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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (6631)	3/12/2000 4:44:00 AM
From: axial	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Frank, Putting aside the questions of fried pigeons, atmospherics, sunshine, weather, low-e glass, not to mention what the landlord will allow, isn't there also a question of the efficiency of such a system? I'm referring here to the fact that most RF schemes are radial, or radial/dendritic; from what little I've seen, the TeraBeam concept would have to be dendritic, and hybrid dendritic at that. That is, in many urban environments, there are "islands" of skyscrapers; their population of the urban landscape is non-uniform. I am supposing that continuity would be maintained with wires or fiber; if not, then repeaters would be required, and these have their own set of problems. The efficiency that I'm speaking of is transactional; the mouse-click on the twentieth floor of some tower presumably has to make its way back to some central node, where it is processed, and the result returned to the originator. In a dendritic system the load at the trunk is cumulative, and oft-switched. Well, I guess that's not much different than conventional copper, but what happens to that 99.99% reliability after three atmospheric hops and two switches to fiber (twice)? As an old carpenter, I don't have a hundredth of the technical sophistication of many here; but the only way I can see this making much of a dent is a new insight into physics that will rival anything we've ever heard of. It will have to be something no one has previously imagined. I've seen panic-stricken posts on other (RF) fora asking if this is the end. I'm in the camp of the sceptics: if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is. I have a feeling that it's something more like the Transmeta initiative: not so much a change, as a re-ordering of things. The basic realities (and problems) will still be the same. OTOH, maybe that's why I'm a carpenter!

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (6631)	3/12/2000 12:20:00 PM
From: MikeM54321	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

"...you may then find that window washers,... Frank- Although it sounds silly, another thing I was wondering. Wouldn't it be a problem if a window washer accidently looked into the beam? And what about someone looking out the window with binoculars or the brass telescope, sitting by the window, you see in so many high-rise ads. Say they accidently peered into one of the guns. Wouldn't that do some retina damage? Seriously. I'm really curious about this potential hazard and was wondering if you addressed this issue in your real life example(which I enjoyed reading by the way). -MikeM(From Florida)

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (6631)	3/14/2000 3:55:00 AM
From: GOPbabe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Frank, Thank you for taking the time to respond to my inquiry. If I understand what you are saying, basically, the further away data is transmitted, less and less data will be received due to the fact that you lose signal strength over distance. If the weather is bad, this in effect will drop signal strength. If the signal being transmitted is blocked by buildings, trees, etc. this would also drop signal strength. Thus, if the signal strength drops, the speed at which data is transmitted drops as well (bit rate). Did I understand you correctly? My logic (sorry can't leave that behind) still tells me that Terabeam must have found some sort of workaround to solve this problem. Also I have not read all the posts on this thread, but did anyone mention that Amadon invented a holographic lens for the telescope? Regards and thanks again for your response. Merylee