At one point we bought a fancy (for the time) microwave link to cover a distance of about 3km. We specifically asked whether it would be affected by weather conditions. We were assured multiple times in the most confident of terms that it would not be a problem, the technology was tested and such eventualities accounted for with various features and failsafes.
The thing proceeded to go down every time it rained, and no amount of tweaking settings, power, phase, polarity or orientation helped. This is the manufacturer/vendor doing the tweaks, mind you, not clueless me (I wouldn’t dream of touching this arcane technology I knew nothing about).
In the end we ditched the microwave and went with a good old copper link which worked without a hitch regardless of the weather.
So since you are, in your own sarcastic way, asking how I know, this is how: from experience. I don’t know about the technology but I do know about when they promise you it will work in the rain.
Rain fade is sort of a solved problem in microwave comms [1]. Earlier than that, it was predictable.
Laser comms aren’t going to be useful in Houston. They’ll probably be a game changer for swarms of drones at altitude, anything in space and the sorts of arid, weather-stable places we like to build data centres.
By the way you say you "bought a fancy microwave link" it sounds like you were bamboozled by the vendor. Exactly what manufacturer, model of radios, antenna configuration and other configuration was this that failed to work in rain?
That happens all the time. A random person on the internet predicted the iPhone 4 antennagate problem before it got released. Everyone on the planet who plays videogames knew the Xbox One announcement was suicide and we were right.
Plus there's the possibility they're well aware of this problem but are going full steam ahead anyway.
