area and using this to distribute to multiple fire bases. Definitely a win.
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Table-ized A.I.
You missed the "increase power" and "repeat as necessary" steps.
You might want to look up what "line of sight" means.
Suppose I point a laser in your direction and you are trying to detect that laser. We're five miles apart. Will you be able to spot that laser on a clear night? Probably not, because there is probably some other building between you and me. Or a tree. Or a hill.
Go outside and look five miles due west. In all probability you can't, you can only see as far as your neighbor's front door. No amount of error correction is going to fix the fact that there's a friggin house in the way. That's line of sight.
Suppose we go out to the Bonneville Salt Flats, where there are no buildings, trees, or hills. You hold a laser and shine it toward me, five miles away. Can I see it? Nope, even with no building, trees or hills, the curvature of the earth is in the way. Line of sight is one mean bitch.
Is it too much to ask to get sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads?
In most places, local politicians have granted exclusive right-of-way access to donors^H^H^H^H^H%H public-minded businesses, like Comcast.
In many cities, power and cable run underground because poles are "ugly". That's a bit more expensive to do, even if the local politicians allow it.
This reminds me of a DARPA project from a while back that sounds very similiar: The ORCLE program. I wonder if this is an outgrowth from the DARPA funded work.
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If it was for base connectivity I would be very surprised if fiber wasn't laid. I am more likely to believe the military use for this was designed for something which can be setup quickly in forward operating locations. Fiber takes time and substantially more infrastructure to install. Theoretically this could be run off a steerable pop-up mast which could be setup in minutes.
Fiber can also be cut.
Why can I only get internet from Time Warner?