
Ronja (Reasonable Optical Near Joint Access) - Etheryte
http://ronja.twibright.com/about.php
======
tdj
I remember reading about this in the late 90s, open hardware was a fairly new
concept then. But you needed to be an electrical engineer to make one
yourself, more or less; I wanted to build a pair with a friend so we could
play gamed (this was in dialup times). Soon broadband made it obsolete for
casual users in urban areas.

There's a modern day equivalent, with up to 10Gbps capability using infrared -
[http://koruza.net/](http://koruza.net/)

~~~
aichi
Yes, the difference is in speed and distance (150m).

~~~
Kubuxu
And size.

------
mmjaa
I saw these in use a few years back by some alt-net hackers, but I haven't
heard hide nor hair from RONJA since then. Which is a pity because it really
seems to me that this is a technology that could put the 'net back in the
hands of the people - with a handful of these inexpensive devices couldn't we
build a "Peoples Net" revolution?

Off to find out if someone is commercialising this yet by offering DIY kits,
etc. ...

------
mkj
I built one of these years ago, didn't use that that much though. Totally
supersed by radio these days.

One interesting use of free space optics is working around legal issues. At
least in Australia the Telco act (via reference to the Radiocommunications
Act) only goes up to 420THz which is red colour, so free space optics can be
unregulated.

------
Piskvorrr
I remember those being used back in the late 90s - when point-to-point radio
links were prohibitively expensive and/or too noisy. Is this still worthwhile,
other than as a quirky historical device?

~~~
taesis
> The device has 1.4km range and has stable 10Mbps full duplex data rate.

I'll go out on a limb and say 'a quirky historical device'.

~~~
oconnore
If the devices could do 10Mbps in the '90s, a similar effort could do much
better now.

The range is tricky, especially in fog, but mountain to mountain links (single
channel audio) have gone 173 miles.

~~~
Piskvorrr
Nah. I've been looking into this, actually: you're up against all sorts of
physics constraints, unless you want to go laser (beam dispersal, air
humidity, lens size...), and with lasers, it gets legally tricky. There are
technical reasons this hasn't caught on, the 10 Mbps is indeed the theoretical
upper limit (people used to lovingly call them "fog density meters").

~~~
oconnore
You haven't been looking very hard, this is a commercial 10Gbps system that
does 7 kilometers in clear skies:
[http://artolink.com/page/why/](http://artolink.com/page/why/)

I was mainly referring to the hobby builds being able to do better.

~~~
Piskvorrr
_In clear skies._ Around here, that's a big _if_ \- with the other side of the
disclaimer reading "...and if the weather is not perfect, you get no link at
all." Perhaps useful in other regions, though.

