Comparison of FSO 10 Micrometer Availability with FSO 850 nm/RF Hybrid Network Availability

Free space optic (FSO) can provide line of sight, wireless, high bandwidth multi giga bits per second links to fulfil high data rate requirements of future communication applications. However, the widespread growth of FSO has been hampered by availability and reliability issues. FSO links are highly weather dependent and attenuating factor like fog causes reduced link availability for considerable amount of time. The alternate solution is to use fail over with RF back up links that are less susceptible to weather attenuations. Another approach is to use longer wavelengths like 10 ¿m as these wavelengths have high penetration against fog. In this paper, the availability of hybrid FSO/RF network has been compared with the availability of 10 ¿m under different weather attenuating condition like fog, rain and snow. The availability analysis has been performed using measured attenuation data.