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by aptitude_moo 739 days ago
Very interesting, I studied telecommunications and I thought the Shannon limit was the absolute limit. I wonder now if this Gordon Holevo limit is applicable for "traditional" telecommunications (like 5G) as opposed to photon counting a deep space probe

EDIT: This paper seems to answer my question [1]

[1] https://opg.optica.org/directpdfaccess/8711ab35-bbc2-4d51-8e...

2 comments

As also explained in the conclusion of the paper linked by you, "photon-counting" detectors are possible only when the energy of one photon is high enough, which happens only for infrared light or for higher frequencies.

"Photon-counting" methods cannot be implemented at frequencies so low as used in 5G networks or in any other traditional radio communications.

Can you please post another link? This one does not work.
Weird, it works for me. You can use any of the other published links in the sibling comments. The name of the paper is "Quantum Limits in Optical Communications" by Banaszek
I think it's this one:

https://opg.optica.org/jlt/viewmedia.cfm?uri=jlt-38-10-2741&...

Quantum Limits in Optical Communications

Konrad Banaszek, Ludwig Kunz, MichaƂ Jachura, and Marcin Jarzyna