What Real-Time Wi-Fi Feels Like

Just how fast is "real time" wireless? Imagine an entire Blu-ray disc worth of data could be communicated between a transmitting device and receiving device in about two or three seconds. Or the entire memory contents of your typical iPhone could be dumped to a storage system in about a second or so. News that researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have achieved an experimental wireless transmission rate of 100 gigabits per second will make it possible. Concretely, if the use of the system finds its way into commercial devices sooner rather than later, it'll be used to help bridge difficult gaps in fiber optic networks, like those being installed to bring broadband to the wilder parts of the world. This is because its input signals are optical and can be taken in a bit-transparent way. Rather nicely the tech uses some fairly simple and robust devices--which means it's not necessarily many years from production.