News NASA demonstrates space network speeds of up to 267 Mb/s — Deep Space Optical Communications stretch beyond 140 million miles

Xenophage

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Because of the inverse square law, I suspect your math about NASA's estimates of bandwidth is wrong. They said 10 to 100 times faster, and it *should* be the case that the farther out you go, the greater the advantages of laser communications over radio. It should not be a linear relationship.
 
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usertests

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Because of the inverse square law, I suspect your math about NASA's estimates of bandwidth is wrong. They said 10 to 100 times faster, and it *should* be the case that the farther out you go, the greater the advantages of laser communications over radio. It should not be a linear relationship.
I'm not sure. Don't lasers behave similarly to other forms of communication in that they become diffuse over a distance?
 

domih

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<<...At last, high-bandwidth Internet can operate on a truly galactic scale...>>

Mmm... with a beefy latency of 4.2465 x 365 x 24 x 60 x 60 x 1000 = 133,917,624,000 milliseconds with the nearest star. Double it, for a response.
 
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<<...At last, high-bandwidth Internet can operate on a truly galactic scale...>>

Mmm... with a beefy latency of 4.2465 x 365 x 24 x 60 x 60 x 1000 = 133,917,624,000 milliseconds with the nearest star. Double it, for a response.
The speed of light, so fast, yet so slow, we haven't even touched a fraction of that speed with a physical object yet.
 

HaninTH

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I wonder how random space "dust" will affect the signal and if the magnetic fields generated by some planets will do anything to it (Saturn & Jupiter). Also, how will stray light from stars and other interstellar objects come into play?

Oh, to be able to live long enough to see some of these technologies being used and extended. What will we be doing in 100 years, assuming we don't get wiped out by some unforeseen event or we do it to it ourselves before then.