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Japanese Researchers Achieve Record 56Gbps Wireless Transmission

Posted by timothy on from the check-your-data-plan-first dept.

Mickeycaskill writes: Fujitsu and the Tokyo Institute of Technology have achieved a wireless transmission of 56Gbps over a 10cm distance using millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequencies located between 30-300GHz. While cellular capacity is improved in some areas through the addition of new mobile masts and small cells, the fibre networks used to link these sites to the wider network is either absent or not feasible to deploy in urban locations or on difficult terrain. This makes the wireless capacity of mobile masts even more important. To achieve the speed, researchers developed custom chips and interface technology to boost capacity of wireless signals without significant data loss.

It is claimed that by pairing the technology developed with a high-output amplifier, the same effect can be achieved outdoors and could be commercialised for mobile operators by 2020.

33 comments

  1. Range/Signal quality speed by RogueWarrior65 · · Score: 1

    IMHO, why are people so obsessed with speed over short distances? I'd rather see long range and reliability in less-than-ideal environments using simple antennas.

  2. Put this in Bluetooth by The+Eight-Bit+Link · · Score: 1

    I keep hearing about how researchers are making faster and faster short-range wireless connections, but I can't remember any time they were able to put their research into practice. It would be neat if they were to incorporate it into the Bluetooth spec. As it is now, I either have to deal with a hit-or-miss wired connection with MTP, or an agonizingly slow Bluetooth FTP session.

  3. 10cm by Thanshin · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Fujitsu and the Tokyo Institute of Technology have achieved a wireless transmission of 56Gbps over a 10cm distance [...] cellular capacity is improved in some areas through the addition of new mobile masts and small cells, the fibre networks used to link these sites to the wider network is either absent or not feasible to deploy in urban locations or on difficult terrain"

    I'm no rocket scientist, but are we sure that the best solution is having satellites fly 10cm over our heads?

    1. Re:10cm by rlp · · Score: 4, Funny

      Nope - mesh network. Just stand within 10 cm of other users. Perfect for the Tokyo subway system during rush hour.

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      [Insert pithy quote here]
    2. Re:10cm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Fujitsu and the Tokyo Institute of Technology have achieved a wireless transmission of 56Gbps over a 10cm distance [...] cellular capacity is improved in some areas through the addition of new mobile masts and small cells, the fibre networks used to link these sites to the wider network is either absent or not feasible to deploy in urban locations or on difficult terrain"

      I'm no rocket scientist, but are we sure that the best solution is having satellites fly 10cm over our heads?

      No, not 10cm from your head, 10cm from your phone. The repeater would probably have to be installed IN your head.

    3. Re:10cm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't 10 cm about 4 inches. Great for chips in a box to talk to each other. Or, maybe my cellphone does not need a cable when it is laying on top of another cellphone. Interesting but of low value.

  4. Re:Range/Signal quality speed by invictusvoyd · · Score: 1

    Big telecom is going to monetize the improved (long distance) version and sell it to you at exorbitant rates by 2020.

  5. not special by X10 · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    I had 56kbps ages ago, how is that special?

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  6. Millimeter wave and atmosphere by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Judging by the last diagram in here it seems just using a Bigger Hammer (or as the original elegantly puts it "developed with a high-output amplifier") will make for a pretty good heating.

    (Captcha is "airspace": some day I'd like to have a peek into this captcha generator. Or perhaps may be not).

  7. Tesla coil transmissions by hipsterdufus · · Score: 0

    At a whopping 10cm, couldn't one devise a way to send the data over a tesla-coil arc? Tremendous energy available, unclear about bandwidth available in a "controlled" arc of electricity.

    1. Re:Tesla coil transmissions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, A Tesla coil has way too much inductance to modulate the data that fast

  8. Re:Range/Signal quality speed by Rob+Lister · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Discovering the limits is important. I have no problem with the research. Have we even discovered the limits of a simple two-wire twisted pair? Probably, at least to practicality, not improbably perfectly. It's just basic research. Which is good. Probably a whole lot more useful than finding the Higgs. And a lot cheaper. :?

  9. Re:Range/Signal quality speed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    IMHO

    I don't think you quite understand what that means.

    why are people so obsessed with speed over short distances?

    They aren't. When you're developing a new tech, you first get it working at short distances to prove the concept. Then you start trying to do it over longer distances. Then you start trying to do it in real-world conditions.

  10. Re:Range/Signal quality speed by gstoddart · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No, they'll deliver something they claim delivers those speeds, but which really only works under a few cases, but which they'll claim they can't really afford to sustain ... and then you'll just end up paying 30% more for the same shitty network.

    You know, what they've done with the last several iterations of this stuff. ZOMG, look at teh super fast network, followed by no, you can't really have those speeds.

    I've pretty much come to the conclusion this stuff really only exists for marketing purposes, and then they cry poor when people try to use what they've been sold.

    You'll never see this as a consumer.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  11. Physics puts enormous limits on using 30-300GHz by Muad'Dave · · Score: 4, Informative

    The FCC has a publication on the behavior of RF in the 30-300GHZ range, and the outlook is not rosy. Atmospheric gases, water vapor, rain drops, foliage, and other attenuation and noise sources make these frequencies problematic for medium- to long-range, high speed comms.

    Using 60 GHz is interesting because it's attenuation is so high it can be reused every 4 km.

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    Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
    1. Re:Physics puts enormous limits on using 30-300GHz by NixieBunny · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I work in millimeter- and submillimeter-wave radio astronomy, where we receive signals in the 60 to 800 GHz range. There is a lot of water absorption of the signal, leaving only certain frequency bands usable. The semiconductors used at these frequencies are rather exotic - we use superconducting materials in our receivers for lower noise, and we cool them to 4 Kelvin. Making a power amplifier to produce even one Watt of signal at 75 GHz is a million-dollar project. In short, it's not likely to be mainstream for at least ten years.

      --
      The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
    2. Re:Physics puts enormous limits on using 30-300GHz by Muad'Dave · · Score: 1

      Too cool! I visited the VLBA radio telescope on St. Croix when I was there and had a long, interesting chat with the tech on duty. I love how all the LNAs are liquid helium cooled in the broiling heat of the tropics. He did mention that they didn't bother with 96 GHz (I think it was) due to the extreme absorption there.

      --
      Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
    3. Re:Physics puts enormous limits on using 30-300GHz by MattskEE · · Score: 1

      Making a power amplifier to produce even one Watt of signal at 75 GHz is a million-dollar project. In short, it's not likely to be mainstream for at least ten years.

      I work in mm-wave semiconductors and you might be pleased to find out that you're high by a factor of over 100 on price :)

      Power amplifier chips have no need to be cryogenically cooled like the ultra-low noise temperature amplifiers used in radioastronomy receivers. A few years ago you could pay about $10k per watt of packaged, power combined Gallium Arsenide amplifiers up to ~30 watts of power, and I understand that today the price is less than half of that. GaAs is not exotic, fully fabricated 6" wafers for the cell phone market apparently cost under $1,000 each (and each chip just a few square mm of that wafer). If you need really high powers vacuum tubes are available at ~100 watt output power levels at a similar price per watt.

      Those prices are of course really high, but that's in large part because the market is tiny and a lot of these amplifiers are basically one-offs built for a specific customer and application. With volume production prices will drop dramatically.

      Gallium Nitride is capable of per-chip output powers several times larger than Gallium Arsenide, in fact Fujitsu just last month unveiled their own over 1 watt GaN amplifier operating at 86 GHz. Other companies have had 1-2 watt output chips a few years ago, and at higher efficiencies, but I think Fujitsu might be better positioned to commercialize their technology.

    4. Re:Physics puts enormous limits on using 30-300GHz by Solandri · · Score: 1

      It's worth pointing out that the frequencies with problematic RF transmission (high attenuation) are precisely the ones the FCC likes to open up for unregulated use. Nobody wants to use those frequencies commercially or for safety because of their unreliability. And the high attenuation means any broadcasts which exceed the unregulated power cap (typically 1 Watt) only affect a small area. 2.4 GHz was opened up because of its high absorption by water molecules, which is why microwave ovens (2.45 GHz) completely screw up your wifi signal.

    5. Re:Physics puts enormous limits on using 30-300GHz by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All these super high frequency RF links seem like busywork to me. The level of tech which goes into it is amazing, yet it only creates links with the usability and speeds you could have reached optically decades ago. These RF systems aren't generally even designed for allowing bounces, pure LoS designs. What's the point?

    6. Re:Physics puts enormous limits on using 30-300GHz by Muad'Dave · · Score: 1

      Indeed. In that paper I linked to they specifically mention 60 GHz as a great re-use candidate exactly because the attenuation due to atmospheric gases/water is so horrendous.

      I don't think your assertion that "2.4 GHz was opened up because of its high absorption by water molecules" is entirely true. It's a fact that water does absorb some power from 2.4GHz RF, but the reason microwave ovens are there is because it's dead center in an ISM band where things like that are allowed. There is no absorption peak for water at 2.45 GHz. The caption for figure 1 in the second link sums it up nicely: "The frequency for maximum dielectric loss lies higher than the 2.45 GHz (wavenumber 0.0817 cm-1, wavelength 12.24 cm) produced by most microwave ovens. This is so that the radiation is not totally adsorbed by the first layer of water it encounters and may penetrate further into the foodstuff, heating it more evenly; unabsorbed radiation passing through is mostly reflected back, due to the design of the microwave oven, and absorbed on later passes." If there were a peak at 2.45GHz, you'd boil the water off the first few mm of food and progressively leatherize the food all the way to the center.

      --
      Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
  12. Light on details by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The article was light on details. How wide was the spectrum used? It says 30-300 Ghz - does that mean the entire 270 Ghz of spectrum was used?

    Also, spectrum in the 24 Ghz band is already used for outdoor data links. It's fragile, requires perfect line of sight, and suffers from significant rain fade. Higher frequency bands starting at 30 Ghz are not going to work very well outdoors over any significant distance until/unless our fundamental understanding of radio frequencies experiences a major shift.

  13. Not for phones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    30GHz wireless is never going to be in a cell phone, it's really only suitable for stationary point-to-point connections (the only way to get decent range). So I'm going to assume that by "commercialised for mobile operators" they mean replacing the fiber link to the tower.

    The other issue with 30GHz is rain fade, exactly as the name implies the signal is very susceptible to weather and so these systems usually have a lower-frequency (2.4 or 5GHz) backup link to use during rain/snow/etc.

  14. Re:Range/Signal quality speed by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 1

    No way, they'll absolutely deliver you these speeds. That way you can eat up your allotted 5GB in even less time, and start racking up data overage charges in less than one tenth of a second.

  15. They should test at 1mm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe that way they would be able to report even faster speeds.

  16. The Japanese by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

    Leading the world in high speed porn distribution technology!

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    1. Re:The Japanese by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The speed of the technology allows them to render extra tentacles per frame. Or something!

  17. fibre by SETY · · Score: 1

    I don't think the submitter has any clue how much bandwidth an aerial fiber has. Hard to deploy? String the fiber up.

  18. Whatever happened to ultra wide band? by MarkH · · Score: 1

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-wideband

    Was designed for short range high bandwidth apps.

  19. Re:Range/Signal quality speed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It sounds like you're still with AT&T. Why is that?

  20. Am I missing something? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Most 4G technologies already exceed this rate by double but it is split among users or rate limited and that is over real usable distances.