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To: Peter Ecclesine who wrote (14729)	4/22/2006 11:50:46 AM
From: axial	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

Hi Peter - "The point is electromagnetic waves and photons do not saturate." Agreed. Looking at some of the emitters in outer space, there seems no end the the magnitude of emissions - whether you're talking radio waves or x-rays. I've often thought how fortunate mankind is not to be near some of these emitters, that could sterilize whole galaxies for light-years around them. That would argue the capacity of the transmission medium is infinite. But here on earth, is it? When we limit the size and configuration of antennas? When we limit transmit power, and allocate slices of spectrum? For the sake of the argument, let's say it's still infinite. Then what are the constraints on distinguishing analogue "wheat" from analogue "chaff" - ie., receiver design? Engineering, cost, maybe size, aesthetics, and so on. If you decide to aid the analogue discrimination process with processing, then there's computational complexity. Your argument (going back a few posts) seems to be that if there's a signal in the noise, the problem at the receive end is simply deciding which is which. I agree - from a theoretical standpoint. But when you're trying to extract information from white noise, you approach limits. At some point you start manufacturing "information" where none exists: algorithms enforce a construct on random information. "Receivers designed without regard for 'interference' may fail." True. A hypothetical receiver may easily make the discriminations we need, up to a point where neither analogue reception nor processing power can make reliable distinctions. Practically, I think we've imposed capacity constraints on spectrum use by design and other pragmatic limits. The capacity of the medium may be infinite, but the limitations imposed are human. And ftth won't carry a cell phone with a three-foot antenna. Jim