Alphabet wants to deliver Internet access via laser beams

Re:Alphabet wants to deliver Internet access via laser beams by sandworm101 on Friday December 15, 2017 @01:12PM (#15933767)

Be more pragmatic. It's about licensing. The microwave frequencies are licensed. Laser frequencies are not. Want to setup a network without first securing government permission, the obvious choice is laser. This is also a primary reason COPs switch to lasers for speed enforcement.

The bandwidth of individual connections is only half the equation, and largely irrelevant imho. What matters for the network is the lack of interference. Laser connections can spider across a city without real risk of contaminating one signal with another. So even if the point-to-point bandwidth is the same, the total potential bandwidth of the installed network will be much higher.

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Re:Alphabet wants to deliver Internet access via laser beams by oktobercrisis on Friday December 15, 2017 @02:08PM (#15934193)

There are a lot of microwave connections (E.G. 24Ghz, 5.7Ghz) that are in the unlicensed spectrum. We are using these extensively in our network. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISM_band

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Re:Alphabet wants to deliver Internet access via laser beams by sandworm101 on Friday December 15, 2017 @03:23PM (#15934766)

Unlicensed, but not unregulated. There are very detailed limitations on transmitter/antenna powers in those areas, limitations that are very country-specific. The rules for laser, where they exist, are more akin to "don't burn our people's eyes".

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Re:Alphabet wants to deliver Internet access via laser beams by ethagknight on Friday December 15, 2017 @02:33PM (#15934369)

I feel like licensing is even less pragmatic than technological capability and limitation. Ubiquiti's 2.4ghz and 5ghz 'air fiber' radios are approved for use in India, license free, and those spectrums are license free under certain requirements. There is no difference between laser and microwave devices for in this use case, except that laser has higher speed but lower persistence in line of site. https://community.ubnt.com/t5/airFiber/Airfiber-in-India/m-p...

EDIT: maybe a missing detail is that “AirFiber” and similar products are point to point comm devices. So each pair of AirFiber units is a 1.2+ gbps link, same as a laser set up. You may be confusing with an alternate PtMP radio setup.

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Re:Alphabet wants to deliver Internet access via laser beams by slovette on Saturday December 16, 2017 @12:36AM (#15937935)

No. Plenty of Spectrum and more will eventually be available.

This is about public ear. We all want to hear about some magic tech saving our internet’s ass. It’s not going to happen.

The solve is in the change of business models of ISPs, not in the tech that brings it to doorsteps.

We have the tech, we need a shift in how these companies make money.

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