The terahertz (THz) band, 0.1-10 THz, has sufficient resources not only to satisfy the 5G requirements of 10 Gbit/s peak data rate but to enable a number of tempting rate-greedy applications. However, the THz band brings novel challenges, never addressed at lower frequencies. Among others, the scattering of THz waves from any object, including walls and furniture, and ultra-wideband highly-directional links lead to fundamentally new propagation and interference structures. In this article, we review the recent progress in THz propagation modeling, antenna and testbed designs, and propose a step-by-step roadmap for wireless THz Ethernet extension for indoor environments. As a side effect, the described concept provides a second life to the currently underutilized Ethernet infrastructure by using it as a universally available backbone. By applying real THz band propagation, reflection, and scattering measurements as well as ray-tracing simulations of a typical office, we analyze two representative scenarios at 300 GHz and 1.25 THz frequencies illustrating that extremely high rates can be achieved with realistic system parameters at room scales.
@article{arxiv.1708.02963,
title = {Last Meter Indoor Terahertz Wireless Access: Performance Insights and Implementation Roadmap},
author = {Vitaly Petrov and Joonas Kokkoniemi and Dmitri Moltchanov and Janne Lehtomaki and Yevgeni Koucheryavy and Markku Juntti},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1708.02963},
year = {2018}
}