2.5 Terrabit Wireless has been demonstrated ...

[ScottMac]

This tidbit showed up in the company wireless newsletter:

(quote)
Infinite-capacity wireless vortex beams carry 2.5 terabits per second - ExrtemeTech.com (e)
American and Israeli researchers have used twisted, vortex beams to transmit data at 2.5 terabits per second. As far as we can discern, this is the fastest wireless network ever created — by some margin. This technique is likely to be used in the next few years to vastly increase the throughput of both wireless and fiber-optic networks. These twisted signals use orbital angular momentum (OAM) to cram much more data into a single stream. In current state-of-the-art transmission protocols (WiFi, LTE, COFDM), we only modulate the spin angular momentum (SAM) of radio waves, not the OAM. If you picture the Earth, SAM is our planet spinning on its axis, while OAM is our movement around the Sun. Basically, the breakthrough here is that researchers have created a wireless network protocol that uses both OAM and SAM. The next task for will be to increase the OAM network’s paltry one-meter transmission distance to something a little more usable. [back to top]
(end quote)

FWIW

 

[Ghiedo27]

I'd be interested to know what their antennas look like. In the proof of concept test they (Bo Thide and his team) managed to send 2 simultaneous OAM+SAM signals over a distance of about 450 meters using an antenna with a corkscrew shape like so (source):

I imagine that the 1 meter limitation has, at least in part, something to do with matching antenna geometry. At some relatively small number you can't just use an array of normal antennas and even if you could you wouldn't be able to transmit the high density OAM signals.

 

[ScottMac]

Good question. I know that for most satellite comms using a yagi-like antenna (versus a helix), there are two sets of elements, one vertical, one horizontal set 1/4 wavelength apart, rendering a "circular" polarization (right or left hand, depending on which element set leads / lags).

The antenna you pictured appears to be a helical type or perhaps a helical form steerable array.

Regardless, it looks like a killer app, and perhaps will give wired networks a run for their money.

 

[alkemyst]

802.11ac will be epic. LTE will eventually be even more so.