Re: Nice technology
If you mean free-air laser communications, probably not as rare as you think. My company had two buildings on opposite sides of a main road, and we connected their LANs together via a laser link on each roof. Far more practical & cheaper than putting a wire over or under the road, and proved to be very reliable. Our link was over just a few 100 meters, but I believe the stated range of the units was 5km (line of sight, obviously). I have seen quite a few examples of the same thing once I started looking. It's frequently used between buildings on a campus or industrial estate as a cable link would exceed the max ethernet cable length and also require expensive digging to lay a duct.
Many short range ad-hoc military communications are done via free-air laser links (vehicle to vehicle or ship to ship for example), as a tight laser beam cannot be intercepted or jammed.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
