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Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by hilbert42 on Sunday July 16, 2023 @12:25PM (#36748705)
Why such a puny speed?
Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by coltonweaver on Sunday July 16, 2023 @12:38PM (#36748874)
The theoretical limit of WiFi 6E is 2,500Mbps: https://www.highspeedinternet.com/resources/wi-fi-6-vs-wifi-...

This would be nearly 4X that.

Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by hilbert42 on Sunday July 16, 2023 @01:38PM (#36749580)
Perhaps so, but this new standard reminds me of the born-dead USB1 standard, which at the time of its launch was so slow as to be almost useless.

This new optical standard is only about 50% faster than the now-ancient copper SATA standard of 6Gbps. It has stuff-all reserve for future development!

Every time we have one of these new standards, Wi-Fi whatever, they are just a bit above the previous standard and never at the limits of the tech. There is never enough reserve to give them decent longevity. It's as if those manufacturers involved in setting standards were making a standard that would be quickly obsolescent—that is, they'd guarantee ongoing production/sales without much effort.

It's been such a consistent problem for so long that it has shades of the Phoebus cartel about it. As always, the user ends up paying more because of premature (planned) obsolescence.

Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by supertrope on Sunday July 16, 2023 @01:44PM (#36749665)
Electronics is an extremely cost conscious industry. There's not a viable market for massive jumps forward if the laptop would cost 10x. Approaching the Shannon Limit also is at odds with maximizing battery life. Recent Macbooks only have 2x2 MIMO. Presumably 3x3 MIMO used relatively too much power, space, or BOM.
Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by hilbert42 on Sunday July 16, 2023 @01:57PM (#36749786)
Fine but this is an optical standard, and if worried about power then automatic and or fixed limit throttling could remedy the problem.

The link sp332 has provided says it all, reckon it supports my case.

Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by fulafel on Sunday July 16, 2023 @03:24PM (#36750538)
IR is 0.3-100 THz, so the bands can be very wide and don't need to approach theoretical bandwidth efficiency limits to get lots of bits over, no?
Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by hilbert42 on Sunday July 16, 2023 @07:25PM (#36752431)
Right.
Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by yjftsjthsd-h on Sunday July 16, 2023 @02:40PM (#36750159)
It's not competing with SATA, it's competing with WiFi.
Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by hilbert42 on Sunday July 16, 2023 @07:36PM (#36752496)
OK, at the end of my WiFi I have a SATA or much faster drive (or any other data source) attached.

So the WiFi becomes the transport layer in the OSI model. It's the throughput data rate that matters not what type of device that's connected at either end of the link.

Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by zokier on Sunday July 16, 2023 @03:51PM (#36750788)
> This new optical standard is only about 50% faster than the now-ancient copper SATA standard of 6Gbps

you are surprised that free-space optical transfer over many(?) meters is "only" 50% faster than data transfer over <1m carefully constructed differential coax-pairs?

Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by Dylan16807 on Sunday July 16, 2023 @08:36PM (#36752828)
Sata is pretty far from careful, the 6Gbps rating is for one pair, and that was 15 years ago.
Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by eropple on Sunday July 16, 2023 @04:27PM (#36751093)
> It's been such a consistent problem for so long that it has shades of the Phoebus cartel about it.

Which wasn't what the general public thinks it is and, much like equating short-run in-device transports with lossy, room-distance ones, is a good signal that one is comparing apples and trailer trucks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb7Bs98KmnY

Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by dist-epoch on Sunday July 16, 2023 @12:32PM (#36748797)
It's faster than most computers wired Ethernet.
Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by Pet_Ant on Sunday July 16, 2023 @12:43PM (#36748945)
Well the speed is the speed of light, ideally this should have low latency. The datarate will be effected by how quickly you can turn on and off the light and that will have some limits.
Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by manmal on Sunday July 16, 2023 @01:00PM (#36749152)
Latency in WiFi comes from interference and contention (wait until other devices have finished sending; this has improved with Wifi6 AFAIK), and some other, probably less significant factors. Travel time of the signal through air should be the same.
Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by bragr on Sunday July 16, 2023 @12:49PM (#36749022)
As apposed to radio waves which also travel at the speed of light?
Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by bombela on Sunday July 16, 2023 @01:33PM (#36749527)
Light and radio waves are the same physical phenomenon. The difference is the frequency. Light is much much higher frequency than radio. Nuclear radiation are even higher frequency. Maximum throughput with maximum damage!
Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by sp332 on Sunday July 16, 2023 @01:14PM (#36749294)
The LiFi page claims much higher speeds. https://lifi.co/lifi-speed/
Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by hilbert42 on Sunday July 16, 2023 @01:51PM (#36749723)
Right, now look at this standard by comparison.
Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by zokier on Sunday July 16, 2023 @04:08PM (#36750925)
That 224GB/s figure is some serious bullshitting. For comparison, the fastest optical ethernet transfer over fiber is 800Gbps or 100GB/s, and even that is over 8 fiber pairs and still in-development tech. Claiming to do over twice of that in free-space with "common household LED light bulbs" is pretty ridiculous.
Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by hilbert42 on Sunday July 16, 2023 @08:00PM (#36752632)
224GB/s is unrealistically fast but 9Gb/s unacceptably slow. A compromise of 9GB/s would perhaps be reasonable. 1/25th the speed would be manageable.

"common household LED light bulbs" is pretty ridiculous." Likely so, but all we have to do for 9GB/s is to use the transmitters and receivers used in standard commercial fiber optics (or a suitable adaptation thereof) and we'd romp home.

Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by hulitu on Tuesday July 18, 2023 @02:52AM (#36768781)
> That 224GB/s figure is some serious bullshitting

It is the same for every new technology. It was the same with 4G, 5G.

In DE mobile operators do not offer HSPA at the same time with 4G so you cannot compare how crap the 4G is.

Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by fulafel on Sunday July 16, 2023 @02:01PM (#36749831)
People seem to be conditioned to the choppy and slow wifi speeds, so slower-than-Ethernet speeds can still sound appealing in comparison.
Re:Infrared may no longer be a punchline, as IEEE approves 9... by hilbert42 on Sunday July 16, 2023 @02:16PM (#36749970)
Right, I think conditioning is definitely part of it, but my point was (as I hinted elsewwhere) the move to optical would have allowed for a vastly better performance with little additional overhead.