20.10.2003 / Innovative technologie:

Fed Encourages Last-Mile Wireless

The US Federal Communications Commission said it would promote the development of a new wireless technology that can send large amounts of information between buildings without the need to dig up streets to lay cables.

The nascent technology is the wireless equivalent of fiber-optic cables, using broadcast in narrow beams that avoid interference problems, said John Muleta, chief of the Federal Communications Commission's wireless bureau. He said the technology could send large amounts of information between buildings on college campuses, for example. The technology would operate in a large section of airwaves originally set aside for government use. Recent advances have made business uses possible. "The highly advanced technology used here may encourage a broad range of new products and services," FCC Chairman Michael Powell said. He said companies may eventually use this technology to compete with high-speed Internet services such as cable modems and broadband over phone lines.

The FCC plans to issue nationwide licenses to companies seeking to deploy the new service. Computerworld reported that Loea, a subsidiary of Trex Enterprises Corp., first petitioned the FCC in September 2001 for the right to use the high-frequency spectrum for its technology. Companies such as Cisco Systems and Microsoft have backed the Millimeter Wave (also referred to as Upper Millimeter Wave) bands for broadband service as a type of wireless "last mile," a way of connecting users to public fiber-optic networks without having to use cables. The system, also promoted by Loea as virtual fiber technology, uses millimeter-wave transceivers to send "pencil beams" of data at gigabit speeds.

Source: EDITTECH INTERNATIONAL