Shower thought: Radio is probably going to survive well into the 2800s cause it's so simple and resilient

[u/SunderedValley]

With more distance anything that doesn't require establishing a handshake becomes a lot more attractive.

[u/MiamisLastCapitalist]

I think laser and beam is probably higher bandwidth for directed targets (ie, internet traffic between Mars and Earth for example), but locally among independent bodies that are buzzing around yes radio is very good. It's hard to have laser-wifi (though some have tried!).

[u/cowlinator → u/MiamisLastCapitalist]

I think you are correct in that directed energy communication is much more feasible for long distance communication.

But OP is right that anything that requires a handshake to complete before communication becomes increasingly unfeasible with distance.

So interplanetary (and especially for interstellar) communication may be asynchronous laser (or maser) "broadcasts".

NASA communicates with probes and rovers using a "Delay/Disruption Tolerant Network" (DTN) protocol. So a more extreme form of that (that can be tolerant of delays of years instead of minutes/hours) might also be an option. It can still involve an optional handshake, but it must begin communicating before the handshake completes.

[u/the_syner]

Radio will surely remain useful for a long time but I imagine that longer ranges would switch to tightbeam since that's better bandwidth and range for the same energy. Less dispersion is ur friend at ultra-long ranges. Radio is probably more useful at shorter ranges and when u want to broadcast to many devices at once.

tho idk what u mean by the handshake thing. That's an optional protocol. not inherent to radio or tightbeam but can be used with both.

[u/conventionistG]

It's just a band of EM. What could possibly make it go away? Idc if you're talking 8 centuries or 8 billion years.

[u/live-the-future]

Radio's nice, but analog at least is a pretty inefficient use of finite bandwidth. I can see a day when analog radio goes away to make room for many more digital channels of either radio or other forms of data.

BTW, there are digital protocols that also don't require handshakes, e.g. streaming.

[u/TheLostExpedition]

Radio is a perfected technology. Its omnidirectional and fine for short distance low data dense communications.

[u/letsburn00]

Honestly, whole Radio is almost certainly hyper critical, it looking like this kind of thing is what will end up cut during a "budget crisis". They say redundancy is the enemy of efficiency. You basically need to have competent people in charge for the rest of human history to ensure they don't junk the critical backup equipment.

I basically assume at least 1% of every century will have complete morons in charge who will throw out the emergency radio transmitters because the .001% of the budget they use is "waste"

[u/Ghazzz]

Hm?

Many countries have already stopped using analogue signals in favor of DAB.

The encryption on these is just a "predetermined handshake".

[u/PhiliChez]

More like well into the heat death

[u/magvadis]

Where there are ways to transmit information there will be people using it.