Internet World Wireless 2001
Fixed Wireless Opportunities Forum, Page 2

Tellaire Brings Military Lasers to the Internet
Pete Rustan is the co-founder of Tellaire, a manufacturer of Free Space Optics (FSO).

According to this NASA website, Dr. Pedro (Pete) Rustan was a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Air Force, where he worked on special projects such as the Clementine deep space mission. His affiliation is listed as BMDO—the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.

Rustan said that laser light operates at a frequency 10,000 times that of radio, which means that laser's footprint is 1/10,000 that of radio, making it inappropriate for broadcasting. Since radio waves are millimeters in size, rain, which is also that size, interferes with the RF Internet. Laser light is microns in size, and fog droplets, which are also microns in size, interfere with laser light.

The highest risk of fog is around 8 AM on any day. Laser can penetrate fog to twice the distance the human eye can see. By itself, Rustan calculates that laser technology has an average availability in the United States of 99.91% (depending on the occurrence of fog). He calculates that a 1 GB/sec laser service with a 10 MB/sec RF backup has a 99.99% availability, with degraded service when the RF link is used.

The price of light
A pair of lasers (two lasers make up one link) weigh 15 to 20 lbs. each, and are portable. A pair of OC-3 [definition] lasers could cost about $10,000 and a pair of OC-12 lasers could cost $20,000. Modern lasers should last about six years before needing to be replaced.

The real cost of a laser link is the recurring costs of rooftop rights and the one-time cost of installation. Lasers can also be installed in offices, pointing out a window, in which case the recurring cost is the price of the office space.

Rustan said that the true opportunities of laser are where fiber cannot go: instant deployments from carrier POPs to large buildings, making connections across lakes or over Federal land, and in other short laser mile solutions. "A 50 meter connection is a better opportunity for us than a five mile connection," Rustan said.

Endwave Corporation is Researching TeraHertz Radios
Endwave Corporation makes transceiver (transmitter/receiver) systems for outdoor radios.

"I'm here to talk about TeraHertz radios," said Doug Lockie, Executive Vice President of Endwave, "they don't exist yet."

Follow the Ethernet road
"I'm fascinated by the success of Ethernet," said Lockie, implying that the standards group that worked on Ethernet had done things right, while the emerging 802.16 standard for broadband radio (in the 2 GHz to 66 GHz range) is not progressing smoothly.

Ethernet, claimed Lockie, has been successful because of its price. While an ATM switch could cost $250,000, similar Ethernet equipment would cost about $20,000. While ATM systems require interface cards, most computers come with Ethernet cards already installed. In the year 2000, seven million Ethernet LANs were sold.

But, even though Ethernet technology will improve, and speeds will increase, Lockie claimed that Ethernet won't be fast enough. If next-generation computing demands that the CPU access RAM at processor speed, then connections will have to be faster. Already, because the bus speed of the CPU lags the processor speed, a significant proportion of any CPU contains memory. If that memory could be offloaded, the CPU could speed up. The current generation of 1.x GHz Intel processors could run at 5 GHz.

True broadband
"For these purposes," said Lockie, "broadband is anything over 1Gb/second. If I need to download a 7 Gb file, a 256 Kb/sec connection will take over seven hours. The 7 Gb file could be a 90 minute video, the file that describes a methane molecule for biotech engineers, or a fully-loaded install of Microsoft Office."

TeraHertz radios would be able to deliver the same bandwidth as laser. Dual mode communications (combining laser and TeraHertz radios) would deliver reliable Gb/sec communications. TeraHertz radios operate at very high frequencies between, say, 94 GHz and 220 GHz, where bandwidth is available.

The ten-mile-high radio tower
Lockie concluded by mentioning another project he's been working on, the HaloSTAR airplane (see http://www.broadband.com/ or http://www.halostar.com/). The HaloSTAR is a High Altitude Long Operation (HALO) airplane piloted by humans. Its jet engines are mounted above the wing rather than below it so that a radio can be mounted under the airplane, creating a virtual 10 mile tower for the radio. Endwave would supply a radio engine for a collection of radios broadcasting over 100 beams at 1 Gb/sec each (one beam per radio).

Conclusion
We are slouching toward George Gilder's predicted telecosm, where bandwidth is freely available. Until that day, however, bandwidth will be valuable, and those who sell it and the services related to it will have a resource that is in demand, both in times of plenty and in lean times.

—End

   

Related articles:
	[Oct. 13, 2000]	Optical Wireless Alternative
	[July 27, 2000]	Laser Wireless — the Next Big Thing?

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