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High-speed Internet Access: Power Lines For Real
securitas writes "ID reports that German utilities started offering high speed Internet access via power lines last month, and Sweden and the Netherlands are not far behind. The companies claim to have resolved problems of interference and line noise. US trials are taking place in secret with Reston VA based PowerLine Technologies. Nortel and Siemens abandoned the technology in 1999 but if this is for real DSL and cable may have a new competitor."
It sends tingles down my spine...
Perhaps I should stop hugging my future internet connection..
owe.
Computational Madness in a round package.
damn.... FP and everything :)
ok... on to the real meat of the comment
this is something that has been thought out to death... frankly, it's a pretty good idea whos time is WAY overdue...
with everyone pissin' and moanin' about "the last mile", doesn't this pretty much solve that?
who knows of a house/apartment that DOESN'T have power?
If they can actually deliver on what they promise, it will be interesting. With DSL vendors folding left and right, cable seems to have a clear path to domination. It will be good to see some competition.
Of course, it'll be interesting to see the first guy who "wires" his own house get fried.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
they test a lot of things there... that's the place where they tested Ebola monkies and narrowly avoided a nationwide (if not worldwide) epidemic.
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
spam pr0n link
We all know that our "Friends" at the power company are as good of a monopoly as we could possibly ever know - perhaps even better than the phone/telco monopolies because deregulation occurs at the city/state level instead of at the national level with FCC Regulation....
So... We go from the hands of one monopoly (Cable) to another monopoly (Phone) to yet a third monopoly (Power).
I'm not sure which devil is going to be better.
For areas with limited telco/cable service, this may be the monopoly - and we know how the energy companies are on rates...
Another question - will this be handled as well as power in California? I hope not...
quis custodiet ipsos custodes - Juvenal
I live in Germany and all I can tell you that German Telecom would not like that! They are pushing DSL here like crazy. They discontiued flat-rate for ISDN and POTS, so if you want flat rate you have to get T-DSL. No other companys offer flat rate.
What German Util company are you talking about. I would like to order it!
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
sounds like a new Internet technology. Hope no one gets burned.
I hope it's true this time. I am soooo tired of Qwest dragging its sorry butt when I live in between two neighbourhoods that have DSL and I can't get it because "We don't believe that it's the right demographic for expansion into that particular area at this time." That's what they actually told me, believe it or not -- and that's also their rationale for continuing to have crappy phone service -- the lines are so bad here, I can't get more than 14.4 on a 56k modem. Did I mention also that I live less than two miles from the State U. and the local "Technology Corridor"? Blarg.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
If this is true, this must be pretty fast. Does anyone know exactly what speeds this is capable of achieving?
And also, how does this exactly work? Anyone? Will a power outage affect it? What special equipment is need and how much?
Really interested in learning more. Someone please point me in the right direction.
Was I brave enough to leave the computer running on a UPS during a thunderstorm, disconnecting the powercable now will also cause my internet connection to be dropped...
bash$
does this remind anyone of the BOFH (bastard operator from hell, the the un-initated) who had a cable with a RJ-45 connector on one side and a wall plug on the other? That man is my god. I AM the PFY
will I need a building permit and a *wink wink* licensed electrician to add a new jack to my home network?
:)
what happens to the signal in my ups?
ooh... I can store slashdot in my laptop's battery for reading on the plane.
This definately puts a new light on the power shortage in Silicon Valley and California
The MyTh - I am a figment of the Imagination - [Im Probably even not here]
-- Dan
They have been talking about this for quite some time now. The power companies are realizing the potential that they have now. I mean, in the US, close to 100% of the computers are somehow connected to the power grid. This would definitely solve the "last mile" problem that all these companies faced.
But again, the thought of hooking up a "modem" to a power outlet is kinda freaky...
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
Alright folks, let's think about this for a second. One major reason DSL isn't deployed more than it is, is the cost of rolling it out. The installation of the DSLAMs are quite expensive. Now, while I am excited about this new technology I don't see anything stating the cost of rollout. If this is just as expensive, and I'd bet money on it being MORE expensive, it's not going to have any better coverage than the current options. You also have to factor in the temination equipment that will have be be involved at the customer site as well. Like I said, it'll be great if something comes along and replaces my slow, expensive BRI ISDN line, but I don't see it happening for a while. Just my opinion, that's all.
Keep Austin Weird!
Recently a hotly debated topic in my community has been the idea the city should get involved in providing telecommunications services. The proposed plan would mean stringing up miles of fiber all over the city to provide high-speed Internet access to businesses and residential customers. It's this type of technology that makes me so opposed to the idea. If the city could use existing low voltage power lines to transmit data the costs of starting up such a venture would be significantly reduced.
Still, what would be the life expectancy of this technology? It seems cable and DSL have such a lead in the market it would be hard for power companies to really become competitive. With the emergence of new wireless technologies that have the potential to out perform DSL and cable it seems power line data transmission won't last long on the open market.
Additionally, how would a power failure effect service? I have a UPS on my system at home so when the power goes out I still have access via modem or even cable service to my servers at work. With power failures that last more than 20 minutes I'm able to log in and shutdown everything safely before the UPS's at work fail. If I were unable to log on because a power failure also effected my Internet access I wouldn't be very pleased. It seems like electrical storms could cause significant interference as well - as all power lines are unshielded (as far as I know). I'm sure there must be some electronic component that keeps power surges from frying your "power line modem" out (another potential problem). So it seems to me there are still some bugs to work out. Only time will tell.
For now I'm going to stick with cable and wait for high-speed wireless to hit the street.
I can just see it now..
(customer) HI GE, I WUZ UH , WONDERING WHY I CAN'T GET ON MY NEW POWERLINE INTERNET I UH, IT DOESNT WORK
(support from Alabama) HI AND WELCOME TO GE POWERLINE TECH SUPPORT, DO NOT STICK A FORK IN YOUR JACK IN AN ATTEMPT TO REMOVE DEBRIS!
(customer) I DO WUT NOW??
*BZZZZZZZZT* POP FIZZLE
* burning noise on the line *
(tech support girl from Alabama) uhh, sir? SIR? damn
*click*
No need to root my box now, all the script kiddies will just overload my power strip and fry my computer.
And you gotta know there's no patch for that exploit.
* getting the costs right (the example costs look good),
* getting the safety licked (I presume they have, but it still won't be risk-free), and
* overcoming spikes etc (which they claim to have done),
I'll be interested to see how they tackle data security.
Looking forward to reading my neighbours emails as they whizz through the power lines! Should be able to pick them with a good loop from driving around outside.
How long do we have to put up with this crap?
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
The real question is whether or not the hardware will let you communicate with anyone else (at a reasonable distance) on you power segment with no changes at the pole?
If so that would be wild as hell. It would be like having a dry copper pair to eveyone on your street. Small ISP's could spring up over night to offer the powerline to internet bridging as a service.
Of course with anything this good for the free market the government will try to fuck this up the first chance they get. Might be pretty hard to block though...hey I can dream.
What about the impact on our health? I know, the impact of high frequency magnetic fields is not fully studied, and even scientists disagree... So aren't we pushing for radio-antennas to stay far away from our homes? Didn't someone tell us, that having a cellular phone near our brain may cause damages? And now we want this high-frequency antennas to our homes, and to our desktop???
For now, Internet users praise the speed, but soon people will realize and avoid DSL and the like for sake of their health.
In Italy Telecom Italia doesn't install more than 2 DSL lines for each building, due to "intereference" problems. Ever tried to listen to MW or LW radio inside a radius of 5 meters from a DSL cable or DSL modem??? You hear only noise!
think about it!
(I use ADSL in our office, and we are happy with it, but I wouldn't want in in my home)
ms
No other companys offer flat rate.
T-Propaganda worked well on you. There are plenty of others (like arcor, qdsl, qsc, mobilcom, o.tel.o etc.).
I dont know what util company they are talking about, but www.rwe.de is offering it. Be warned: they are expensive as hell!
keep it simple.
Suck on my penis, please. Harder.
My DSL has more uptime than my power.
Com-Ed sucks!
Only until Taco stops sucking on my penis and gets back to work. Suck on my penis, please.
-
maybe next year at this time, instead of all california being blacked out, there will just be 5,000,000 computer nerds without any decent bandwidth.
I'd like to shout out to all the punks from revolution cafe in herndon virginia, fuck yeah! get that fucking power line ultra fast bandwidth working to the burroughs of chantilly next bitches! fucking shouting out to ciscon, relik, zealot, unocide, and fucking CRICKETNES IN MANASSASS bitch! calling in from fucking UVA! FUCK DUDE!, FUCKING GO NUTS WITH THIS SHIT! FUCK YEAH BITCH! BEER AT THE SHIT MAN! COOK IT FUCKFACE YEAH BITCH!
Thanks,
Travis
forkspoon@hotmail.com
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
gay fag... all you NAMBLA fucks should be castrated
I suppose a con is that anyone could just T-splice into your powerlines and listen in to your packets. But on the plus side, anyone foolish enough to splice into a 10,000 volt powerline probably won't be listening for very long...
:)
Hey, maybe this kind of technology will see the advent of Black ICE like we all used to read about in Gibson's books...
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Assuming California is in a heat wave and the power reserve is small, then how will this high-speed Internet access supposed to work during a rolling black out? I assume both Internet access and electricity would go out. Double whammies. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I haven't read anything about Powerline in Germany, and note that the post did NOT contain any articles from even semi-reliable sources. The powerline website is very outdated, it still has promises for (1Q-2001)!. Add to that the proliferation of buzzwords (they've invented their entire architecture over there!) and the lack of specifics and I think i'm looking at a mirage....
Also note the lack of ability to BUY anything, or any links to any hardware vendors building the stuff....
Of course, maybe it's just me....
I live outside Pittsburgh, in a rural area, in a border war between a few cable companies, and I've yet to get high speed access of any kind.
Anything more in the mix is a welcome, maybe I'll actually get it somewhere... Been waiting like 12 years for something better than modem.
God spoke to me
From their website (woefully short on technical detail):
"Provides standard data rate of 2.4 Mb/s at user level (to be boosted to 10 Mb/s by Q1-2001), using a highly efficient modem, specially designed to operate in noisy power line environments."
If it really is as plug-n-play as it sounds, this technology must have the telecoms sweating bullets. (Wait a sec-- Q1-2001 was 6 months ago!)
However, I too am skeptical about line noise--have you ever measured the voltage at the outlets of your house? 114V here, 110 there.... The 60Hz voltage ripple might not matter so much, given that they're probably using a band at least in the MHz range, but I have difficulty believing that you can get enough signal-to-noise to filter out all that 'nonsense' MHz noise while at the same time still keeping that line voltage as constant as it needs to be.
Re: UPS power strips-- fundamentally these work by ISOLATING your computer from high frequency noise (surges & dropouts)!! You would definitely have to get a new UPS if you used this system--or else plug in your adapter in parallel with your UPS.
Also, 2.4Mb/s at the "user level"--I assume they mean that even though you're sharing a connection with everyone in your neighborhood (a la cable modems), somehow those high voltage power lines can maintain this bandwidth for everyone on your block/neighborhood/city--but of course on any line there has to be a ceiling. Anyone know any specifics of this technology?
Side note-- I work for a prominent fuel cell system developer (fuel cells=grid independent power). Maybe the electrical utilities are looking ahead to the inevitable replacement of centralized power plants by distributed power generation methods such as fuel cells. The beauty of this power-grid-qua-high-speed-access technology is twofold: (1) no need to spend the billions it would take to string fiberoptic cable all over the world, and (2) there will still be a use for the existing power grid in 25 years.
--Mike
I believe the project is born dead. Let me explain why.
:-( having 56k with my friends; with DSL I cannot use the modem for anything except the Internet access. The same may be true for the electric networks, but not for Ethernet.
I believe the signal bandwidth as well as it's transmission distance corresponds to the group of 3-5 standard Soviet-era buildings, 80 apartments each. The single transformer serves this group - and also insulates the group from the 10-kV backbone network. It means that we either should place the routers on each transformer - or the capacitor bridges will passively route the data, overloading the network as a whole - or the groups will be insulated and still need a group router somewhere.Don't forget that all the equipment will be special (read: expensive due to limited production size).
Now let us consider the nearest competing technology - UTP Ethernet. You can easily buy routers, bridges, switches, cables, protectors and have no problems with mounting the cables between the buildings since there are usually NO roads between them; you can either throw the cable from roof to roof or use the existing phone tubes. You can use 802.11, leased lines or laser links as longlinks between networks. Such networks exist in post-Soviet territory and they work, mostly being supported by enthusiasts.
Moreover, now I take part in designing of time signals transmission system using the power lines, and I know that it's problematic to obtain the transmission speed comparable not even to Ethernet, but to V.32. The special chips I have access to have about 900 bits/sec. Anything giving the higher speeds will produce a lot of RFI, and it cannot be avoided.
Then, the second factor. Using the modem I can contact with any other modem; using the V.90 modem I have some troubles
Since the power line modem cannot be used as a traditional modem ( 3-5 buildings zone - not more) it will be promoted by the ISP's in the monopoly way only.
So I believe the project will fail leaving a lot of expensive equipment on consumers' hands - as it has already been with some DSL companies. You have been warned.
This technology may bring a new meaning to the slashdot effect.... :)
Until Taco learns to write code properly. Expect to see a lot more of this.
Well, I guess it is better than "I have a BRILLIANT plan to make lots of money offering high speed Internet access, something that people really want! The only trouble is, you have to next door to the phone company! Let's call it DSL and invest billions into it! We'll make a profit in no time! Everybody lives next to a switching station!"
You pussies are so lame it's a wonder why Roadie bothers living there at all !
I provide permission to grasp my buttocks.
I would like to marry you, but am in impoverished country (can not say which for the government monitors all communication).
My parents wish to sell me for the price of five strong oxens, but you must arrange to leave me out of the country. If you come
to here, officials in the government will allow you to take home me to your country for the price of twelve strong oxens. Five
strong oxens to my parents and twelve strong oxens to the government and you can take home me to your country for us to be
married.
Please help me, peoples in my country are dying. I am using country's only Internet terminal and may not be using able to it
again for large time, so please reply soonly!
What good would internet access be without power, dude?
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
2.4 mbits/sec means (by very coarse calculations, of course) at least 240 kHz bandwidth and S/N at least 30 dB (Or, if you like, 2400 kHz and S/N at least 0 dB). It means that all the noise produced by the mains (There is a lot of it! When my HDD starts, I have ROAR in my R-399 military grade RX unless I use the special 5/12V filters inside the PC) will be increased 30 dB more. My friend - amateur radio operator - cannot work DX because of mains RFI. And now all his troubles will be increased to 30 dB, and the roar of mains modems will be heard from all the LW radios. Alternatively, all the RF band from 0 to more than 2.4 MHz will be spoiled. It will be more terrible than the famous Russian "Woodpecker" radar that some cold war days ago spoiled all the world SW communication.
Well I say any profit derived should be given to Holocaust survivors and relatives because we all know any technological or monetary advances Germany makes at this point, is from it's past exploitation and torture of Jewish people.
Please, most of us do not care about Cali at all. The place is played out. History. Over with regard to relevance. The AOL of states. Enough. Buy your beach fron property in Arizona and to hell with California, power grid whining, and the word 'geek' as it 'relates' to us enthusiasts. A geek is a dork same as it ever was.
yeah yeah yeah, of course you're right. now shut it then.
Billy, stop playing with the internet lines... you may shock yourself.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
I think a lot of the posts here have missed the point a little. The main problem with this concept is the RF noise. Everything else is fairly simple.
All the system has to do is transmit to a substation (in the UK this already happens as the national grid makes a "packet" (har har) out of their Energis telco subsidiary) and then "transform" (I'm on form today) the signal to a high RF signal for the last mile. At the user's house, they have to get a replacement electricity meter (usually heavily subsidised by the electricity company if they want to take advantage of items like human-free meter reading) which contains both a power output/fuse box and also ethernet RJ45 ports.
The kicker is noise, both inside and outside the system. In tests in the UK a few years ago, whenever the fridge started up, you lost your connection (too much noise for too long - so everything timed out). Wire transmission caused no end of trouble too - nobody could listen to an FM station if they lived within 100 yards of the substation. These are the big faults, so if they have been solved, we have a viable alternative. Otherwise, it's just about as useful as a chocolate teapot.
Pimping my Karma Whore since 1847.
I don't like the idea of putting 240V (110V US) on my ethernet card.
42 + 1 = 42
furry littl tr00l.
LUNIX SUKKS.
and the Tariffs range from:
~20 US$ per month for 250MB plus 6 cents per MB after 250MB and a one time charge of 150 US$ for the modem TO
~110 US$ per month for 10GB plus ~1.3 cents per MB after 10GB and a one time charge of 90 US$ for the modem.
I'd assume that US tariffs will look similar.
In Germany the big contender is the Deutsche Telekom and its online daughter T-Online, which offers a ~30US$ 24h/unlim. traffic dsl offer with no modem costs and 768/128 I/O. (and a market share of at least 90% I'd guess>
Cheers,
Jochen
The companies delivering PowerLine in Germany
( RWE (english PowerLine description), MVV and EnBw) should know that they have no chance against DSL, cable (just starting in Germany) and satellite.
Because a whole neighbourhood has to share
the 2Mbit/s (or in the future 10Mbit/s) -
as stated in other comments - the effective speed
will drop very low. Additionally there are
the interferences with amateur radio and others.
Although the companies claim they can compete
with DSL&al they are beginning to spread into the
3rd world. Currently RWE is doing some "evaluation" in Brasil. They hope that in the 3rd world - with no telephone lines, but power lines
they have a market. That's acutally what they say.
But I personally doubt that there is a market
for PowerLine - neither in Germany nor elsewhere in the world. It's already a dead technology
if it does not change fundamentally.
--- censored
Awesome! So now that California's electrical infrastructure is collapsing, are they going to start offering backup power via dial-up? (j/k)
Sorry to disappoint you, but RWE's offer is crap. The prices are quite ridiculous, for 25 euro you get only 250 MB traffic. For the same price some DSL providers offer you unlimited bandwidth. For 2 GB you pay 50 euro, for 10 GB 125. If you exceed your bandwidth you pay between 7 and 2 cent per megabyte.
And BTW they use DSL to transmit the data to the houses. Only the connection from the hub in the cellar to the flats is done using power lines. In the cellar they need a "modem" for each connected participant. It would probably be cheaper for them if they would just rent the telephone lines from the german telecom and use DSL like everybody else, but then they wouldnt have the stupid "RWE provides internet over power lines" headlines in mass media. oops.
..Siemens hasn't abandoned the technology. Along with the local Viennese ISP Chello BroadBand they implemented a Internet over Cable TV and they go to great lenghts developing a system to cover a greater area by using local power lines. As far as I know their greatest problem is not with line noise but with repeaters that crash continuously (maybe because of power fluctuations)
bye
".Sig Stealer" was here
I am not an anonymous coward. My email address is nickrussell@REMOVETHIS.hotmail.com.
I see quite another side to this and have not read it here yet. Nowhere near the entire United States is wired, much less with "always-on" broadband access. While powerline networking may not be able to send boatloads of data quickly, it will be always-on, everywhere.
There are multiple applications for which you do not need a phat pipe, but a constant pipe.
1) Interactive Power/Water/Gas Metering- The utility companies could save tons of money replacing meter-reading people with embedded devices. They would also be able to bill much more "efficiently".
2) Embeded Devices- Supposing the bandwidth is minimal, it would still be enough for microwaves to download new recipe timings. Integrate with barscanner and each product could be custom prepared to perfection.
3) Email- Everyone in the country on email. enough said. your house address is your email address or something of that equivelent.
The downsides to all this is profiling. Information is power and power is control. Information is control. The potential for observation here is tremendous. And the government and big corporations (like the church and McDonalds for example) know this.
You're not going to subscribe to the service.
.com grocery store would have gone out of business if they had access to information that detailed the exact location of product users no matter where they shop? I'd like nothing more than to have a van drive up and offer me a case of beer for x$s just as I pop the lid on the last can.
Hell, you probably won't even realize that you *have* the service.
The appliance makers (you know, those devices
you *will* be plugging into house power) will
emmbed the $10 circuitry required and the power
companies will well demographic usage data sell that data back to the equipment/product makers.
There *might* be follow-on attempt at marketing ISP servces over power-line; however, I think we're all of the same mind with regard to the viablity of selling internet service. It's a loss leader, plain and simple.
To understand just how massive this is going to be, consider the hypothetical: you buy a new refrig. This new reefer has powerline IPv6 capable chip that get on-line as soon as it's plugged in. In addition, the door frame of the refrigerator is equiped with the same RF tagging technology used in proxitimity timing for atheltic events that involve hundreds of particpants (running, biking, etc.). When you put groceries in the frige., the power company know. When you use products in the firge. (an in and out transaction), the power company knows. When you're finisehd with a product (an out only transaction), the power company knows. Do you think that
You can start to worry when the power company starts offering you polyphonic, internet connected door bells (that gather information about who's acutally going in and out of your house) and free driveway lights (to see who's car is parked in your driveway... and what kind of car they own).
Sure I shouldn't feed this troll, but the sad thing is - Germany does have a bad child exploitation problem. Better internet access may mean easier distribution child porn. Regardless of your feelings of policing the world's morals, the last thing the Internet needs is MORE pictures of exploitation of children.
Very nice. Now try the[Netscape|Mozilla|Konqueror|Opera|OmniWeb|other ] logo...
/var/run/twitter.sock is a twitter socket puppet.
Polish company STOEN also started such tests in August. They will last till the end of the year.
:-/)
(Of course the only purpose of these tests is to show that their service won't be available in my area.
-jfedor
that'll be RWE here in Essen. They've been beta-testing for some 6 months now, and are about to roll out. There is quite a bit of competition though, from DSL providers like Deutsche Telekom, Arcor Mannesman (Vodaphone/Airtouch), and now Yahoo! and AOL.
thing is, RWE give you about 300MB bandwidth a month before they start charging per MB. my mate wants to sign up for their 2Mbit offer at DM250 a month, or 70 pounds sterling. 125 US dollars I think.
Maybe this will help the people that live in rural areas, where cable company's don't venture, and the closest C.O. is more than the maximum 15,000(give or take a few thousand feet depending on the vendor) foot limit. Living in a rural area myself, this gives me some hope at achieving more than a modem connection before 2020.
Pseudocode is code to demonstrate a concept, not designed to be run. Like certain M$ software.
Hi, I ordered an ADSL solution giving up to 2.5 Mbps, on the ordinary tele cable, according the service provider.
Could this be true? I still still have not recieved it so I cannot claim to have tested it.
I ordered it from www.bonet.se (in Swedish...)
Curious to know if I'm ripped off...
does this mean when u download that linux iso the lights will flicker? :)
Hmm... no links in the news? Dodgy, if you ask me...
:(
Germany:
Provider: RWE
- Power line internet access launched by Germany's RWE - Quote: "The power line technology will mean that RWE PowerNet can deliver data at a rate of two million bytes per second."
- Shocking Concept: Internet Over Electrical Lines
Sweden:
Provider: Sydkraft Bredbånd - provides up to 8mbit/s downstream.
- Sweden Using Electricity For High-Speed Connections
continue list at will. I just know it will take forever before I can get anything but forced AOL crap connections where I live in France
-Kraft
Live and let live
In Germany, it's called RWE PowerNet.
The service offers two Mbit/sec access, a plug and play USB / Ethernet modem, Internet access via every electrical outlet in the house, etc.
You can read about it (in German) here, or you can use the BabelFish version to see it in (mostly) English. You can also get a brochure in PDF format that gives the sales pitch.
The Big News Page
Last time I read about this technology (~2 years ago) they were claiming home speeds of up to an exobit(10^18) per second. According to this brochure this company is only offering up to 10 megabits(1^6)per second. What happened to the truely awesome power(no pun intended) behind these broadband lines?
There are two companies who have announced plans to offer internet over power lines, and only one has received a license and started a very limited offering in one city only (Essen). I think the link is www.rwe-powerline.de.
The service is quite limited. In order for a neighborhood to get access, they have to wait until the company wires up the local substation. There can be no transformers between the substation and the house. Once a neighborhood has access, a technician comes out and installs a box at the meter junction, and then connects the modem to an internal power socket. The powerline modems communicate with the box outside, which in turn communicates with the router at the substation, and everything after that is normal internet. There is no communication across most of the power system, the signals can't pass transformers or switching stations. The signals have an effective limit of 350 meters, which is much shorter than DSL or cable.
The 2Mbps limit is for an entire neighborhood, and is shared by all the other connections in the area. There is a cap at 250Mb per month, sometime later they will offer a 10Gb cap, but only to businesses and at a rate equal to leased line. The companies both are targeting high-density cities, and have no plans to offer this to any rural areas or small towns, because of the 350 meter limit on distance from substation to home.
For the trials last year, the modems had only a serial connection, and had to be "dialed" just like a regular analog modem, and the speed was limited to 115kbps. Their website claims they now have ethernet and USB connections as well. The last I saw, every customer gets a private 10.0.0.0 IP address, and the company doesn't allow servers of any kind.
The truly sad thing is, in Germany this really is competition and an improvement for the market.
the AC
[kann jemand in Essen post einen Kommentar über den Service?]
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
A bunch of smarties think they are oh so clever by pointing out that without power, internet access is kinda useless.
Hey dudes, some people have UPS power backup, others have propane genarators. That's not just homes. There are businesses in the area too. And it's not just inside out. Maybe others who still have power want to access a computer inside the blackout area.
Infuriate left and right
...stop quoting me! Someone put a </q>, </em> or </i> at the end of this article - everything in slashdot light is italic after this story.
CowboyNeal for president!
"Hit any user to continue."
This is in Finnish: http://plc.haisee.com
ok, this guy says that the germans are doing this yet provides no link and then says that someone is doing 'secret' tests in virginia yet he knows about them?
c'mon now. surely we need some healthy skepticsm, even in the face of cheap fat pipes...
Many HAM associations consider Power Line Communicatiosn (PLC) harmful due to the interferences it causes.
They claim that even the limits imposed by the Regulierungsbehörde für Telekommunikation und Post (German FCC) cause problems for television, radio broadcasts and HAM radio. If they succeed with more tight limits this could be the end for PLC.
Further, many PLC installations in the test regions did not even adhere to the existing limits, they say. If this proves true, it might be that PLC can never into widespread use.
Another point is that many people (at least here) are very sensitive in respect to electromagnetic pollution. The emissions caused by PLC are higher and much more present (they come out of every wall outlet) than those caused by cell phones, which are already believed to cause diseases.
More information (mostly in German-language, use fish) has been gathered by DARC e.V. (German HAM Radio Club).
Claus
http://www.isp-planet.com/technology/homebrew_dsl. html
. html
or
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20010823
In the US, all of the grounding points in a home generally go to the same place (a single ground spike outside, etc.) - meaning that the ground from your air conditioner goes to the same place that the ground for your computer goes.
That means that the signal noise generated from your AC is also on the ground line for your computer. While that doesn't affect it currently, wouldn't it have a pretty nasty effect on something like this? AC kicks on and you loose your internet access for 15 minutes.
In the UK/Germany/etc., they work with isolated ground lines for each circuit in a house, as well as a power-company terminated ground. I don't see how this could work in the US at all with how dirty our power system is...
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
So the power companies could become isp's ?
thereby giving you juice and internet access ?
thats not so good is it, what about the monopoly they would run ?
Wouldn't it be easier to have just one connection for everything--say, a small box you plug into a regular electrical outlet--that could be your telephone connection, your broadband Internet hookup, and maybe even a videoconferencing unit?
Great.. Now when my power goes out I not only lose the ability to turn on the lights, I can't call the power company to let them know.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
They don't get around the problem of high frequencies being attenuated by the pole transformers, they simply don't worry about it because they have their CuPlus units sitting up there too.
Deployment of this technology will be far slower than DSL or cable, simply because every neighbourhood (or fraction of a neighbourhood) requires a CuPlus unit in order for this to work. That's one CuPlus unit for every pole transformer!
In my area, I see a pole transformer service at most two dozen households. The deployment for this technology will be insanely long.
The other question I have which isn't answered is how the RuPlus or NtPlus units can be plugged into any outlet and work when the split-phase wiring in North America effectively isolates the two 120VAC circuits from each other? Your pole transformer usually takes a 1200-13kV line and neutral and then gives you a center-tapped, 240VAC output (3 wires) to your house. Do they have the equivalent of a hub and two modems to distribute the incoming (to your house) signal across both phases and take the possibly distinct return signals, figure them out and put them back on to the main communications bus?
Whatever happened to those guys who claimed to be using a maser to modulate the magnetic field, thereby defeating Maxwell's equations and getting high frequency data through the 60Hz transformers? I'd love to see a working demo.
Don't you think California Power Company's are in enough trouble without turning them into dot-com's?
In Europe, houses and businesses receive 240V electricity, as opposed to 120V in the U.S., Canada, and others. Due to the physics of alternating current, that means that European electric companies can make the lines between customers and immediately upstream transformers longer than they can be in the U.S. It also means that they need fewer transformers within a particular area. That translates into cheaper deployment of powerline Internet, since you'd have fewer transformers to which the company would need to run T-1 lines (or something).
For example: I've been to Switzerland a couple of times. When I was there, I never saw a transformer that served homes; they don't need that many, and they're really good at hiding them anyway. In the U.S., however, you see them everywhere, hanging off power poles, or as big honkin' green boxes on the ground. Typically, such transformers serve only four to six houses each; decent-sized businesses (e.g. grocery stores) get their own, really big box (to hold a two-phase or three-phase transformer). Would a T-1 to each and every transformer be cost-effective?
So, IMHO, it's workable in Europe, but much less so in the U.S.
- Chris
Utilizing magnetic schemata since
It looks like one of the power companies in the Netherlands (Nuon) has started "broadband internet through the power outlet". This is a translation of a press release from Jul 18th 2001:
Nuon will soon introduce 'powerline' communication in the Netherlands. Powerline is a promising new broadband technology that makes quick and efficient internet access possible through your power outlet.
Powerline communication is already in operation in a couple of European countries, including Germany and Spain. Because of specific technological details it has so far been impossible to offer powerline in a large scale over the Dutch power grid. Because the technology has developed rapidly in the past year, Nuon now sees possibilities to apply powerline to the Dutch situation.
Using powerline, customers of Nuon get the possibility of accessing the internet at a speed at least the same as ADSL or Cable, without the need for extra provisions, through every power outlet in their home.
Powerline can also be used by multiple users in the same home for the same price, while with current technologies that is often difficult to do, or only possible against high cost.
Before Nuon decides to offer powerline, it will be tested with 250 homes in the Rijkerswoerd area in Arnhem.
Nuon is backed in the test by the National Radiotraffic board (Rijksdienst voor het Radioverkeer). The test will start this summer, and is expected to end in February 2002. The test aims to confirm the technical viability, and to receive feed-back from the customers about the quality and content of the services that powerline offers.
There is a website for a company called Powerline Technologies, Inc., although I can not confirm that this is the company this press release refers to.
The poster could have been a woman. In which case, she was doing the kid a favor.
My fridge has been hacked again... Who ate last weeks pizza?
Will this screw up all my X-10 stuff?
Will I screw up their power modems?
Viv
Gmail invites for ip
From what I remember of Nortel's venture into this, the problem of interference was solved. The real problem was that of "jumpering" the signal past all the power transformers that filtered out the signal. The cost of adding the bypass circuit to every neighbourhood transformer was what made them conclude that it would be too costly to be economically viable. Perhaps this company has developed cheaper jumpers or the power grid topology is different in Europe.
With the whole power crisis in California (not that i give a rats ass) it would really be hillarious if they were to go from one failing business into another with this broadband over powerline idear. I think alot of the time, even if something has the potential to be a good thing, it never gets realized. Just the simple fact that this thing requires repeaters to me spells disaster. If we could get a similar technology for DSL, everybody would have DSL. If the prosperous telcos can't or won't do it for DSL, how the hell are failing power companies going to manage it??
I remember hearing about this technology several years ago. One interesting thing I remember was that the data signal did not travel in the core but rather on the skin of the line in the form of a magnetic frequency layer or something like that. I give them credit for trying at least. I'm getting so sick of the bureaucracy in the internet game that I am considering going back to 56k and just dialing up the nearest mom and pop ISP operation I can find.
Jeexus, who makes the standards for Slashdot? Shouldn't there be some meaningful content in an article like this? I can write you an nice little piece about stem cells curing alzheimers and nanotechnology overtaking bio-evolution, if speculation is all you're looking for.
Checking that Web site (powerline.com) I don't think this company is close to having a product. Look at the company's site which owns the above URL, (powertrust.com) and I think you'll agree, this is vapor poop! (Yes, I like saying poop)
Ya Sure! You Betcha!, The_THOMAS
if you're surfing /. on UPS backup, maybe ISP availiblity durring a rolling black out is very important.
My suggestion is to go outside durring this time. It might have changed since last month.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
You make a good point that there are businesses with local power generation, but the second point is less strong. If you have a system to which others want always-on access, you're going to want to use something other than this power-line access anyway, most likely. If I were running a business and thought to have a generator, I'd likely already have considered the possibility that a power outage (of any kind, not just intentional) could cause trouble, and would therefore want some form of 'Net access that's not sensitive to a blackout.
Virg
I don't know about you, but my DSL doesn't work too well when there's a power outage either. So I wouldn't put that as a big minus in the powerline column. :)
Everyone knows that damage is done to the soul by bad motion pictures. -Pope Pius XI
How about those of us that live in Manhattan, where virtually all power lines are buried beneath the streets?
Looks like cable and DSL (barring the joke that is, of course, Bell Atlantic) are here to stay.
Whois for "powerline.com" returns names with e-mail addresses on "powertrust.com". Whois for "powertrust.com" returns some of the same names and addresses, with e-mail addresses on "powerline.com". So we can conclude that "powerline.com" and "powertrust.com" are under the same ownership. There's interlinked domain ownership with "powerfulnetworks.com"(an ISP), and "powerinternet.org". (Clearly, these guys like "power").
Most of these organizations are located at 1701 S. Mays St, #J-121, Round Rock, Texas. At the same address are Gino's Pizzaria (#B), Eyecare Vision Centers (#R) , and My Choice Liquors (#N). Aerial photography confirms this is a mall. The "J-121" probably indicates some kind of mail drop, although it's not a MailBoxes Etc. location.
Going to "powertrust.com", we see just a logo and the tag line "The possibilities beyond the power". The page description for that page reads:
So they have a full range of vaporware services.
PowerLine itself is at 11180 Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, VA, which is an office building. "PowerTrust" is also at that location - listed as an oil and gas company.
Digging further, it gets worse. PowerTrust is in trouble for "slamming" natural gas services, switching customers to their service without authorization. They've "withdrawn" from the Washington DC area gas market, with the "encouragement" of the local regulatory authorities. It's not clear that they did any physical delivery of gas; it just seems to have been a remarketing thing.
A press release from PowerTrust indicates that PowerLine is a business unit of PowerTrust. It's supposedly a "joint venture with 'M@innet.net'", which provides the power line networking technology. Can't find "M@innet.net" in anything but PowerLine press releases, though.
So that's a brief rundown, and it doesn't look good.
This doesn't mean the technology is out of reach. There's a consortium for power-line networking: HomePlug. There's an evaluation kit available from Intellon. Includes source code for Linux drivers. Speed is around 8Mb/s now. They hope to get to 50Mb/s in a few years.
Lower speed systems are shipping. Easyplug, at 2Mb/s, is available now.
Like DSL, this is one of those things that just barely works because the transmission medium is so noisy, but can be made to work with very elaborate modulation techniques. Here's how HomePlug does it.
How can it be considered competition for a couple of technologies when the main purveyors of those new technologies are all going bankrupt?
Blake
This summer i used a 2.54Mbps power grid 'modem' (what a yeechy obsolete consumer term) at a Cafe in Gotland, which is a small swedish island in the baltic half way between sweden, poland, and estonia. Not only was it blazingly fast to connect to north america, it was realy cheap, something like 35:-SEK ($3) per hour ..i wish i had taken some of their literature.
This communication is secured using Rot-26 Encryption Algorithm, Unauthorized decryption will be subject to laughter.
There was once an RFC about Power over IP.
Now we have a plan for IP over Power.
If the two ever met each other, would they annihilate themselves in a massive particle/anti-particle explosion??
This stuff has been around for years...actually, PG&E as well as SoCal Edison run a portion of their Wide Area Network to remote sites over their High Voltage lines. Also, there are some remote
control devices and some networking devices that will work from within you own home to use the existing wiring for these types of signal. To my knowledge, they really don't have the right stuff at a cost effective price to do it long haul to the consumer yet.
Then again, I would still "get the willies" pluggin a network card that is seated on my motherboard, next to my processor, into a 120V
outlet. Just call me old fashion.
Golf -- Not a sport Barely an Activity
As several people have pointed out, this technology has a 2 Mb/s maximum transfer rate that is split between everybody after the 'low level transformer'. This means that on a big low level grid you share your whopping 2 Mb/s with everyone else and on small grids these guys still have to install access points at every transformer and substation.
The system also uses 'point-to-multi-point' signalling meaning that with a little know-how your neighbour can listen in on your internet traffic.
I think Nortel and Siemens abandoned this technology for a reason. I don't see any clear advantages over cable or DSL. Yes, everybody has power lines, but they also have phones. Deployment is the problem, not an access medium.
if it doesn't have the same limitations as dsl, is secure etc etc.
:) )
(and netzero provides a client for it
this will probably give cable etc a HUGE run for the moolah
"Don't Panic!" -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Short answer: If there's any real threat from non-ionizing EM radiation, then well over a decade of research by lots of different groups hasn't found it. (And, they've been looking hard too. Finding a threat would bring a big budget increase. ;^)
But, don't take my word for it. Rather than relying on what "somebody" said, check out this FAQ Cellular Phone Antennas (Mobile Phone Base Stations) and Human Health from the Radiation Oncology department of the Medical College of Wisconsin. It has a fairly comprehensive treatment of the subject.
They've got other EMF related FAQs, too:
Anyway, the actual signal power levels on this scheme will be fairly low. In fact, most home power lines are "noisy" with EMI right now. That's a problem for signal processing, but my point is -- adding a modulated signal to all the crap that is already there would be no real change from a "health" aspect, if any such thing exists at all....
"You've crossed my Line of Death!" "What? No! Where is it?" "Here in the fine print...."
Could this also be used for home networking? I'd love to get rid of all those meters of cat5 cable. Howabout plugging a speaker into a socket and get stereo, tv, mp3, etc?
If possible could blow the telecoms out the water!