Progress was made on the Resilent Packet Ring standard last month in Vancouver, BC. The IEEE 802.17 Working Group is defining a Protocol for use in Local, Metropolitan and Wide Area Networks for transfer of data packets at rates scalable to many gigabits per second. The new standard will use existing Physical Layer specifications and will develop new PHYs where appropriate.
Fiber optic rings are widely deployed in Metropolitan and Wide Area Networks. These rings are currently using protocols that aren’t optimized or scalable. They need resiliency (with SONET-like rings) and cheaper costs (everything IP). That’s what the IEEE 802.17 Working Group is all about. They will hold a Plenary Meeting this November in Koloa, Kauai, Hawaii. Here’s a panoramic .jpg of Mauna Kea telescopes.
Boeing might be interested. Their Future Image Architecture will need 100 gigabits a second from space. Radio doesn’t have the bandwidth. Optics do. It might all come down to telescopes on mountains like Hawaii’s Mauna Kea (clickable photos). A millimeter array could provide back-up. Other sites might include White Sands and the VLT in Chile, the largest optical telescope facility on Earth. NPR’s Joe Palca reports on the idea of combining light from multiple telescopes.
Imagine a 100 Gigabit Resilent Packet Ring in space. The RPR would run a ring around the geosynchronous satellite platforms. They would really be simple RPR routers. Low Earth Orbit platforms link to them for image transfers or communications. Hyperspectral and other data could easy fill a GigE link at 60 GHz. For example, opto-chips can translate electrical signals - television, computer, telephone and radar - into optical signals at rates up to 100 gigabytes per second. Perhaps 100 different GigE nodes could link to a 100 Gig DWDM backbone. The geosynch optical up/down terminal could be in Hawaii. Hawaii is wired with all sorts of transpacific cable. Tyco has a 7.68 terabit connection terminating at Portland’s Brewery Blocks.
How about virtually “free” wireless bandwidth. World-wide. Boeing might be key to a truly global village. They could use a visionary like Craig McCaw. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist (or a United States citizen). It would be simple.
Glenn Fleishman has an alternative approach he calls the Houndstooth Networking Protocol. It’s delivered by a pack of wild dogs.
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