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A long time ago back in college our team designed a free space optical gigabit digital link via laser diode and photodiode. We were transmitting I think 1 Gbps easily over maybe 50 meters. We didn't have enough time to polish the system or test faster speed because the sponsoring corporation took our design back to their RD group.

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Twenty years ago I worked at a place that had offices in buildings across the street from each other and had a laser network link between them in case the link through our ISP stopped working. I don't recall if we ever had to rely on it while I was working there, but I remember the guy in charge of monitoring it used to complain that it didn't work on foggy mornings. One end of the link was on the 21st floor, and we got fog at that level a lot more often at that height than at ground level.

I bet this was a microwave dish, super common to connect buildings with line of site., and prone to fog and weather :)

The Wikipedia entry for FSO networking is pretty misleading. There have been commercial products on the market for quite a while.

It's more likely that it's a microwave link, though, right? Hence the betting.

I did no research, so hold no strong opinion. I’m in favor of lasers whenever possible. :)

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