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To: Dennis O'Bell who wrote (3160)	3/18/2000 12:08:00 AM
From: Douglas Nordgren	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5853

Wouldn't be too surprised at what gets past the patent office: Hyper Light Speed Antenna - faster than light communications via another dimension. theregister.co.uk "Initial benefits of penetrating this new dimension include sending RF signals faster than the speed of light, extending the effective distance of RF transmitters at the same power radiated, penetrating known RF shielding devices, and accelerating plant growth exposed to the by-product. The present invention...takes a transmission of energy, and instead of sending it through normal time and space, it pokes a small hole into another dimension, thus, sending the energy through a place which allows transmission of energy to exceed the speed of light." Sounds a lot like sub-space communications. Maybe somebody already has a patent on that too.

To: Dennis O'Bell who wrote (3160)	3/18/2000 2:22:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5853

Dennis, I'd be inclined to agree with you. Yes, their proposed solution --at least in its most fundamental form, that being an i-r transmission solution-- is an eminently more plausible near-term form of last mile solution than either that of power line or even the use of dirigibles. But as you note, "by comparison." Nonetheless, it should be remembered that in many types of settings and over many topographies, as influenced by the uncertainties of weather conditions as well as by natural terrain and as yet unclassified types of man-made and natural interference forms, both stationary and airborne... ...this infra-red model (and all other forms of IR and some forms of unlicensed wireless RF links) support a form of service which might be considered, dependent on how and where it is deploymed, as "most often," in nature. And that may be fine for some, too, since we have been taught well by the Internet on how to handle the vagaries of new age communications such as this. And in this respect, we have the Internet to thank for being such a good teacher. The Internet, for example, has taught us to live with "best effort," to the point where we now rate acceptable or unacceptable responses in terms of seconds or various forms of abandonment criteria. And now we have a new form of infrared scheme to teach us how to live with "most often," besides. "Most often" will be fine for those folks who don't have a need to see five nines on their SLAs, as though such would be an option using this service. As long as they don't lose one of those nines during a critical moment of need. ----- Private lines have always allowed the option of being constantly "on." So, it strikes me as a bit odd that the cablemodem and dsl folks would now ask us to join with them in a form of celebration over the fact that their services are suddenly "always on." -------- Be that as it may, we now have something new to look forward to: A best-effort type of service which is always on, most often. Or, simply think of it as an always-on-most-often-best-effort type of service. And where this form of communications is taken up by established enterprises, there will probably be a set of best practices instituted to back it up on the books, more often than not, most likely. And they will make their TQM ratings, no doubt, because our collective expecations on the 'net, as the world of end users who we have become, has become fuzzier and more tolerant with the passing of time. We always strive to get more faster for less, but in the process we learn to sometimes live with the momentary failures and setbacks which we encounter along the way. Because it is, in fact, thhe way of the Internet to expect these things. So, we have become more tolerant of non-determinisms, as time goes on. I would imagine that there is a limit to how far this phenomenon can sustain itself, though. And I think we've begun to see some stress, in this context, in the public Internet, already. All comments and corrections are welcome. FAC