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WiFiber spans the 'last mile'

19.05.2006
In my never-ending quest to find innovative tools for the enterprise, I came across an offering from GigaBeam Corp. The product is called WiFiber, and it's a complement to existing fiber connectivity -- and a highly cost-effective alternative to laying new fiber.

John Krzywicki, vice president of GigaBeam, says that the product delivers 99.99999% (five nines) reliability up to distances of one mile, can be deployed in less than three days and pays back the investment relative to a leased line in nine months. The company touts WiFiber as connectivity for the "critical 'last mile' gap between the fiber-optic backbone and commercial buildings."

So, what is GigaBeam's WiFiber, and how does it work? The product is a point-to-point, full-duplex radio operating in the 71-76-GHz and 81-86-GHz range. It currently offers 1.25Gbit/sec. connectivity, or 2xGigE/OC-48, and will offer 2.7Gbit/sec. by September 2006, with 12.7Gbit/sec. service offered sometime in 2007.

WiFiber is not free-space optics, and as such it's not subject to much of the interference and disruptions that made earlier point-to-point enterprise products infamous. The product is not subject to interference from fog, snow, ice or light rain, but is affected by heavy rain. Krzywicki says, "WiFiber is the perfect product to deploy in Seattle or London (with lighter rain), but not in Miami or New Orleans (with heavier, hurricane-type rains)." The company guarantees five nines up to one mile in areas other than hurricane zones, and four nines in those areas.

Installation involves several steps but isn't overly complicated. The client applies to the Federal Communications Commission for a 10-year license as a point-to-point operator at a cost of US$700. Then a $300 application is filed with the Department of Defense and three other entities to certify that the cone of space applied for doesn't interfere with any other operator nor pose a security risk. This whole process takes about 20 minutes.

Physical security is provided by having the transmissions point-to-point several hundred feet in the air and on two different data streams. The uplink and downlink could be combined and the data stream split between the two to make interception even harder. And, of course, encryption can be added at any layer of the transmission, depending on client needs.