This week two separate news items, one from Tektronix/IEMN and the other from Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT), both announced development of 100 Gbps “wireless fiber” solutions. Each took a different route with Tektronix and IEMN (a French research laboratory) demonstrating a single carrier wireless link with a 100 Gbps data rate signal at 252 to 325 GHz per the recently published IEEE 802.15.3d standard while NTT used a new principle, Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM) multiplexing at 28 GHz  with MIMO technology.

The Tektronix/IEMN demonstration uses advanced data coding, THz photonics and wideband and linear devices to enable ultra fast wireless connections in the 252 to 325 GHz band according to the release. The purpose of the new 802.15.3d standard is to provide for low complexity, low cost, low power consumption, very high data rate wireless connectivity among devices and in the future ‘low THz’ bands. Potential applications mentioned include consumer multimedia, wireless switched point-to-point applications in data centers, wireless backhaul/front haul, intra-device communications and a wide variety of additional use cases such as rapid large multimedia data downloads and file exchanges between two devices in close proximity.

The demonstration was accomplished within the framework of several research projects including the COM’TONIQ, Era-net Chistera TERALINKS and TERASONIC ANR projects in THz communications. The French Equipex programs, “FLUX” (high-speed guided fiber/wireless-based advanced data coms) and “ExCELSIOR” (advanced characterization of nano-devices and systems) also supported this effort along with IEMN platform facilities and the RENATECH French nanofabrication network, IRCICA USR-3380. The demonstration was also supported by the CPER “Photonics for society” and contributes to the “digital world” Hub 3 of the I-Site Université de Lille Nord de France. I actually had not idea that Tektronix has a long history of collaboration with IEMN on THz communications research and most recently supported the first data transmission through a THz multiplexer.

NTT has successfully demonstrated for the first time 100 Gbps wireless transmission Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM) multiplexing in order to achieve terabit-class wireless transmission to support demand for future wireless systems. It was shown in a laboratory environment that dramatic increases in transmission capacity can be achieved by signals using this new principle of OAM multiplexing in combination with widely used MIMO technology. NTT conducted transmission experiments at a distance of 10 meters in the laboratory operating in the 28 GHz frequency band. Eleven data signals each at a bit rate of 7.2 to 10.8 Gbps were simultaneously generated and carried by multiple OAM-multiplexed signals, thereby achieving large-capacity wireless transmission at a total bit rate of 100 Gbps.

Here is a video demonstrating the technology: