Facebook Demonstrates 20 Gbps Millimeter Wireless Broadband

Megalith

Megalith

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I have no clue how this millimeter-wave stuff really works, but any fresh take on fast wireless deserves interest. The goal of all of this is to provide connectivity to areas with problems such as unreliable power sources, so they have some interesting challenges to deal with such as powering wireless links solely with solar panels.

Earlier this year we tested a terrestrial point-to-point link in Southern California, and are excited to announce that we’ve demonstrated a record data rate of nearly 20 Gbps over 13 km with MMW technology. Using a set of custom-built components, the team achieved this milestone with only 105 watts of total direct current (DC) power consumption at the transmitter and receiver. The transmission used a bandwidth of 2 GHz, resulting in an overall spectral efficiency of 9.8 bits per second per Hertz. To put this in perspective, our demonstrated capacity is enough data to stream almost 1,000 ultra-high-definition videos at the same time.
 
They are partnering with Siklu for a majority of these devices. I'm actually neck deep in deploying Siklu throughout a bar district as part of a security project for the city I live in. After that we will be using Siklu to replace the existing wireless and wired network for the city's backbone/IT communications. It's pretty awesome (and cheap) stuff.
 
The actual bandwidth isn't the issue here, it's how much electricity is consumed to achieve that bandwidth. This is because their solar powered UAV has a limited amount of power available to maintain that p-2-p link so it can redirect it to ground stations. Google is attempting something similar using balloons for their Project Loon.

I don't see using this technology for used for us normal ground individuals in the US, but it would be cool if they could use it for airlines. Gigabit speeds on a transcontinental flights would be nice.
 
Not to go all tinfoil here, but I wonder about the long-term effects; a 'don't stand too close to the microwave'-type thing.
 
Adding to the tinfoil being tossed about- I wonder how many bee's died as a result of their "testing"? LOL ... or maybe not so much "LOL" and more "WTF"?!
 
To put this in perspective: " our demonstrated capacity is enough data to stream almost 1,000 ultra-high-definition videos at the same time... Badly. Increase the bandwidth, but keep the crappy low bit rates which were a joke back in the SD era. Yay, progress...
 
Millimeter wave is terrible for any sort of long range data transfer. It's easily attenuated by the atmosphere.
 
I guess even more Indian scammers can now have access to internet. The good side is that Facebook probably requires you to have a login to their spy network in order to use this service so the scammers get scammed.
 
The math there at the end seems very wrong. At 1bit per pixel (extreme quality loss) you could send 1 frame in 8Mbit or 200Mbit/s or 100 streams. By their math each bit represents 10 pixels, basically SD quality here at extreme compression. Also these are point to point links according to siklu so you can't exactly provide a populous with internet, only a single receiver which in turn has use regular radio/wireless to deploy to the locals adding even more power cost and complexity. Why not just run a cable? Hell we've run cables across the freaking Atlantic.
 
Nothing magic about millimeter wave. It's just very high frequency microwave signals. "a carrier frequency between 30 GHz and 300 GHz" Just like how WirelessHD is 60Ghz. Like Grahamkracka said, rain, trees, even heavy fog will be a problem. Pretty much any obstruction will attenuate the signal. At those high frequencies, it's line-of-sight. You'll have to have antennas mounted on the outside of your home/business for this to work.

To the tin foil hatters, nothing to worry about. By the time the signal get to the ground, you are talking micro or nano watts. Or signal a few MILLION times SMALLER that the transmitter in your cell phone.

BP
 
Grahamkracka said:
Millimeter wave is terrible for any sort of long range data transfer. It's easily attenuated by the atmosphere.
Click to expand...

Around 60 GHz yes, air molecules can attenuate it. However, just above it to around 100 Ghz it's not that bad, it's about the same attenuation microwave radio gets. Rain is still a problem but it shouldn't completely block it. It's pretty much is going to be used in rural areas, and point to point connections in urban areas anyways.
 
Ryokurin said:
Around 60 GHz yes, air molecules can attenuate it. However, just above it to around 100 Ghz it's not that bad, it's about the same attenuation microwave radio gets. Rain is still a problem but it shouldn't completely block it. It's pretty much is going to be used in rural areas, and point to point connections in urban areas anyways.
Click to expand...
94 GHz would be the sweet spot when you get above 60. Attenuation spikes again at 120 GHz and then again at 200. Beyond that is not really even worth talking about in this. Their best bet would be at 35 Ghz or so...but that's where Ka band radars sit so that's pretty much a deal killer (Same goes for W band radars in the mid 90 range).
 
Prisoner849 said:
Not to go all tinfoil here, but I wonder about the long-term effects; a 'don't stand too close to the microwave'-type thing.
Click to expand...

It's non-ionizing radiation, just like cell phone radio signals, so there should be no issue.

Even so, you don't have to wait for this technology by Facebook to put on your tinfoil hat. The body scanners at airports that are built by L3 use millimeter wave (60GHz) to look through your clothes!
 
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