gigaom - Wow, we’re not even deploying 4G wireless broadband networks yet and ICT Results, an organization that aims to publicize European research, is already pushing the next wireless leap with research promoting millimeter wave technology, also known as microwave photonics.
It’s not as foreign as it sounds. Readers of this blog are familiar with a variation on this technology, known as 60 GHz, which underlies the WirelessHD high-definition video transfer standard. It’s also a technology being discussed by the IEEE for high throughput Wi-Fi. The millimeter-wave band is in the extremely high frequency part of the radio spectrum, from 30 to 300 GHz. It’s a relatively empty band, which is good, but its difficult to make cost-effective semiconductor radios to send and deliver information over this spectrum.
Now, a European research effort is promoting millimeter wave for delivering 12.5 Gbps (note the G for Gigabits here) on telecommunications networks. The ICT Results post says millimeter wave technology has delivered those speeds over “short- to medium-range wireless spans,” but there’s no mention of how far in miles (or kilometers, I suppose) those spans measure. This is an early effort, but one we’ll keep an eye on.
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