Actually - birds won't be harmed. The type of lasers that AirFiber uses are low power, completely safe and comply with the FDA's voluntary eye-safe laser applications. I saw somebody put their hand in front of the beam for at least five seconds during a demonstration just last night. No burns, no problems.
A couple of points:
1) the lasers AirFiber uses are actually very inexpensive - similar to those used in writable CD ROMs.
2) Laser beams can penetrate thick fog, under shorter distances. AirFiber designs their networks individually for each city. A high-fog area, such as San Diego, San Francisco and London, would require shorter links, such as 200 meters. Under these types of distances, AirFiber can guarantee 99.999% availability (that's about 5 minutes of downtime per year).
3) The phenom. that you're describing is called "solar loading" and is very typical, especially on tall buildings - wind is also a problem. Throughout the day, buildings move - sometimes several feet. AirFiber has developed an automatic tracking mechanism that keeps the beams alligned at all times.
4) Cost - the AirFiber equipment is slated to be about 1/10 the cost of installing fiber and much less expensive than LMDS, which requires a ton of capital just for licensing and currently provides a fourth of the speed (at best).
Actually - if a pigeon flies through the beam, there would be no loss of signal for the end user. The network has a redundant "mesh" design. There are multiple paths to each node - much like how the military desinged the Internet as to ensure reliability should one path be interrupted. If a pigeon blocks one beam, then the signal is rerouted via other nearby nodes to the destination node. (Besides, even if a pigeon flew through a beam in older point-to-point applications, there would not be a total loss of download, only a several milisecond delay of transmission. No data would be lost.)
Also - this network is designed for urban areas and AirFiber promises carrier-class, five nines (99.999%) reliability. The goal is to sell the equipment to CLECs, and most won't even touch equipment that doesn't meet those standards.
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Actually - birds won't be harmed. The type of lasers that AirFiber uses are low power, completely safe and comply with the FDA's voluntary eye-safe laser applications. I saw somebody put their hand in front of the beam for at least five seconds during a demonstration just last night. No burns, no problems.
A couple of points: 1) the lasers AirFiber uses are actually very inexpensive - similar to those used in writable CD ROMs. 2) Laser beams can penetrate thick fog, under shorter distances. AirFiber designs their networks individually for each city. A high-fog area, such as San Diego, San Francisco and London, would require shorter links, such as 200 meters. Under these types of distances, AirFiber can guarantee 99.999% availability (that's about 5 minutes of downtime per year). 3) The phenom. that you're describing is called "solar loading" and is very typical, especially on tall buildings - wind is also a problem. Throughout the day, buildings move - sometimes several feet. AirFiber has developed an automatic tracking mechanism that keeps the beams alligned at all times. 4) Cost - the AirFiber equipment is slated to be about 1/10 the cost of installing fiber and much less expensive than LMDS, which requires a ton of capital just for licensing and currently provides a fourth of the speed (at best).
Actually - if a pigeon flies through the beam, there would be no loss of signal for the end user. The network has a redundant "mesh" design. There are multiple paths to each node - much like how the military desinged the Internet as to ensure reliability should one path be interrupted. If a pigeon blocks one beam, then the signal is rerouted via other nearby nodes to the destination node. (Besides, even if a pigeon flew through a beam in older point-to-point applications, there would not be a total loss of download, only a several milisecond delay of transmission. No data would be lost.) Also - this network is designed for urban areas and AirFiber promises carrier-class, five nines (99.999%) reliability. The goal is to sell the equipment to CLECs, and most won't even touch equipment that doesn't meet those standards.