[hilbert42]

Perhaps so, but this new standard reminds me of the born-dead USB1 standard, which at the time of its launch was so slow as to be almost useless.

This new optical standard is only about 50% faster than the now-ancient copper SATA standard of 6Gbps. It has stuff-all reserve for future development!

Every time we have one of these new standards, Wi-Fi whatever, they are just a bit above the previous standard and never at the limits of the tech. There is never enough reserve to give them decent longevity. It's as if those manufacturers involved in setting standards were making a standard that would be quickly obsolescent—that is, they'd guarantee ongoing production/sales without much effort.

It's been such a consistent problem for so long that it has shades of the Phoebus cartel about it. As always, the user ends up paying more because of premature (planned) obsolescence.

[zokier]

> This new optical standard is only about 50% faster than the now-ancient copper SATA standard of 6Gbps

you are surprised that free-space optical transfer over many(?) meters is "only" 50% faster than data transfer over <1m carefully constructed differential coax-pairs?

[Dylan16807]

Sata is pretty far from careful, the 6Gbps rating is for one pair, and that was 15 years ago.

[supertrope]

Electronics is an extremely cost conscious industry. There's not a viable market for massive jumps forward if the laptop would cost 10x. Approaching the Shannon Limit also is at odds with maximizing battery life. Recent Macbooks only have 2x2 MIMO. Presumably 3x3 MIMO used relatively too much power, space, or BOM.

[fulafel]

IR is 0.3-100 THz, so the bands can be very wide and don't need to approach theoretical bandwidth efficiency limits to get lots of bits over, no?

[hilbert42]

Right.

[hilbert42]

Fine but this is an optical standard, and if worried about power then automatic and or fixed limit throttling could remedy the problem.

The link sp332 has provided says it all, reckon it supports my case.

[eropple]

> It's been such a consistent problem for so long that it has shades of the Phoebus cartel about it.

Which wasn't what the general public thinks it is and, much like equating short-run in-device transports with lossy, room-distance ones, is a good signal that one is comparing apples and trailer trucks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb7Bs98KmnY

[yjftsjthsd-h]

It's not competing with SATA, it's competing with WiFi.

[hilbert42]

OK, at the end of my WiFi I have a SATA or much faster drive (or any other data source) attached.

So the WiFi becomes the transport layer in the OSI model. It's the throughput data rate that matters not the type of devices that are connected at either end of the link (nor the protocol by which they're connected). .