So a friend linked me to this video:

http://www.ubnt.com/themes/ubiquiti/air-fiber-video.html

I want to know why it isn't all that they're cracking it up to be, and Massassi is where I know I'll get those answers from.

I'm @ 1:34, strugglin' to not close the tab. :/

There better be a payoff, Geb!

Is this some sort of social experiment / forum game???

it's just a swanky point to point microwave radio link?

I'm confused what are you suggesting that it is 'cracked up to be'?

AHHAHAHAAHAA... whew... i accidentally opened it in two different windows and didn't realize it. took me a while to figure out that the crazy echo was NOT supposed to be there...

hmm.... if the transmitter/receiver is knocked will it disrupt the signal? such as with high winds, earthquakes... bird-strike?? also maybe the technology is still very new and not quite ready to put to market?

the technology that they described does not seem particularly new or special. it sounds like a series of possible improvements on pretty straightforward PTP radio link stuff. Yeah, getting knocked will totally disrupt the signal. Rain, earthquakes, birds (lol), any obstruction or blockage would cause signal degradation etc. Despite the heavy damn drama in this video, I didn't really get what's so fantastic about this (although the simultaneous transmitting is something I'd never heard of)... but I am no expert by any means, so I could be missing the point. But if the point is "look how fast they can transfer data through the air, they don't even have to use fiber," that is certainly nothing new, and there are plenty of reasons it's not some game-changer. Geb I'm actually interested to hear your take because I am afraid I might be totally missing the point.

Honestly, I know very little of this stuff, and it's mostly the drama and my friend thinking it was cool that made me even think this was worth any time looking at. The points about blockage and getting knocked over seem more than enough to convince me that my heavy skepticism was correct.

What was your understanding of the use of such a thing? That it would be for consumers like us? Just curious :).

Frankly, it's because similar technology has existed for a long time now, just not with that sort of bandwidth. It's used in rural areas and such, to deliver broadband speeds where satellite or dialup would normally be the only options.

Their speed advertisements are pretty funny. They don't offer much statistics on the performance, but they say it maxes out at 1.4Gbps. That's a lot of speed, but I also am willing to bet it's their maximum theoretical. Realistic speeds are probably less, maybe significantly less so for longer distances (which it would be most used at).

You won't have this going to every suburban home anyway, so it's pointless there. You'd need a separate receiver for every house, which is just ridiculous. It's only really useful for the aforementioned rural areas.

Also, they advertise that it's much faster than what home ISPs offer, like FiOS. That may be true for what they offer now, but it's not a technological limitation. Google for instance, is trialing 1Gbps fiber connections in Kansas. That's easily fast enough to be competitive with this technology. There's no reason FiOS can't offer similar speeds, other than to make sure they have enough backend to the internet to make it happen.

tl;dr: great for farmers and hermits, irrelevant for most other people.

Kansas City, MO, CM

Edit: ACTUALLY I WAS RIGHT. Kansas City, Kansas was first, Kansas City, MO was the expansion.

Whoa, Geb's post has a different font all of a sudden. YA-HA WHACKO STUFF

There's no such thing as Kansas City, KS -_- Trust me.

The send/receive dishes are fixed at a specific angle, so they'll have to produce variants for specific distances. Units that were produced to work at 1km won't work for 10km.

I don't see why the receiver piece (the thing that sticks out in front of the dish) wouldn't be adjustable. By adjusting that, it should alter the angle the dish uses, no?

Look closely at shots of the back of the unit. It appears to be one solid piece.

How perfect does the aim have to be? If the two dish centers are 2 feet apart (just a guess looking at the pics) and it's aimed perfect at 5km, it'd be aiming a foot low at 2.5km and 2 feet high at 10km. Is that enough to make a device like this not work? If it's really that sensitive I don't see how it could work at all mounted on a building or pole which could easily sway more than enough to throw the angle off worse than that.