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Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

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Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#81

Post by sorokod »

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #41

I'm low key afraid that this stuff is gonna get popular for .mil usage. Line of sight free space optics can be immune to many many forms of jamming. Its usage dots the sci books I've read over the years, but almost always for scary reasons. Here's the Navy today announcing work on AirBorne System for Optical Relay and Broadcast (ABSORB), a (for now) low-cost prototype one-to-many (I maybe mis-inferring what multi-acc…

Something similar was available since the previous century for ship to ship communications where there is a line of sight.

Such communications can't be intercepted or triangulated.

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#82

Post by jampekka »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #57
refulgentis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting at 36 to look back at what I think would disrupt connectivity a decade ago: - Google Fiber (it wasn't possible to do it cheaper than incumbents, so it devolved to standard incumbent x why would 40% margin company invest billions to get Comcast's peak profit margin of ~15% profit) - Starry Internet (too expensive to build out, I have it and it's good, but the company certainly didn't scale) - 5G in ge…

The key breakthrough for 5G was allowing ~10x the number of devices to connect to a node compared to 4G. 5G is what allowed the toppling of data caps that was by far the #1 consumer complaint for years. 4G just couldn't handle heavy loads well, so data caps were needed to constrain demand. Teleco's aren't going to say this out load, but it's the real reason why they were so celebratory about 5G, despite it coming off…

> 4G just couldn't handle heavy loads well, so data caps were needed to constrain demand.

In many parts of the world uncapped data has been the norm since around GPRS.

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#83

Post by walrus01 »

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #41

I'm low key afraid that this stuff is gonna get popular for .mil usage. Line of sight free space optics can be immune to many many forms of jamming. Its usage dots the sci books I've read over the years, but almost always for scary reasons. Here's the Navy today announcing work on AirBorne System for Optical Relay and Broadcast (ABSORB), a (for now) low-cost prototype one-to-many (I maybe mis-inferring what multi-acc…

Free space optics were attempted extensively in the ISP space 15, 20 years ago for FDD 1 Gbps links at short distances roof to roof in major metro areas, they're EXTREMELY vulnerable to falling over in rain/snow conditions, and path length limitations, compared to 71 to 86 GHz millimeter wave (using a 2000 MHz wide FDD channel going each way in a high/low split). I'm very skeptical.

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#84

Post by walrus01 »

light_triad wrote: post #17

Apparently the biggest problems are line of sight interruptions and cost: > The team has figured out how to compensate for potential line-of-sight interruptions like bird flights, rain, and wind. (Fog is the biggest impediment) > “It’s fast and reliable but quite expensive.” He says he spent around $30,000 for the last light bridge setup he bought from Alphabet for testing. Interesting that Meta was working on simila…

$30,000 is quite nuts when you can buy a 71 to 86 GHz band, 10 Gbps full duplex radio bridge for under $6000 today. And it'll likely not completely collapse and fail to link at 1.2 km in moderate rain.

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#85

Post by reaperducer »

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #41

I'm low key afraid that this stuff is gonna get popular for .mil usage. Line of sight free space optics can be immune to many many forms of jamming. Its usage dots the sci books I've read over the years, but almost always for scary reasons. Here's the Navy today announcing work on AirBorne System for Optical Relay and Broadcast (ABSORB), a (for now) low-cost prototype one-to-many (I maybe mis-inferring what multi-acc…

I'm low key afraid that this stuff is gonna get popular for .mil usage.

They've probably had it for decades. Laser communication was being used by commercial TV stations in the U.S. in the 1990's. WNBC-TV in New York used a laser to transmit video from its Manhattan skyline camera in New Jersey back to 30 Rock.

I have a vague notion that it didn't work great in all weather conditions, but it was a long time ago.

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#86

Post by walrus01 »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #60
standardUser wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implication being that you know more about this technology than then people building it and funding it.

At one point we bought a fancy (for the time) microwave link to cover a distance of about 3km. We specifically asked whether it would be affected by weather conditions. We were assured multiple times in the most confident of terms that it would not be a problem, the technology was tested and such eventualities accounted for with various features and failsafes. The thing proceeded to go down every time it rained, and…

By the way you say you "bought a fancy microwave link" it sounds like you were bamboozled by the vendor. Exactly what manufacturer, model of radios, antenna configuration and other configuration was this that failed to work in rain?

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#88

Post by pdabbadabba »

culi wrote: post #21
fsh wrote: post #15

This section from the marketing blurb doesn't sound too promising: When atmospheric conditions disrupt the light, our adaptive rate and hybrid architecture maintains the connection, with minimal downtime. In the long run, all these wireless technologies (satellite or optical/microwave terrestrial links) will have a very hard time competing with simply laying down some optical fiber.

That's not the market they're going for though. They're more of a competitor to Starlink There's also obvious applications to places where weather is more predictable. There's plenty of areas and small towns in the Great Basin region that have basically no internet. This would be a quick and easy way to set those places up with internet with more reliability than something like starlink

But why would these not be places already served by terrestrial wireless internet service providers? It seems like it would be much easier and generally more attractive to serve locations like this using, for example, 5 GHz.

Normally, the lack of (near) line-of-sight is one of the biggest limiting to those sorts of deployments, but that would also have to be solved for any place being served with FSO.

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#89

Post by walrus01 »

culi wrote: post #21
fsh wrote: post #15

This section from the marketing blurb doesn't sound too promising: When atmospheric conditions disrupt the light, our adaptive rate and hybrid architecture maintains the connection, with minimal downtime. In the long run, all these wireless technologies (satellite or optical/microwave terrestrial links) will have a very hard time competing with simply laying down some optical fiber.

That's not the market they're going for though. They're more of a competitor to Starlink There's also obvious applications to places where weather is more predictable. There's plenty of areas and small towns in the Great Basin region that have basically no internet. This would be a quick and easy way to set those places up with internet with more reliability than something like starlink

a point to point terrestrial bridge large piece of equipment that costs $5,000+, needs a professional to install it, and works on either free space optics or V-band or E-band radio is not in any way a competitor to starlink. It's more a place to take a 1 to 10 Gbps ethernet connection as a link between two towers or roofs that can 'see' each other as an alternative to where laying fiber may be cost prohibitive or would take too long to build (or both).

Assuming this thing doesn't utterly fail in rain at a moderate distance, this would be something you use to feed a POP which then redistributes service to end users by some totally other technology (5/6 GHz band PTMP radio system, GPON, XGSPON, G.fast on copper, docsis3/docsis3.1, etc)

Re: Alphabet spins out Taara – Internet over lasers

#90

Post by charliebwrites »

umvi wrote: post #80
jauntywundrkind wrote: post #41

I'm low key afraid that this stuff is gonna get popular for .mil usage. Line of sight free space optics can be immune to many many forms of jamming. Its usage dots the sci books I've read over the years, but almost always for scary reasons. Here's the Navy today announcing work on AirBorne System for Optical Relay and Broadcast (ABSORB), a (for now) low-cost prototype one-to-many (I maybe mis-inferring what multi-acc…

> Line of sight free space optics can be immune to many many forms of jamming The most powerful weapons on earth already are immune to jamming. ICBMs use celestial navigation (pictures of the stars) to course-correct, which is a form of navigation you cannot jam.

Damn guess we have to blow up the stars

…you know, for defense

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