Military Laser/Radio Tech Proposed As Alternative To Laying Costly Fiber Cable 150
An anonymous reader writes "Californian comm-tech company Aoptix is testing new laser+radio hybrid communications technology with three major U.S. internet carriers. The equipment required can be bolted onto existing infrastructure, such as cell-tower masts, and can communicate a 2gbps stream over 6.5 miles. The system was developed over 10 years at a cost of $100 million in conjunction with the Air Force Research Laboratory, and the military implementation of it is called Aoptix Enhanced Air Ground Lasercom System (EAGLS). The laser component of the technology uses a deformable mirror to correct for atmospheric distortion over the mast-hop, in real-time. The laser part of the system is backed-up by a redundant radio transmitter. The radio component has low attenuation in rainy conditions with large refracting raindrops, while the laser is more vulnerable to dense fog. The system, which features auto-stabilization to compensate for cell-tower movement and is being proposed as an alternative to the tremendous cost p/m of laying fiber cable, is being tested in Mexico and Nigeria in addition to the three ISP trials.
Yes, it could be much cheaper (Score:2)
And certainly easier to tap. I hear that fiber optic is a bitch..
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When in doubt, encrypt the link layer.
Re:Yes, it could be much cheaper (Score:4, Informative)
L1 encryption could be quite brain-dead simple. One could use preshared keys and call it done (with an algorithm to use session keys derived from D-H sessions encrypted by the "master" PSK, and change every so often.)
I've wondered why communications lasers are not more often used, especially IR ones.
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That said this system uses multiple types (radio and laser) because when one doesn't work well the other will work fine and visa-versa.
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That's the rub. Turning on encryption is easy. However, how does one do key management?
Arguably, the most secure way would be to have a true secure RNG (using radioactive decay, high speed flip-flops, or political flip-flopping on issues) as a source of randomness, perhaps multiple sources so if one ends up having something periodic, a "bit blender" (be it a hashing algorithm, or just XOR-ing the random number streams.) Then having two copies of the OTP, one at each endpoint.
Realistically, don't see a OT
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Fiber optic is trivial to tap. Almost as easy as analog phone lines.
Re:Yes, it could be much cheaper (Score:4, Interesting)
Fiber optic is trivial to tap. Almost as easy as analog phone lines.
Anything is easy to tap, at least in the U.S.
Step 1. Mislead a FISA court about the need. After all, those being tapped will never find out, let alone have a chance to contest the evidence. It's a secret.
Step 2. Find some ISP in the communications path, and hit them with a National Security Letter. Because, you know, fuck the Fourth Amendment. Threaten them with going to jail for even bringing up the issue in court. Again, because, well, fuck being the land of the free, since it's no longer the home of the brave.
Step 3. Do whatever you want. If it violates the law, you can count on some combination of sovereign immunity, prosecutorial descretion, and Presidential pardons to make sure you never face justice while on this earth.
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Still, when the NSA wanted access to Google's information, they went for tapping fiber optic cables instead of hitting them with National Security Letters.
The solution is encryption of course, but IPSEC is a royal pain and MACSEC is too limited.
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Not sure we can know it was an either/or situation.
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And what's wrong with commercial microwave links out in the boondocks?
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I do hope to see this downsized to an individual level that can help bring ad hoc mesh networks a little closer to being
TFA is about a refinement to tech that's existed for quite some decades now -- I remember pricing out dual FSO/microwave setups way back when. They never really came down into a price range where we could justify deploying them versus leasing telco, even the small ones, and we saw no real motion towards commoditization.
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My educated guess is that you do not tap the fiber but instead would get the data out of the amplifiers on the cable.
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Rain attenuates the radio signal (Score:5, Informative)
The OP says that "The radio component has * low attenuation* in rainy conditions with large refracting raindrops". I think they mean "high attentuation". TFA says that radio is disrupted by rain.
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Glad I wasn't the only one annoyed by that sentence in the summary. The use of the term "while" indicated that the radio was better at one thing and the laser better at the other but according to the summary that's not the case.
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"Lower attenuation than through sheet metal? Is that really a selling point?"
"Well, we can claim it is low attenuation with an asterisk, nobody reads the asterisks."
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TBH, I did radio/wireless internet for 4-5 years, back in the early 00's. It was pretty rock-solid, with perhaps one instance of trouble due to weather (during a full-on blizzard... the link dropped packets on occasion, but that was about it. My house antenna was 34 miles away from the ISP's antenna, which was just barely within the 35 mile range.
Only real issue I had was with the lag, which made it rough for FPS gaming, though doable.
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Only real issue I had was with the lag, which made it rough for FPS gaming, though doable.
It was only doable because everyone else had low latency links. If you were in a game where everyone had high latency links like yours, the game would be completely unplayable. As it was, the people who had low latency links probably hated playing with you, and I don't blame them at all.
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It's relative: I averaged something like 60ms pings, while everyone else had 20-30ms pings (DSL was still fairly new back then). Not like I was roughing it at 250+ like in the old modem days.
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It's relative: I averaged something like 60ms pings, while everyone else had 20-30ms pings (DSL was still fairly new back then). Not like I was roughing it at 250+ like in the old modem days.
60ms isn't bad. I was expecting somewhere in the 300-500ms range. That is the kind of latency I've seen with other wireless internet links from back in the day.
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https://lh3.googleusercontent.... [googleusercontent.com]
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Why should a radio link have higher latency than a fiber?
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Implemented well it should have a slightly lower latency because the propagation of signals in air is faster than in fiber optics. But the delay from customer to the ISP is probably only a small part of the latency anyway.
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But then they deploy sharks with laser-beams on their heads to swim the signals closer. It's all nicely planned out.
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I once had to show I could pass messages by semaphore. (also very limited bandwidth in freezing rain) Gotta love tech where giant robots waving their arms are used to increase link distance and ba
Lasers and deformable mirrors arnt expensive (Score:1)
I don't understand why this is the trend even with the military to avoid laying fibre infrastructure. Looking at that site citing the costs of previous installs and listing the lifetime of the fibre as "20 Years" fibre is a 100 year infrastructure and even if your military base moves or you get a new technology that fibre in the ground will still be there and still be valuable.
Re:Lasers and deformable mirrors arnt expensive (Score:5, Interesting)
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Imminent Domain (Score:5, Funny)
Most property already has utility easements unless they're very rural, even then it's simple enough to seize with Imminent Domain for "the greater good"
Is the domain about the happen any time now?
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Check your own grammar before pointing out somebody else's mistake. ;-)
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Check your own grammar before pointing out somebody else's mistake. ;-)
I left that as a little gift to the next grammar Nazi.
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I can do punctuation too. You're welcome.
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Grammar Nazi FAIL, motherfucker. Report to the gas chambers pronto! You are not one of us!
Not a fail at all. GP nailed it. Perhaps the OP will learn an important lesson: 'tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.'
And your use of "motherfucker" is kind of strange. Actually, any use of that is kind of strange, IMHO. Most of us are motherfuckers and proud of it. As is anyone who has sex with a female who has given birth. I would hope you will still fuck your wife after she bears a child, especially if you want more children. It does work that way
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Eminent != Imminent
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simple enough to seize with Imminent Domain
No, it is anything but simple enough. It is often a legal tie up, and can be very expensive. Even if right of way easements exist, they often not efficient or desirable routes, or even continuous over a long distance.
There is a real need for hi speed technologies like this in rural areas. LOS has its issues, but if there is a reliable, cost effective solution, then there is certainly a market.
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Don't be thick in front of me, Al. (Score:2)
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Wow it's strange how different the world can be. Here in Norway rural fiber is often a four-way cooperation, the fiber company will lay fiber in a main trench along the public road. The government will typically provide public funding to reach public buildings, schools and so on, businesses will pay to get connected. As for residential homes, if you dig your own foot-deep trench or hire someone to do it at your own cost the fiber company will come put a fiber line in it. And most people jump at the chance o
Re:Lasers and deformable mirrors arnt expensive (Score:5, Interesting)
If it was for base connectivity I would be very surprised if fiber wasn't laid. I am more likely to believe the military use for this was designed for something which can be setup quickly in forward operating locations. Fiber takes time and substantially more infrastructure to install. Theoretically this could be run off a steerable pop-up mast which could be setup in minutes.
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I saw nothing in those links that indicates the military prefers this sort of communication to normal fiber for their US landlocked bases. I'd guess the military probably values that technology for places in which laying down permanent fiber isn't an option. For instance, when a war breaks out, there's a need to set up all sorts of bases and command headquarters in completely unpredictable or currently inaccessible places. Moreover, a laser beam can't as easily be disrupted by enemy ground forces or by b
And we have a winner (Score:2)
Multiple technologies are used by mobile comm units in the military. Setting up the Satellite downlink on one side of the cantonment area and using a laser link to transmit to the ops area sure beats laying fragile cable.
Or satellite downlink at a single area and using this to distribute to multiple fire bases. Definitely a win.
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Because when your out in the middle of the desert you want to connect your fob to base camp 30 miles away digging and burying lines is time consuming. It is far easier and faster to setup a laser link back to base. We do not live in a world of FTL communications. Therefore calling sat phone ten feet away from sounds just as bad as calling a sat phone half way around the world.
The Old is New again (Score:5, Interesting)
45+ years ago when I was a kid and before cellphone towers dotted the landscape there were these funnel shaped microwave repeating towers everywhere that carried long distance phone traffic across the country without wires.
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Huh. I never knew that.
Well, now that's a brain cell that I'm never getting back. Now if I can just remember to call the MCI Center the "Verizon Center".
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With fiber you can run a bundle of them, that gives you spacial multiplexing with essentially perfect channel seperation and a capacity that scales linearly with the number of fibers..
With free space you can put up multiple antennas but the signals they receive will be highly correlated. The result is that when you try and do mathematical elimination to create independent virtual channels the virtual channels end up very noisy. There are gains to be had from multiple antennas but the progression will be di
Re:The Old is New again (Score:4, Interesting)
45+ years ago when I was a kid and before cellphone towers dotted the landscape there were these funnel shaped microwave repeating towers everywhere that carried long distance phone traffic across the country without wires.
I've worked for just about every phone company... We still have them... everywhere. Fibers replaced microwave in most residential areas... but in areas where you can't dig a trench, we use microwave. Communities on islands, on mountain sides... etc... there are a LOT of microwave dishes along the grand canyon for example. Even in sky rises, a lot of companies will setup microwave dishes in an extra conference room and beam a trunk to another building across the way.
The problem with microwave is that it doesn't work well in humidity. Fog, snow and rain make it cut in and out. Basically, imagine your DishNetwork/DirectTv signal... it's got pretty much the same problem.
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And that is exactly what this system is supposed to improve upon. By using two complementary technologies, they claim they can reliably transmit high quality data no matter what the weather. What isn't clear from TFA is how much of an improvement in speed or cost this is from plain ol microwaves. The unit shown in nice and compact - smaller than the large dishes used in high capacity microwave links - but TFA doesn't directly compare data speeds (or costs or really anything useful) so it's hard to make m
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You'd be surprised at how many of these we are still using, especially in the far north or the desert areas where it is both flat and sparsely populated.
Most of those old legacy microwaves only go up to a DS3 though, which is 28 T1s or about 45 mpbs of encapsulated Ethernet traffic.
Now there is a new generation of microwave gear going in for Wireless ISPs and cellular backhaul. A lot of it already goes up to a gigabit I believe. I'm a fiber guy though so I don't know too much about them.
cheaper perhaps (Score:3)
But it sounds inferior in many respects. Lasers require line of sight, which is obviously a problem. We really ought to be investing in quality infrastructure.
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But it sounds inferior in many respects. Lasers require line of sight, which is obviously a problem. We really ought to be investing in quality infrastructure.
Are you going to pay for it? Laying fiber is insanely expensive. Not because of the trench or even the fiber... it's the home owners that are the problem.
Imagine I show up at your house and tell you I'm going to dig an 8' deep trench across your yard for Fiber. What are you going to do? And your neighbor? And his neighbor? ... and the other thousand people whos yards get trenched? Lawsuits... and that doesn't even cover all the roads, driveways and sidewalks you have to dig up.
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But it sounds inferior in many respects. Lasers require line of sight, which is obviously a problem. We really ought to be investing in quality infrastructure.
Are you going to pay for it? Laying fiber is insanely expensive. Not because of the trench or even the fiber... it's the home owners that are the problem.
Imagine I show up at your house and tell you I'm going to dig an 8' deep trench across your yard for Fiber. What are you going to do? And your neighbor? And his neighbor? ... and the other thousand people whos yards get trenched? Lawsuits... and that doesn't even cover all the roads, driveways and sidewalks you have to dig up.
Why are you digging a 8 feet deep trench for fiber?!? Laws in different states seem to vary, but between 2-4 feet is plenty. If you use a ditch witch style machine, the trench is only a couple of inches across on the surface. If you wanted to do it really well, you could cut a strip of sod out, but it to the side, and put it back when you were done.
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Well, an 8 foot trench means that the next person to come along and dig a 4 foot trench won't cut your fiber.
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That happens too. The construction workers next to my office building cut both the gas and the power (not on the same day, luckily).
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Check out this [decks.com] map for an idea of minimum safe frost depths across the country, plenty of populated places are well below 4', and even those that are close to 4' probably have competing uses for that space just below the frost line. Then again with a horizontal bore cable layer it doesn't really matter whether it's 2' or 8' deep, the impact at the surface is all in the weight of the machine and the footprint of its treads.
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Personally I would offer to dig the trench for them, and/or offer them whatever bribes necessary to get it done faster, keep the workers happy etc. Of course that is because I would love a fibre connection to my house even though I have a 40/20Mbps FTTC install.
I would also note that in the U.K. an 8 foot or 2.4m deep trench would be below the level of 99% of foundations and be completely unnecessary. The cable TV networks (now almost all owned by Virgin Media) only were only a couple feet deep when install
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Imagine I show up at your house and tell you I'm going to dig an 8' deep trench across your yard for Fiber. What are you going to do? And your neighbor?
What I'm going to do is invite you to connect it to my home while you're at it.
What my neighbors do is a different story entirely.
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Lasers require line of sight, which is obviously a problem.
Not if you have the right error correction algorithm. If packet transmitted successfully, send next packet; otherwise increase power and try again. Repeat as necessary.
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Oh my god. Really lasers require line of sight because unless you have very special optics going on light *ONLY* travels in straight lines. I mean this is physics 101 for crying out loud.
whoosh! (Score:2)
You missed the "increase power" and "repeat as necessary" steps.
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No you missed your physics classes.
Increasing the power and repeating will make no difference whatsoever. If there is no "line of sight" then laser transmission without an optical wave guide (aka a fibre optic cable) is a none starter.
For the purposes of free air laser transmission light only travels in straight lines. That is no gravitational lensing, and no fancy ultra modern optics which basically are of no use in this scenario.
So repeat after me you idiot no line of sight no transmission.
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The idea behind the "increase power" and "repeat as necessary" parts was that if you increase power *enough*, you'll end up with line-of-sight, even if you didn't have it to start with. (i.e.: You'll burn a hole through any intervening materials.)
This is also known as brute-force data transmission, and is akin to the old-fashioned, much lower bandwidth LART known as the 'clue-by-four'.
It's also basic physics.
Pro tip: The earth is round.
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The idea behind the "increase power" and "repeat as necessary" parts was that if you increase power *enough*, you'll end up with line-of-sight, even if you didn't have it to start with.
I am glad someone got the joke. I considered talking about two modes of operation ("line of sight mode" and "make line of sight mode") instead of error correction algorithms, but I thought the error correction thing was more subtle and humorous. I guess it was too subtle. I don't plan on quitting my day job.
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lasers require line of sight because unless you have very special optics going on light *ONLY* travels in straight lines.
Maybe if you pointed the laser into some sort of optical cable...
dictionary.com (Score:2)
You might want to look up what "line of sight" means.
Suppose I point a laser in your direction and you are trying to detect that laser. We're five miles apart. Will you be able to spot that laser on a clear night? Probably not, because there is probably some other building between you and me. Or a tree. Or a hill.
Go outside and look five miles due west. In all probability you can't, you can only see as far as your neighbor's front door. No amount of error correction is going to fix the fact that there's
The year 2004 just called (Score:2)
The year 2004 just called and they want their 100 million back!
(Vorsicht vor den Vögel!) damn birds (Score:5, Interesting)
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A few university set-ups in Germany tried this, (e.g. Hamburg), albeit probably with far simpler specifications as it was some years ago. They had surprisingly frequent problems with birds; birds perching on the towers, birds flying between the source/sink, uzw. Packet loss got enough at one point to contact a local falconer to see if his bird of prey could scare them away. It turned out that the local bakery was too much of a draw. There was whimsical talk of adding a TCP/IP error for bakery janitorial events. I believe they eventually just went with fiber pulled through the sewers ..ja-da
Simple solution: Verstärken die Laser. :)
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I was about to make the same crack, but in English. Crank that baby up to solar furnace levels of energy. Then, when the bird tries to perch in front of the laser, it gets rapidly cooked and falls. As a bonus, you could start a KFC franchise right below the tower.
Alternatively (and more seriously), mount several lasers a few feet apart and use channel bonding. If one laser goes dark, turn off its mate in the opposite direction, and try again on a preset schedule. That way, the sending end immediately
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Re:(Vorsicht vor den Vogel!) damn birds (Score:2)
Is it too much to ask to get sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads?
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So they upgraded the RONJA opensource hardware? (Score:3)
2 Gbps replacing Fiber (Score:2)
Sure I suppose it's good enough for a single user, but I think it'll be a bit more expensive to add these in rather than run a set of fiber cables down the road.
UAV/Drone (Score:2)
The benefit of these devices is that they also can help alleviate a good portion the back-haul fiber necessary. I am assuming that this tech is highly similar to what Google and Elon Musk are looking to accomplish. The red tape of entrenched monopolies makes it easier to move the backbone into LEO (Low Earth Orbit). These towers can last mile without needing local fiber to a POP. Somehow it is cheaper to build a global network of satellites/drones than it is to run fiber. That is the extent of the power
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Lol, again with the monopoly talk... There is no such thing in the united states.
Telcos have franchise agreements for POTS (plain old telephone service)
Cable companies have them for Telvision over coax.
If you're not using coax, and you're not delivering phone service over twisted pair, there is nothing a local phone or cable company can do to stop you unless you're the actual municipality itself. It's usually in the agreements that local government cannot compete with these sorts of services at all. Hence t
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Who owns and controls the Conduit/subways under NYC for fiber to be run? Hint: It used to be Ma Bell.
Answer: It is a subsidiary of Verizon.
Verizon does not even in the slightest commit to or have obligations to make conduit space available and it is nearly un-maintained except for in their interests. Tunnels are collapsed, conduits remain full and not expanded.
If only Verizon controls those conduits, does that make them have a monopoly on perhaps one of the most important data arteries in the country? Wha
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If you're not using coax, and you're not delivering phone service over twisted pair, there is nothing a local phone or cable company can do to stop you
Ohh, you mean you don't qualify for easement access? In many areas, only official telephone or cable companies have access to Right of Ways. Obviously electrical, water, and gas also have access. Every city around here has exactly one cable and one telephone company. Adjacent cities may have different phone or cable companies, but only one per city.
Lasers? Raindrops? (Score:2)
Line of site (Score:2)
The same goes for any new parking garages that may happen to get built.
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Line of sight. Sorry, it's a pet peeve.
Re: Line of site (Score:2)
BT, DT (Score:3)
Terabeam Networks, c. 1999. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terabeam [wikipedia.org]
And they weren't the first.
DARPA Work (Score:3)
This reminds me of a DARPA project from a while back that sounds very similiar: The ORCLE program [afcea.org]. I wonder if this is an outgrowth from the DARPA funded work.
Politicians + incumbent franchises. Underground (Score:2)
In most places, local politicians have granted exclusive right-of-way access to donors^H^H^H^H^H%H public-minded businesses, like Comcast.
In many cities, power and cable run underground because poles are "ugly". That's a bit more expensive to do, even if the local politicians allow it.