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Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

Crap, now I need to go buy a couple of these and lobby the nearest data center for some rooftop space.

That is the short way of saying I had no idea you could get antenna this effective for wireless data transmission. I'd seen the 5mbps ones but nothing close to a gigabit much less 10 gigabits. Time to draw a 10km radius circle around my home address :-)

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I've seen up to about 400 Mbps on my Webpass [1] connection for a couple years, and I think that's pretty run-of-mill tech at this point [2]

1. https://webpass.net/

2. https://www.ubnt.com/broadband/

Webpass uses a fairly large number of Siklu 80 GHz 1 Gbps radios on rooftops for backbone links in SF.

There are solutions that are lower end than this one, but still gigabit, at relatively affordable prices.

This Ubiquiti setup is $999 per side: https://www.ubnt.com/airfiber/airfiber5/

An AF5 or AF5X PTP link isn't a transparent 1Gb full duplex bridge, realistically you'll achieve 250-400 Mbps max. They're great radios but physics is still physics, 40 or 80 MHz wide dual polarity channel at 256QAM 5/6 code rate is not 1GbE.

Given the context that the parent was saying "I'd seen the 5mbps ones but nothing close to a gigabit", and was talking about a non-commercial setup, it still seems relevant.

Also curious...they show 5470-5950 MHz...from my layperson standpoint, that seems to allow for more than 80MHz wide. What's the actual story? The UBNT forums seems to indicate 2 separate 50Mhz channels, one for TX...one for RX.

That span is the total allowable space in the FCC part 15 rules for 5 GHz gear, where the AF5/5X has been tested and certified. Other radios can be used from 5200 to 5850 MHz (DFS frequencies permitting).

But the size of the channels it can operate in are 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 60 or 80 MHz wide. Software configurable on the radio.

The NSA Bluffdale facility might just squeak in that line for me. Think they'd hook me up?

If they do, let me know ;) I'm just about there too.

Metrolinq has a 1GE product using unlicensed 60 Ghz which is like $500 a pop.

Though you need to be 500-650 meters max from your source of bandwidth for it to be reliable, 60 is super short range.

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