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."

Comments

Realy?

[kruczkowski]

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!

some actual links...

[Kraft]

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 :(

Re:Not as great as /. makes out

[psych031337]

First of, I am not in Essen nor am I a potential customer of rwe-powerline.

Then again, nothing could interest me less, because our local power company (RWE is kind of a german-wide conglomerate) has taken their time to actually rewire out city (Norderstedt, near Hamburg, >50.000 inhabitants) to turn it into a multimedia-city. Here is their story.

As much as I hate big fuzzy terms, I love well-provided service at cheap rates. That is what I am getting right now. The german Telekom is busting lawsuits at these guys for some time now, so you gotta know the service *must* be good. Wilhelm-tel got me hooked up within 4(!) working days after applying for service. I could take my old number from the Telekom phone line. I got a Motorola cable modem *free* of charge along with a NIC to ram into my machine and connect the cablemodem to. I have free phone service for local calls within the wilhelm-tel net. When testing the pipe i got bursts of up to 20 (!) Megabits (before the cablemodem throttled down) showing me that the net is not designed tight but redundant. At max. 8 people are connected to a 20MBit circuit, so with everyone surfing like mad, you still get the 2MBit you pay for at minimum. Nothing the Telekom could offer.

But first things first. wilhelm-tel (www.wilhelm-tel.de), our local power provider established a glass fibre backbone around Norderstedt and is currently wiring up individual households. Which means that you get a new wall plug for your tv connection. On this plug there is another connector which plugs in a Motorola cable modem and later even the set top box (they're planning to deliver digital tv later on) and a new phone jack. I had the opportunity to change my provider for phone over to wilhelm-tel which i gladly did. It has been a dream of mine to stop giving money to the Telekom monopoly for a long time. Now it's true.

Telekom is pushing DSL like mad everywhere (768down/128up). What they don't mention is the fact that out of a "userbase" of 400.000 customers, only 150.000 are already connected. The dirty rest (mostly individuals, not businesses) are waiting, some for more than 2 years by now. Their DSL flatrate also requires you to rent ISDN phone service and therefore all in all becomes a pricey thing. Overall it is a pretty scam, as people around here in Norderstedt have been waiting for DSL a very long time. After changing to wilhelm-tel they all (including me, who had not signed up for DSL but only cancelled his usual phone service) got called by Telekom reps trying to persuade us to get DSL instead of this lame 2MBit up/down wilhelm-tel with free local calls and all that. Asked if they had a better offer they said DSL could be up and running at normal rates for you in 2 weeks. AHH! ALl of sudden there is availability in my area. Strange. Smells like fear of competition.

Let's take a look at the rwe-powerline offer...

http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleI D= 4306 says:

power line technology will mean that RWE PowerNet can deliver data at a rate of two million bytes per second.

Outright wrong, they offer two million BITS a sec.

Then you have to choose a service with RWE, which is basically a volume-cap thing. Go for 250, 1000 or 2000 megabytes a month and pay whatever you exceed with 7, 3.5 or 2 cents per MEGABYTE. This stinks of rip-off to me. Your monthly base price is $25, $35 or $50 depending on the tariff you sign up for. It also requires a one-time setup fee of roughly $50 and the modem has to be bought for $178, $152 or $127 (again depending on tariff).

What we have here is a monopolist (RWE=power) trying to get into another monopoly structure. Wilhelm-tel offers their service for $25 flat (including an undisclosed traffic amount for "fair private use", but my 10-15GB a month have not stirred anything there). You rent the modem for just 5 Marks ($2,50). No setup fees. Âlso, I can cancel anytime. RWE requires you to close a contract for 12 months, or 24 months if you want to save the one-time setup fee.

All the prices and conditions were taken from http://www.rwe-powerline.de/relaunch/preise/preise .htm and rudely converted to US-dollars to interest even the US-centric slashdotters.

To sum it up: RWE is a step somewhere but not quite the CORRECT direction. Most hardcore surfers in the area will be glad to get it. But wilhelm-tel is cheap and good enough to even interest the "unwashed masses" for broadband.

Now, you go to your local service provider and tell him to sink some glassfibre when he digs out the water pipes for checkup next time. That is basically what wilhelm-tel did in order to minimize infrastructure costs.