A New York University (NYU) student research team pushed the envelope for millimeter wave network range in a recently conducted field test in rural southwest Virginia.

Setting up a millimeter wave transmitter on the porch of the country home of their professor Ted Rappaport, the students found that they could receive signals at distances of over 10 kms (6.2 mi) even when line of sight was obstructed by a hill or a stand of trees.

Overall, the team picked up millimeter wave signals emanating from Prof. Rappaport’s front porch at 14 spots as far as 10.8 kms away that were within direct line of sight and at 17 spots that were as far as 10.6 kms away where transmission was obstructed.

Equally significant, the millimeter wave transmitter needed less than 1 watt (W) of power operatingat 73 GHz, according to an IEEE Spectrum news report about the millimeter wave network range testing.

“I was surprised we exceeded 10 kilometers with a few tens of milliwatts,” Rappaport was quoted. “I expected we’d be able to go a few kilometers in non-line-of-sight but we were able to go beyond ten.”

The FCC in June opened 11 GHz of new spectrum in the millimeter wave band to network operators for the development of 5G technology, IEEE Spectrum notes.

Read the full article on telecompetitor.com