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Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jghutchison who wrote (384)	7/11/2000 12:05:47 AM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 46821

Jack, I don't know if I'd go so far as to suggest that nothing from TB is original. Their central site one-to-many optical beam orchestration appears to be enabled (if it actually works) by a novel kind of mousetrap, wouldn't you agree? I'll give them that much. Unless, of course, someone else (who I'm not aware of) did something reasonably similar to what TB is doing with mirrors and multiple sectorization approaches, before them. But we needn't limit criticisms to TB alone. There are others out there making grand claims today. But none of them did it with as much splash, and with so much help, as TB, so yes... let's focus on them some more, if for no other reason, then, for balance. Setting up those optical paths has an analogue in wireless RF systems known as path engineering where it is a non-trivial art form. But I suspect it will be less artful, but possibly almost as tedious in TB's case to create working paths, even where Fresnel zones don't apply. Lining up infrared transceivers is an highly intensive manual process requiring of some skill, complete with viewfinding while hanging out on a ledge, and Kentucky Windage estimates. All of this must be done while avoiding numerous booby traps (namely from foreign light sources, primarily reflections from the Sun, and most poignantly, direct interference from the Sun, itself) from all possible angles. Angles which are not the same from hour to hour, or from day to day, or from month to month. This is why experienced i-r free-space practitioners always look for a way to align their paths from north to south (to avoid alignment with the Sun's trajectory during the day), whenever possible. Will this be a workable axiom in dense metro networking applications? Oh, it's going to be loads of fun for the local plant guy keeping the optical clothes lines and ice cream cones straight. If they are very successful at what they do, they will find themselves in an extremely low-tech and highly inelegant affair, keeping the beams between buildings from getting tangled with one another. And window washing? A single window washer's scaffold descending down the side of a skyscraper or tall building will be cause for calling out the riot police. Is this something the landlord could use for ransom effect? ------- I think I'll propose writing the first topographically driven beam management system for TB that plots coordinates and optical settings at their central and remote sites based on parametrically defined input data, all of which is derived from holographic image scans of the subject buildings and their designated windows. Could happen... ------- The potential efficacy of IR free-space systems in general? Like my grandpa used to say, "There's a time and place for everything. But not everything is right for every time and place." FAC