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New Wireless Technology: XMax
For cost reduction, how about using the same wavelengths for multiple signals? The physics are more than I can understand, but the hype sounds neat. From the article on Yahoo:
"AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A new communications tool that "whispers" on busy radio channels could enable broadband Internet services for on-the-go wireless devices or hook-up homes that cannot yet get fast Web access, its inventor said..."
It's radio without use of the radio spectrum, which is a weird thing to say, but there it is.
Actually, the physics are quite simple. xMax is really not using overlapping signals (although CDMA can allow the closest thing to that...), but what it DOES allow is an extremely narrow bandwidth (1 Hz, according to them and other researchers in the Ultra Narrow Band arena...) for a high data rate digital signal- something that is almost as good as what you've described. Some experimentation has provided for jaming 3-4 Megabits or more into a space, 1Hz in width, on a 24MHz IF. xG's one of the players, there's others. There's, of course, the detractors that say it's all a delusion- they might be right, they might be wrong. Part of the problem with the detractors' proof work is that they are solely relying on math to prove it wrong- never mind that an empirical proof trumps any mathematical model (in other words, if you build it and it works, even though your models say it can't, then there's a problem with your model...). This is not to say either side is right, but there's stuff on http://www.vmsk.org to give the whole concept a whirl for yourself. I've not yet built the simple 3 IC circuit yet (as it needs some RF components that I don't have in my parts box...)- but it's on my short list of things to do.