Fiber Optic Speed Without the Fiber
from the wow dept
It was a big surprise when Dan Hesse (President of AT&T Wireless - and a guy who I once accidentally insulted to his face) left his job at AT&T to go to TeraBeam last week, but as more details come out about their product it sounds pretty cool. They just announced that they're creating high speed networking technology, that will carry fiber-optic quality bandwidth, without the fiber. So, it's going to transmit via light. I'm going to remain skeptical until I see it, but if they can do what they say, that's pretty impressive. Transmitting by light would seem to cause all sorts of problems, since (in my very weak understanding of these things) I would think you'd need to have a clear line-of-sight from one transmission point to the next. I have trouble seeing that as a robust system. I hope they have a good solution, though.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
LIGHT SPEED [warp transmission]
I came up with idea .....few weeks ago. [did not wear my alimunium foil hat]....
But....anyways...., yes, line of sight is OKAY!! That is fine, think of this use. Take an entire Quake LAN party....setup w/o wires...wow, fast. Outdoor use? Share a T1 with a 'LAN' with your neighbors. THAT would be cool. Take to wireless world....chat with football stadium people ....300 yards away. ....just a thought. You can beam video/mp3 ....that might be cool. Like from a stage...'beam' it out....and get updates..just a wide spectrum.....I have a few ideas....but, I am wearing my hat.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]