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Europe Is Testing 12.5 Gbps Wireless
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Mar 16, 2009 04:01 AM
from the not-to-be-confused-with-iphone-hack dept.
from the not-to-be-confused-with-iphone-hack dept.
Lorien_the_first_one brings word that in Europe, a breakthrough for post-4G communications has been announced. A public-private consortium known as IPHOBAC has been developing new communications technology that is near commercialization now. Quoting: "With much of the mobile world yet to migrate to 3G mobile communications, let alone 4G, European researchers are already working on a new technology able to deliver data wirelessly up to 12.5Gb/s. The technology — known as 'millimeter-wave' or microwave photonics — has commercial applications not just in telecommunications (access and in-house networks) but also in instrumentation, radar, security, radio astronomy and other fields."
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fp (Score:5, Funny)
Im already using it. Its awesome.
Take the stairs? Take the elevator? (Score:4, Funny)
When we look at how far behind the American wireless industry is compared to the overseas systems, it's not always correct to simply look at the current status. It's much more important to look at the growth over time, because it is only when you do that do you realize that the American system is keeping pace with European and Asian cellular systems.
Yes, at any particular moment in time the American system may seem far behind, but at some point we do upgrade to the latest and greatest. It just takes a lot more time to decide which version of the latest and greatest we will implement.
So it's much more like taking an elevator to go from one floor to another here in the US. We don't bother with every individual step in between and we get to the same place as the stair-climbers eventually too.
Re:Take the stairs? Take the elevator? (Score:5, Funny)
We don't bother with every individual step in between and we get to the same place as the stair-climbers eventually too.
Meanwhile, Japanese are upset because they're getting throttled to 900 Gb upload a month [slashdot.org]. Awful slow elevator, that. Notice how this was 8 months ago.
Parent
Re:Take the stairs? Take the elevator? (Score:5, Interesting)
Your analogy would make more sense if America were making big leaps every few years in communication tech. However, just looking at the internet alone, so many people are still left with dial-up and will be there indefinitely while others here have Verizon Fios, the other side of the residential spectrum. Now, the old argument is population density one, but I feel that is a dead horse in many ways, with communities in Europe (Sweden) with comparable or lower density getting top notch speeds. Hell, just look at the gauge of wire for electricity that get to the super high % amount of population except the most, most remote, and also being able to provide telephone service for those same people too - and then tell me laying fiber optic is too expensive.
The only time I saw Verizon move in my area to provide better service the last 10 years (Fios) was when comcast started offering voip phone service (they already have a strong cable internet following). Suddenly Verizon felt threatened. But otherwise they stayed slothful, providing as little service as possible while extracting the greatest price. They only moved when they felt threatened (how Verizon shat itself and went to court when Philadelphia proposed ubiquitous wireless internet). It seems that way with many of the monopolies. Hell, even regular old cellular service is abysmal in this country once you go past the population centers of the east and west coast. Nevermind cellular data service.
Which is too bad. So much of the internet is really hampered by the traditional view of it being on the desktop. In a stationary place. The notebook boom coupled with WiFi spots moved to alleviate that but it really isn't on the go yet. The iPhone was probably the first mainstream product but service is still very expensive and no matter what you choose, pretty slow. Just as the internet was the killer app of the last 20 years, changing how we live; cheap, relatively speedy, ubiquitous wireless internet would probably be the next killer app the next 20 years.
Parent
Re:Take the stairs? Take the elevator? (Score:4, Funny)
Too bad if you live in Australia. :(
Parent
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yeh, we just get stuff that doesn't break from fire, floods, wildlife, trees... the list goes on.
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The problem as I see it with all these "they are faster than us" studies is the assumption that customers want the more expensive, faster solution in rural areas. I live in a rural state and can tell you that most here don't give a shit about speed and look more at the price because they tend to be poorer than the city dwellers. You can have a service that offers faster than light speed but if it costs an arm, leg and your first born, then people won't bite. Add to that the fact that most rural America sees
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Add to that the fact that most rural America sees a higher price because it is ... usually dominated by a single monopoly ... and there is your reason uptake is slow out here in the boonies.
This is the PP's point. :)
Re:Take the stairs? Take the elevator? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Fry (Score:2, Interesting)
- 10 thousands satellites beaming down their TV programmes and GPS coordinates
- 1 thousand TV stations beaming up their programmes (that's very high power)
- 500 millions of cordless phone handsets (frequencies anyone ?)
- 100 millions cordless keyboards and mice (ranging from 40MHz to 2.4GHz)
- 2 billions cellphones and millions of related cellular-comms-towers
- billions of wi-fi connections from portable phones, laptops, VoIP,
Re:Fry (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
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Most of us bathe...
Speak for yourself, mate.
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Most of us bathe...
Speak for yourself, mate.
Good to see the English (1) are represented on slashdot.
1) By English, I mean English.
The Scotts, Welsh, North Irish, Cornish, Manx, Jersey islanders etc - all know what a shower is.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaah, I love the smell of reverse racism in the morning (or any time of day really).
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The Isle of Man, Jersey Islands etc. are not in the United Kingdom.
Also, when comparing the cleanliness of of different regions of the UK, I invite you to consider this link [bbc.co.uk].
Guess where I live :P.
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Yeah, washing your hands after taking a dump is for queers!
Re:Fry (Score:5, Informative)
You're talking crap.
Whilst IR photons have a higher energy than microwaves, so do visible light photons.
On the other hand, opacity and absorbtion of various human tissues, is a complex relationship with wavelength.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It is all about how people perceive risks and fail to consider them rationally. A bit of a similar example is how a number of people are up in arms about the rates of violent crime, and are willing to sacrifice their liberties and privacy if the government merely suggests it might perhaps help, yet consider the prospect o
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If only Gutenberg had known what a weapon he was creating...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't see how photons of lower energy could be causing us problems.
And so the question inevitably arises:
Do you in fact know enough about photons and radiation for your failure to see any problems to imply with any degree of probability that there are no problem problem?
Or should our conclusion be simply "no, you don't, do you?".
Your implicit assumption that higher energy photons are universally more dangerous than lower energy photons would seem to speak for the latter.
Re:Fry (Score:5, Informative)
Your implicit assumption that higher energy photons are universally more dangerous than lower energy photons would seem to speak for the latter.
This has been experimentally verified in experiments on the photoelectric effect [wikipedia.org]. Indeed, Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1921 "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect" (emphasis mine; notice that Einstein did not win the prize "because of relativity", as many would assume). Below a certain energy level per photon, nothing happens no matter how intense the light. Above the threshold, something happens (with the rate dependent on the intensity of the light).
Of course, thermal warming can also happen. In recent years, microwave-assisted organic synthesis was a big fad. But the most careful studies have demonstrated that the so-called "microwave effect" is simple thermal heating in all known cases, and despite theoretical explanations for why a non-thermal microwave effect might exist (going so far as to predict the types of reactions for which the largest effect might be found) and papers claiming the discovery of such effects, effects seen to date are purely thermal. See this J Org Chem paper [acs.org]. Any effect we see from a cell phone in the pocket would appear to be the same effect as simply warming our thigh a miniscule bit.
Parent
Re:Resonance (Score:5, Informative)
A resonant process is one in which the photon has the right energy to trigger a particular transition. Ionising radiation (UV, x-rays, etc.) works by a resonant process, and depends on the quantum of radiation having enough energy to eject an electron from the molecule. As you go down in energy from there, you have enough energy per photon to resonantly electronically excite molecules (visual light, used in the eyes to detect light) or vibrationally excite (IR), or down at the bottom, to rotationally (microwave), and then translationally excite molecules.
Correspondingly, it gets harder and harder to cause any chemistry with those photons. It's trivial to break up a molecule by shifting its electrons around or ejecting them altogether, or to a lesser extent it's possible to chop something up by exciting a particular molecular stretching vibration such that the bond(s) dissociate(s). However it's a serious challenge to cleave a bond with a rotational excitation alone.
So, how could a microwave do any chemistry, and thus damage, to your tissues? It's a simple thermal process. When you rotationally excite a molecule, in the gas phase, the molecule, or part of it, changes its rotational motion in some way. There are couplings between rotational and vibrational motions, and upwards to electronic excitations. In the solution or solid phase, there are also couplings to the translational motion of the molecules, meaning that ultimately the energy from the microwave can end up speeding up the molecule's motion, which is plain old heating.
So the energy you dump in with the microwaves becomes "thermalised", spreading over the whole range of states evenly, with a pretty huge chunk of it going into heating up the material. That heat lets you do old-fashioned collision-activated chemistry. What the anti-EM movement don't want you to think about is that this thermal process is entirely dependent on your exposure. It's like standing next to a furnace. A foot away, you're toast. Six feet away, you're warm. One hundred feet away, you don't know it exists.
In summary, it is not possible for radio to cause you thermal damage because the exposure is simply too low. No non-thermal, resonant process for damage has been shown to exist, and trivial physical chemistry makes it clear that one probably never will be found.
Parent
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It depends what you mean by "no chance". Nothing we've learnt scientifically to date suggests this would cause cancer. Of course that doesn't mean there is "no chance" since we may learn something new that does suggest it would cause cancer.
And if you retreat to the position that something must create absolutely zero risk to be worth doing, then absolutely nothing is safe enough for you. Going out in the sun and breathing carry a risk of causing cancer.
From our current understanding, there is absolutely no
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It's the reason why a microwave oven is tuned to 2.4GHz, as that is the frequency at which water molecules, including those in your body, resonate.
Water doesn't have a sharp absorption peak, and 2.4GHz is in fact picked to NOT absorb too efficiently. At some frequencies water would absorb the radiation so well that only the outermost layer of food would be heated.
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It's the reason why a microwave oven is tuned to 2.4GHz
No, it's not. You can use just about any frequency for RF heating. The reason 2.4GHz is used is because it's cheap and easy to make cavity magnetrons that produce a hell of a lot of power in a compact package, and 2.4GHz has a very wide ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) band where no licence is required. They need quite a wide band, because the magnetrons aren't very stable and drift a lot.
You could make a UHF "microwave" oven using the 433MH
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That's right - stay the heck out of the Amateur radio bands! We've got specially-resonant pitchforks ready, just in case. 8-) The 433 MHz ISM band is supposedly available in region 2 only [wikipedia.org], which does not include the US. Also, it's not listed in CFR Title 47, Part 18 [gpo.gov].
There's an exception for Part 15 devices to use 433-434 MHz [gpo.gov], but that's for shipping container ID devices only.
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Dear sir:
I wish to protest in the strongest possible terms your implication that there is a health hazard from using 4G communication devices. Many of my friends use them and only a few have had their heads explode.
Sincerely, Brig. Gen. Brian O'Connell (Scanner). P.S. And don't call me baby
did anyone read the summary and think (Score:2)
"Smooth move, Ex-Lax!"
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Yeah, as soon as I connected "millimetre" & "radar". I wonder how long the thread can go without actually mentioning the book & the author. /me gets his glass knife ready.
Yikes, you can't compare this to 4G (Score:5, Insightful)
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<sarcasm>Well I am truly sorry that someone outside the US is trying to do research. I'll stop mine immediately and wait for our benevolent super power for life to do the research and give me what I need. I'll just be over in this cave eating raw animals. I wouldn't want to be the reason for another US "bashing".
</sarcasm>
This post was tagged to comply with the Sarcasm-impaired Aid Directive (SAD)
Sorry you didn't get the point (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Sorry you didn't get the point (Score:5, Funny)
You're missing the point.
We don't need another clueless USA bashing headline.
Europe Is Testing 12.5 Gbps Wireless
What exactly could be done to the headline to mollify you?
Godless Communists in Europe Testing Unwholesome, Anti-Family Services
This is not a criticism of America, though the comments make some still-valid criticisms of US telecoms services.
Parent
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There are multiple problems with this statement.
1. "Europe" isn't doing the research, some European researchers are.
2. It's not a valid comparison of technologies.
You're making it sound like I'm bashing Europe when I've said no such thing. Europe (along with the US and many other countries produces very good research. I didn't even mention godlessness
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Well, with that kind of grasp of satire at least we know for sure that you're American.
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great....overage-city in no time. (Score:3, Funny)
12.5Gbps which means 1.5625GBps and the data transfer limits we have in the states here, it will take 3.2 seconds to be in overage-city.
Hmmm...isn't that faster than a Porsche's or Ferrari's 0 to 60 speed?
[sarcasm]The good thing is....it'll be at least 5 years since they have it in Europe until we have it here[/sarcasm]
Whoa, This Can Be Big (Score:2, Interesting)
Imagine no more ISPs. Netflix can stop throttling. Computers only need RAM and boot from the cloud.
Will my 4G Google phone need a small power station or will a standard adapter do?
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I swear that could be a mantra for some new geek religion...
I for one (Score:4, Funny)
welcome our new 12.5Gbps brain tumor inducing overlords
wrong link in article (Score:4, Informative)
the correct link is http://www.ist-iphobac.org/ [ist-iphobac.org], not http://www.iphobac-survey.org/ [iphobac-survey.org]
Association with 3G misleading (Score:5, Informative)
Death of Cable (Score:2)
This technology could drive all the nails in the coffin lid for cable TV. At these download speeds one could download all of the programs for all of these channels in a minute or two. The only reason for further contact that day would be news updates. Of course we will need some type of hard drive arrangement that can record 12.5Gps..
IPHOBAC (Score:3, Funny)
Fear of Anonymous Cowards is a serious issue. They should get help.
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At 30-300 Ghz wireless toasts you!
Not if there is a wall between you and the transmitter though.
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Wouldn't that be actually a good thing from the safety point of view? That would mean it has very bad depth penetration, and if it damages anything, it'll be the most easily replaceable part of the body. It's also one full of nerves, so you're likely to notice that something's wrong soon enough. Something that penetrates deeper could quietly cook the brain instead. While I'd certainly prefer neither, if I have to pick one, I'd certain