6 ms·

This section from the marketing blurb doesn't sound too promising: When atmospheric conditions disrupt the light, our adaptive rate and hybrid architecture mai

by fsh 2y ago

This section from the marketing blurb doesn't sound too promising: When atmospheric conditions disrupt the light, our adaptive rate and hybrid architecture maintains the connection, with minimal downtime. In the long run, all these wireless technologies (satellite or optical/microwave terrestrial links) will have a very hard time competing with simply laying down some optical fiber.

darksaints 2y ago
Optical fiber is absolutely the simplest and best option for almost any form of long distance connectivity. Maybe this technology will become cost/performance competitive in about 15 years after the HFT firms have invested billions trying to extract an extra cent out of our financial markets.
- idkwhatever 2y ago
  [dead]
culi 2y ago
That's not the market they're going for though. They're more of a competitor to Starlink There's also obvious applications to places where weather is more predictable. There's plenty of areas and small towns in the Great Basin region that have basically no internet. This would be a quick and easy way to set those places up with internet with more reliability than something like starlink
- fsh 2y ago
  The problem with selling inferior technologies is that sooner or later people are going to stop using them (even in the Grad Basin region). Not exactly a recipe for success.
  - culi 2y ago
    What are you labelling inferior here? Both Taara and Starlink? Yes, both of those are inferior to wired infrastructure but they clearly have their usecases. If you were to start a mining project that lasts a few months or even a few years but is expected to eventually be finished and packed up, Taara seems like exactly what you need. It can also outcompete Starlink because it won't require us to constantly replace decaying satellites. Also means less space debris pollution which is increasingly becoming a huge concern
- pdabbadabba 2y ago
  But why would these not be places already served by terrestrial wireless internet service providers? It seems like it would be much easier and generally more attractive to serve locations like this using, for example, 5 GHz. Normally, the lack of (near) line-of-sight is one of the biggest limiting to those sorts of deployments, but that would also have to be solved for any place being served with FSO.
- walrus01 2y ago
  a point to point terrestrial bridge large piece of equipment that costs $5,000+, needs a professional to install it, and works on either free space optics or V-band or E-band radio is not in any way a competitor to starlink. It's more a place to take a 1 to 10 Gbps ethernet connection as a link between two towers or roofs that can 'see' each other as an alternative to where laying fiber may be cost prohibitive or would take too long to build (or both). Assuming this thing doesn't utterly fail in rain at a moderate distance, this would be something you use to feed a POP which then redistributes service to end users by some totally other technology (5/6 GHz band PTMP radio system, GPON, XGSPON, G.fast on copper, docsis3/docsis3.1, etc)
refulgentis 2y ago
It's interesting at 36 to look back at what I think would disrupt connectivity a decade ago: - Google Fiber (it wasn't possible to do it cheaper than incumbents, so it devolved to standard incumbent x why would 40% margin company invest billions to get Comcast's peak profit margin of ~15% profit) - Starry Internet (too expensive to build out, I have it and it's good, but the company certainly didn't scale) - 5G in general (strictly inferior to incumbent, speed isn't faster, latency is higher, not as reliable) It's hard for me to wrap my mind around why this would work at all, sounds like a more-susceptible-to-bad-conditions version of Starry. I keep wondering how people make Starlink work, my understanding is the connection degrades then stops then reconnects every...idk, 5 minutes? as the satellites go overhead.
- miloignis 2y ago
  From my perspective, Google Fiber 100% disrupted connectivity - it woke the incumbents up and made them offer competitive Fiber. In that sense, they succeeded! My last three connections from my last three ISPs have all been gigabit (one of which was Google Fiber, easily the best internet I've ever had). I think they're expanding again, too, though I wish they had stayed as aggressive with rollout as they started.
  - refulgentis 2y ago
    That's a really good point, back home, Verizon didn't bother with Fios investment until then.
  - jerlam 2y ago
    Ironically, Google Fiber purchased a wireless provider - Webpass - back in 2016 which is deployed in parallel to their fiber offerings.
- cbg0 2y ago
  > 5G in general (strictly inferior to incumbent, speed isn't faster, latency is higher, not as reliable) I'm guessing this is a US thing? In Europe, 5G is definitely faster while latency is on par with 4G. YMMMV between EU countries though.
mattlondon 2y ago
Some of their use-case they are crowing about on their site cover temporary things: back haul for major-but-temporary events, tethered-drone-mounted units for emergency disaster recover where a cell site is taken out etc. Those are the sorts of things where laying fibre 20km for use for just a day or two just isn't going to happen, but a temporary laser link that you can get up and running in a hour or two would be great.
- delulu42 2y ago
  [dead]
- lelandbatey 2y ago
  What kind of data rates and distances are they talking about that isn't served by existing products? For example, you can buy a 20km range, 2Gbps wireless point to point link for a flat $3000 today: https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/wireless-airfiber-ptp/products/af-24hd https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/wireless-airfiber-ptp/pr... What they mention in the article is up to 20Gbps, but they'd have to be pretty dang cheap to out compete just buying 10 of the existing options.
  - gmoot 2y ago
    Elsewhere in the thread it suggests ~$30k for one link. Which is exactly in line with buying 10 of the ubiquiti devices. But I think you would need 20 of them, 10 on each end? Plus extra install, networking equipment, etc. Which would make Taara significantly better.
  - cycomanic 2y ago
    The issue is that you can't put 10 of your 2 Gbps wireless links next to each other. You quite possibly end up with < 2 Gbps as interference kills your signals (unless you put the transceivers so far apart from one another that you sort of defeat the purpose). That said there are other wireless solutions that can get you > 10 Gbps over > 20 km already (not sure about 20 Gbps, but I wouldn't be surprised). The issue is available spectrum, i.e. you can't just setup the link, because the spectrum doesn't belong to you. Not a problem for optics.
adrianmonk 2y ago
You can say the same thing about running wired ethernet to your TV in the living room. It's simpler and more reliable than wifi. But wifi is much easier and quicker to install. Which one do most people use?
- fsh 2y ago
  For most users (me included), there is zero difference in user experience between using wifi or Ethernet for their TV. Otherwise, running wired Ethernet would probably be a lot more popular.
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    So you think. You may be right, but most users won't even realize that a good chunk of their "buffering" / "Internet is slow today" / "Netflix is broken today" problems might just be a WiFi issue, and it would go away if they used a wired connection.
slowtrek 2y ago
"... very hard time competing with simply laying down some optical fiber." You end up learning this in your own home. Some things are fine with a wired ethernet connection, it's really only my laptop and phone that use wifi.
gymbeaux 2y ago
The economic burden usually falls on governments, so, like StarLink, Alphabet is probably hoping for some of that sweet, sweet government subsidy/grants for military applications.

by fsh 2y ago

darksaints 2y ago

Optical fiber is absolutely the simplest and best option for almost any form of long distance connectivity. Maybe this technology will become cost/performance competitive in about 15 years after the HFT firms have invested billions trying to extract an extra cent out of our financial markets.

idkwhatever 2y ago
[dead]

culi 2y ago

That's not the market they're going for though. They're more of a competitor to Starlink There's also obvious applications to places where weather is more predictable. There's plenty of areas and small towns in the Great Basin region that have basically no internet. This would be a quick and easy way to set those places up with internet with more reliability than something like starlink

fsh 2y ago
The problem with selling inferior technologies is that sooner or later people are going to stop using them (even in the Grad Basin region). Not exactly a recipe for success.
- culi 2y ago
  What are you labelling inferior here? Both Taara and Starlink? Yes, both of those are inferior to wired infrastructure but they clearly have their usecases. If you were to start a mining project that lasts a few months or even a few years but is expected to eventually be finished and packed up, Taara seems like exactly what you need. It can also outcompete Starlink because it won't require us to constantly replace decaying satellites. Also means less space debris pollution which is increasingly becoming a huge concern
pdabbadabba 2y ago
But why would these not be places already served by terrestrial wireless internet service providers? It seems like it would be much easier and generally more attractive to serve locations like this using, for example, 5 GHz. Normally, the lack of (near) line-of-sight is one of the biggest limiting to those sorts of deployments, but that would also have to be solved for any place being served with FSO.
walrus01 2y ago
a point to point terrestrial bridge large piece of equipment that costs $5,000+, needs a professional to install it, and works on either free space optics or V-band or E-band radio is not in any way a competitor to starlink. It's more a place to take a 1 to 10 Gbps ethernet connection as a link between two towers or roofs that can 'see' each other as an alternative to where laying fiber may be cost prohibitive or would take too long to build (or both). Assuming this thing doesn't utterly fail in rain at a moderate distance, this would be something you use to feed a POP which then redistributes service to end users by some totally other technology (5/6 GHz band PTMP radio system, GPON, XGSPON, G.fast on copper, docsis3/docsis3.1, etc)

refulgentis 2y ago

It's interesting at 36 to look back at what I think would disrupt connectivity a decade ago: - Google Fiber (it wasn't possible to do it cheaper than incumbents, so it devolved to standard incumbent x why would 40% margin company invest billions to get Comcast's peak profit margin of ~15% profit) - Starry Internet (too expensive to build out, I have it and it's good, but the company certainly didn't scale) - 5G in general (strictly inferior to incumbent, speed isn't faster, latency is higher, not as reliable) It's hard for me to wrap my mind around why this would work at all, sounds like a more-susceptible-to-bad-conditions version of Starry. I keep wondering how people make Starlink work, my understanding is the connection degrades then stops then reconnects every...idk, 5 minutes? as the satellites go overhead.

miloignis 2y ago
From my perspective, Google Fiber 100% disrupted connectivity - it woke the incumbents up and made them offer competitive Fiber. In that sense, they succeeded! My last three connections from my last three ISPs have all been gigabit (one of which was Google Fiber, easily the best internet I've ever had). I think they're expanding again, too, though I wish they had stayed as aggressive with rollout as they started.
- refulgentis 2y ago
  That's a really good point, back home, Verizon didn't bother with Fios investment until then.
- jerlam 2y ago
  Ironically, Google Fiber purchased a wireless provider - Webpass - back in 2016 which is deployed in parallel to their fiber offerings.
cbg0 2y ago
> 5G in general (strictly inferior to incumbent, speed isn't faster, latency is higher, not as reliable) I'm guessing this is a US thing? In Europe, 5G is definitely faster while latency is on par with 4G. YMMMV between EU countries though.

mattlondon 2y ago

Some of their use-case they are crowing about on their site cover temporary things: back haul for major-but-temporary events, tethered-drone-mounted units for emergency disaster recover where a cell site is taken out etc. Those are the sorts of things where laying fibre 20km for use for just a day or two just isn't going to happen, but a temporary laser link that you can get up and running in a hour or two would be great.

delulu42 2y ago
[dead]
lelandbatey 2y ago
What kind of data rates and distances are they talking about that isn't served by existing products? For example, you can buy a 20km range, 2Gbps wireless point to point link for a flat $3000 today: https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/wireless-airfiber-ptp/products/af-24hd https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/wireless-airfiber-ptp/pr... What they mention in the article is up to 20Gbps, but they'd have to be pretty dang cheap to out compete just buying 10 of the existing options.
- gmoot 2y ago
  Elsewhere in the thread it suggests ~$30k for one link. Which is exactly in line with buying 10 of the ubiquiti devices. But I think you would need 20 of them, 10 on each end? Plus extra install, networking equipment, etc. Which would make Taara significantly better.
- cycomanic 2y ago
  The issue is that you can't put 10 of your 2 Gbps wireless links next to each other. You quite possibly end up with < 2 Gbps as interference kills your signals (unless you put the transceivers so far apart from one another that you sort of defeat the purpose). That said there are other wireless solutions that can get you > 10 Gbps over > 20 km already (not sure about 20 Gbps, but I wouldn't be surprised). The issue is available spectrum, i.e. you can't just setup the link, because the spectrum doesn't belong to you. Not a problem for optics.

adrianmonk 2y ago

You can say the same thing about running wired ethernet to your TV in the living room. It's simpler and more reliable than wifi. But wifi is much easier and quicker to install. Which one do most people use?

fsh 2y ago
For most users (me included), there is zero difference in user experience between using wifi or Ethernet for their TV. Otherwise, running wired Ethernet would probably be a lot more popular.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  So you think. You may be right, but most users won't even realize that a good chunk of their "buffering" / "Internet is slow today" / "Netflix is broken today" problems might just be a WiFi issue, and it would go away if they used a wired connection.

slowtrek 2y ago

"... very hard time competing with simply laying down some optical fiber." You end up learning this in your own home. Some things are fine with a wired ethernet connection, it's really only my laptop and phone that use wifi.

gymbeaux 2y ago

The economic burden usually falls on governments, so, like StarLink, Alphabet is probably hoping for some of that sweet, sweet government subsidy/grants for military applications.