By
SurabhAgrawal
Syntel
Private Limited
You are amaze to here that there is a
device at the top of each of the Trump towers in New York City, there's a new
type of wireless transmitter and receiver that can send and receive data at rates
of more than one gigabit per second.
This
system is called as 'WiFiber' by its creator, GigaBeam, a Virginia-based telecommunication
company. Although the technology is wireless, the company's approach --
high-speed data transferring across a point-to-point network -- is more of an
alternative to fiber optics, than to Wi-Fi or Wi-Max. It is suitable for huge
data transfer as well.
This kind
of point-to-point wireless technology could be used in situations where digging
fiber-optic trenches would disrupt an environment, their cost be prohibitive,
or the installation process take too long, as in extending communications
networks in cities, on battlefields, or after a disaster
Blasting
beams of data through free space is not a new idea. LightPointe and Proxim
Wireless also provide such services. What makes GigaBeam's technology different
is that it exploits a different part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Their
systems use a region of the spectrum near visible light, at terahertz
frequencies. Because of this, weather conditions in which visibility is
limited, such as fog or light rain, can hamper data transmission.
GigaBeam,
however, transmits at 71-76, 81-86, and 92-95 gigahertz frequencies, where
these conditions generally do not cause problems. Additionally, by using this
region of the spectrum, GigaBeam can outpace traditional wireless data delivery
used for most wireless networks
GigaBeam
can spend less time routing data, and more time delivering it. And because of
the directional nature of the beam, problems of interference, which plague more
spread-out signals at the traditional frequencies, are not likely; because the
tight beams of data will rarely, if ever, cross each other's paths, data
transmission can flow without interference, Wells says
Draw Backs
Although the emergence of a wireless
technology operating in the gigabits per second range is an advance, it does
not outperform current fiber-optic lines, which can still send data much faster.
Even with
its advances, though, Gigabeam faces the same problem as other point-to-point
technologies that iscreating a network with an unbroken sight line.
Setting
up GigaBeam link, which consists of a set of transmitting and receiving radios,
is very expensive as compared to other.
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