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comment by DJWalnut
DJWalnut  ·  2942 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The secret world of microwave networks

with the recent death of google fiber expansion, perhaps microwave can save us from Big Cable?





lm  ·  2941 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Unfortunately, microwave links are affected by rain and clouds (water is a great absorber of RF energy), and the higher the frequency (and thus the higher the bandwidth), the worse rain fade gets. Your standard internet user cares way more about speed (and thus bandwidth) than they do about latency, so microwave isn't a great fit for their needs.

This is why we've been deprecating microwave for fiber links in general--it's a lot cheaper to set up a few towers and antennas than it is to dig really long trenches to lay fiber in.