On Thu, Jan 1, 2009 at 7:16 PM, Kurt Feltenberger <[email protected]> wrote: > David Scheidt wrote: >> >> For communication between fixed points, cables will always be cheaper >> than radio links in the the long run. They're also faster and more >> reliable. >> > > I'm not sure I can agree with you unless you specify the distance between > the fixed points and whether you can rig masts for additional range due to > LOS issues. > > If you have LOS, then point to point wireless communications is much less > expensive, both in the short run (setup costs) and long run (maintenance > costs). If you're looking at distances of several hundred miles and can use > solar/battery powered relays, then you're still going to be less expensive > over running cable between the two fixed points.
There's a reason there are no long-distance microwave links anymore: They're expensive to run (radios consume lots of power), they're expensive to maintain, they're unreliable, they're weather sensitive, and they've got seriously limited bandwidth. (In the 70s, T was considering building underground microwave waveguides to get around a lot of these problems. I've read the proposals; *that* made economic sense. Fibre came along and made the idea insane, but it made sense to do this, and it was just for voice traffic, not data.) There's a niche market for short term point-to-point wicrowave links, where there are problems running cables directly, but it's not very big, and getting smaller. -- David Scheidt [email protected] _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
