CSIRO to demonstrate 6 Gbps Wi-Fi link; 12 Gb/s link planned

Read it again slowly: six (6) gigabits per second. Over wireless. With more to come.

We’d like to formally ask the boys and girls at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation to take a bow.

The CSIRO plans to demonstrate the link tomorrow, where they will transmit 16 simultaneous streams of DVD quality video over a 250 meter link with no loss of quality or delays. The CSIRO claim that the demonstration will only utilize one quarter of the capacity of the link.

Atomic will be there, and will film the demonstration.

"The system is suitable for situations where a high speed link is needed but it is too expensive or logistically difficult to lay fibre, such as in congested urban environments, and across valleys and rivers," Dr Guo said. It could also be used to creating networks to meet short term needs such as emergencies and large events.

The system operates at 85GHz in the millimeter-wave part of the electromagnetic spectrum (above 55 GHz) which offers the potential for these enormous speeds and is not yet congested by other uses.

The CSIRO recently won a lawsuit against Buffalo Technology in Texas. It may pave the way for it to claim royalties for all Wi-Fi devices that use the 802.11 a/g standard depending on the outcome of other legal battles.

In May 2005, Intel, Dell, HP, Microsoft, Apple and Netgear filed suits to have US patent number 5487069 (which covers the concept of a wireless LAN and was granted to the CSIRO in January 1996) invalidated by a California district court.