Unlike some of the posters above I'm bright enough to realise that the story is not giving us all the details of how this will work. Do these eejits really think that somebody developing a new technology is going to give away all their secrets in a story on El Reg? However...
I'd be interested to know how they expect this to work in bright daylight.
I'd also be interested to know how this "line of sight" techology is inherently more secure than say 802.11a. I have worked on my 11a network so that there is little or no leakage to the outside world except where there are windows. Positioning of the APs and devices and tuning of power output means 11a can be tuned to give very little leakage, but signals will still get out of windows. Now using your ambient lighting as a carrier will mean that anybody who can see your window can see your signal. Not only that but they will probably be able to pick it up from further away than they could with current technology. As an aside to this I just love the fact that 11n is being sold to home users on the strength of it's improved range. Nobody is telling Joe Public that if he can see his wireless network from further away then so can everybody else.
My main concern, however, is the idea that light driven networks will intefere with each other less than current tech. Sounds good when you consider the line of site issue, which would be fine for the like of home networks. What happens where these networks operate within line of site of each other? Outside spaces? Large interior spaces like shoppin malls? Accessing your connection from your garden while your neighbour does the same? Your signal will be messed up for sure. Are they suggesting that we all use slightly different frequencies of light in order to avoid this issue?
I'm not pooh poohing the tech until I see it demonstrated, however I will be very interested to see how they get round these and other issues.
Register
We're not seeing the whole story, but...
Unlike some of the posters above I'm bright enough to realise that the story is not giving us all the details of how this will work. Do these eejits really think that somebody developing a new technology is going to give away all their secrets in a story on El Reg? However...
I'd be interested to know how they expect this to work in bright daylight.
I'd also be interested to know how this "line of sight" techology is inherently more secure than say 802.11a. I have worked on my 11a network so that there is little or no leakage to the outside world except where there are windows. Positioning of the APs and devices and tuning of power output means 11a can be tuned to give very little leakage, but signals will still get out of windows. Now using your ambient lighting as a carrier will mean that anybody who can see your window can see your signal. Not only that but they will probably be able to pick it up from further away than they could with current technology. As an aside to this I just love the fact that 11n is being sold to home users on the strength of it's improved range. Nobody is telling Joe Public that if he can see his wireless network from further away then so can everybody else.
My main concern, however, is the idea that light driven networks will intefere with each other less than current tech. Sounds good when you consider the line of site issue, which would be fine for the like of home networks. What happens where these networks operate within line of site of each other? Outside spaces? Large interior spaces like shoppin malls? Accessing your connection from your garden while your neighbour does the same? Your signal will be messed up for sure. Are they suggesting that we all use slightly different frequencies of light in order to avoid this issue?
I'm not pooh poohing the tech until I see it demonstrated, however I will be very interested to see how they get round these and other issues.