Milestone for Wi-Fi with 'T-Rays'

from BBC News Online

Researchers in Japan have smashed the record for wireless data transmission in the terahertz band, an uncharted part of the electro-magnetic spectrum. The data rate is 20 times higher than the best commonly used wi-fi standard.

As consumers become ever more hungry for high data rates, standard lower-frequency bands have become crowded. The research, published in Electronics Letters, adds to the idea that this "T-ray" band could offer huge swathes of bandwidth for data transmission.

The band lies between the microwave and far-infrared regions of the spectrum, and is currently completely unregulated by telecommunications agencies. Despite the name, the band informally makes use of frequencies from about 300 gigahertz (300GHz or about 60 times higher than the current highest wi-fi standard) to about 3THz, 10 times higher again.

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