DailyDirt: Speedy Connections In The Future

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Who doesn't like a fast broadband connection? The faster, the better! The only problem seems to be that there are some capacity limits with current technology. Details, details. But what if there were some technologies that could vastly increase those capacity limits? There might be some awkward situations where fiber-based internet service wasn't as fast as a wireless connection. Perhaps ingrained data cap pricing tiers would still stick around? Here are just a few developments that could bring much faster broadband (someday, maybe). If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
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Filed Under: bell labs, broadband, copper, data cap, exaflood, fiber, oam, orbital angular momentum, wireless


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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2015 @ 6:15pm

    Fantastic work as always.

    Sheer fantasy.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2015 @ 6:18pm

    Re: Fantastic work as always.

    Heh, this setup unblocked for that one shot. We'll see if Masnick can continue to censor me.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2015 @ 6:23pm

    Re: Re: Fantastic work as always.

    OH, you didn't know Masnick censors? Yes, he's sneaky at that too.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2015 @ 6:32pm

    Now, here's an interesting item:

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    Roger Strong (profile), 23 Mar 2015 @ 7:50pm

    Re: Re: Fantastic work as always.

    Have you had the decency to thank him for giving you meaning and purpose in life?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. icon
    Ehud Gavron (profile), 23 Mar 2015 @ 9:01pm

    Begging the question

    Sorry, but if we're talking about speed, we're generally talking about "throughput" which is a function of bandwidth and latency.

    There is _NO_ necessary tradeoff between any element of the three. [The exception being geostationary or low-earth orbit satellites].

    Anyone who says "I can get you lots of bandwidth but you have to give up [anything including latency]" is lying.

    Anyone who says "I can give you lighting fast connections but you have to give up [something including bandwidth]" is lying.

    Throughput is what WE as human users of the Internet see. When you quantify it we know what we are buying. When some charlatan tells us there's a tradeoff -- the tradeoff involves that charlatan not selling us what he/she promised, and instead doing an oversell model and THEY are choosing to trade off one of the three.

    If you purchase good throughput, you'll have good throughput (bandwidth, latency, etc.)

    If you follow these charlatans' stories you will pay more for less. That's ok. It's the American way. Just don't confuse it with 'the reality of things'.

    E

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 24 Mar 2015 @ 12:15am

    I feel sorry for all the writers who invested so much of their time telling us over and over about how BPL would be The Next Big Thing in broadband.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 24 Mar 2015 @ 2:44am

    The real question is what good would those connection speeds be when at best there will still be stingy bandwidth caps (and therefore not make the most of otherwise blazing speed) and at worst doing just about anything that even mildly annoys the establishment would be illegal?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. icon
    Ninja (profile), 24 Mar 2015 @ 3:50am

    Extra bandwidth never hurts but I believe the future is about replacing copper with something better for communications. Maybe it's fiber idk. Still, on places where it may not be feasible or on the last mile it may be a cheaper alternative so such researches are very welcome.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. icon
    nasch (profile), 24 Mar 2015 @ 9:27am

    Wireless

    I didn't understand it all, but in the OAM story I saw mention of a 32GBps wireless link. That was only 2.5 meters, but even if it ends up being just a small fraction of that speed at long distances, it would still be a huge improvement.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. icon
    nasch (profile), 24 Mar 2015 @ 9:29am

    Re: Begging the question

    Just to be clear, you're saying there is such a thing as high speed low latency connections, right? That doesn't mean such a thing is always available on any given infrastructure.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. icon
    Ehud Gavron (profile), 24 Mar 2015 @ 9:34am

    32GBps...

    32GBps? Capital B for Bytes so x8 = 256Gbps? lol.

    > even if it ends up being just a small fraction of that speed at long distances, it would still be a huge improvement.

    A huge improvement over what?

    You can't use it.

    The fastest NIC you have is 1Gbps. The fastest home router NIC is 1Gbps. If you wanted to spend $5-$50K to get a Cisco Nexus 5000 or a Juniper MX-80 you can have 10Gbps links.

    There's *NOTHING* you can get that will support or use 32Gbps.

    It would not be a huge improvement. You're just a sucker for someone's marketing department that put stupid-big numbers in front of you.

    THROUGHPUT is what we humans care about. If you don't like big words it's "the web page loads super fast man." That's what we want.

    32Gbps? lol.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. icon
    nasch (profile), 24 Mar 2015 @ 9:57am

    Re: 32GBps...

    32GBps? Capital B for Bytes so x8 = 256Gbps? lol.

    Sounds nice, huh? No, that should have been a lower case b.

    A huge improvement over what?

    Over what we have today.

    You can't use it.

    We couldn't use HDTV broadcasts before we had HD TVs either. Couldn't use 4G before we had 4G devices. And so on, and so on. This would be no different.

    You're just a sucker for someone's marketing department

    Perhaps you didn't read the article (or even the summary of it?). This isn't marketing, it's research.

    32Gbps? lol.

    Exactly what many people have said about many technologies we now use daily. Will this be one of them? Beats me, but it sure sounds interesting, and I hope it goes well.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. icon
    John Fenderson (profile), 24 Mar 2015 @ 11:01am

    Re: Begging the question

    "Anyone who says "I can get you lots of bandwidth but you have to give up [anything including latency]" is lying."

    That's not true as an absolute statement. As an example, any parcel delivery service can be used as an extremely high bandwidth, extremely high latency network connection.

    As the old saying goes, don't underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CDs.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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