Communications Minister Helen Coonan has hailed a CSIRO wireless communications link claimed to be capable of transmitting data at a world-record six gigabits per second over a very short, point-to-point wireless connection as “great news for the future of broadband in Australia”.

The system is “suitable for situations where a high-speed link is needed but it is too expensive or logistically difficult to lay fibre, such as in congested urban environments, and across valleys and rivers,” she said.

 Dr Jay Guo (pictured) director of the Wireless Technologies Laboratory at CSIRO, said the demonstration held late last week was just a first stage towards direct connections of up to 12Gbps.

 However, he is more modest about its applications. “The system is ideal for creating networks to meet short-term needs such as emergencies and large events,” Guo said.

 In Friday’s demo, the team transmitted 16 simultaneous streams of DVD quality video over a 250-metre link with no loss of quality or delays. This used only a quarter of the capacity available, the organisation claimed.

 Apart from speed, the CSIRO says the link achieves the highest efficiency

(2.4bits/s/Hz) ever for such a system.

 The team of 20 researchers came from a number of disciplines, said CSIRO CEO Geoff Garrett. The system operates at 85GHz in the millimetre band of the electromagnetic spectrum which is not yet congested by other uses.