The U.S. Federal Communication Commission has adopted new rules allowing experimental licenses of 10-year duration for services in the 95 GHz to 3,000 GHz spectrum, intended to allow innovators to create potential new use cases.
The move might be deemed notable for several reasons. For starters, 3,000 GHz is about the absolute limit of the radio wave spectrum, the place where energy exists as infrared light, not radio waves. We can communicate using light, that is what fiber optics is about. The point is that we have been beyond widespread and cheap free space communication platforms once we are in the realm of light-based communications.
Among the other implications is the near-certainty that commercial use of frequencies this high will be part of the eventual 6 G standard, as every new generation of digital mobile platforms has added new spectrum higher in frequency.
And since communications in the radio domain start to become “particle-like” or “wave-like” as frequency increases, “line of sight” becomes a major constraint, suggesting the highest ranges of radio frequencies will be best suited for near-field communications, indoor communications and other settings where line of sight is not a big problem.
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