Conference area network

Abstract

A communication network including a point-to-point, wireless, millimeter wave trunk line communications link at high data rates in excess of 1 Gbps. This link is combined with a local network that includes a fixed wireless network to provide high speed digital data communication for users. In preferred embodiments the network also include Ethernet service to additional users. In these preferred embodiments many or most of these large number of users are temporary users such as participants at a conference. In a preferred embodiment, a trunk line communication link operates within the 92 to 95 GHz portion of the millimeter spectrum. A first transceiver transmits at a first bandwidth and receives at a second bandwidth both within the above spectral range. A second transceiver transmits at the second bandwidth and receives at the first bandwidth. The transceivers are equipped with antennas providing beam divergence small enough to ensure efficient spatial and directional partitioning of the data channels so that an almost unlimited number of transceivers will be able to simultaneously use the same spectrum. In a preferred embodiment, the first and second spectral ranges are 92.3-93.2 GHz and 94.1-95.0 GHz and the half power beam width is about 0.36 degrees or less. In this preferred embodiment, the local network uses Gigabit Ethernet hardware to provide data communication among hotels and conference rooms at 1 gigabits per second and IEEE standard 802.11b equipment to provide communication among a large number of users at 10 to 100 Mbps. Preferred applications of this invention include multi-location conferences, such as conferences spread over several hotels.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.