The technology is mostly in those two camps because it's new, expensive, and niche, like WiFi was 20 years ago. As production increases (starts?), components wi

The technology is mostly in those two camps because it's new, expensive, and niche, like WiFi was 20 years ago. As production increases (starts?), components will drop in cost and become standardized and more ubiquitious. At the moment there is a lot of practical research you can read about from conferences like OFC [1] and SPIE PW at the free-space laser or telecom tracks [2]. At the moment transmitters and receivers are made up of highly specified components for their use case and are very parametrized, for example there are hundreds of different DFB lasers that can be used as sources. I'm a little surprised that IEEE has already standardized, especially given the wavelength they chose but I imagine their members were forced to adopt a prolific technology as without a standard they risk the technology moving ahead without them. [1] https://www.ofcconference.org/en-us/home/about/archive/ https://www.ofcconference.org/en-us/home/about/archive/ [2] https://spie.org/Publications/Proceedings/Volume/12413?&origin_id=x4323&start_year=2023&end_year=2023&start_at=61 https://spie.org/Publications/Proceedings/Volume/12413?&orig...