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

I'm not so sure about this

[sourcehunter]

I'm not sure whether to be happy or worried.

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...

Re:I'm not so sure about this

[Amanset]

I don't understand your point. Yes, Cable is a monopoly for cable TV, phone is a monopoly for telephones and power is a monopoly for, well, power. However, as long as you have at least two of these in your area neither is a monopoly for high-speed internet access. You suddenly have competition.

Take my example here in Stockholm, Sweden. I can get broadband either via cable or ADSL. Suddenly there is no monopoly, I can make a choice depending on service. Do I want Telia, who seem to be a bit open to running servers on my ADSL, or do I want UPC, who will let me have 5 IP addresses and a slightly higher download speed for more-or-less the same money?

My opinion of this is that as the three utilities are monopolies they have a reasonably sure financial backing, so they are not goign to go under tomorrow, but to get my extra bradband cash they need to offer something I want, making them mor einteresting than the competitor.

Re:I'm not so sure about this

[EvilJohn]

Or you could move 751 feet towards the DSL CO....

Re:The more the merrier...

[Jace of Fuse!]

Of course, it'll be interesting to see the first guy who "wires" his own house get fried.

Now that you put it that way, I hope AOL wastes no time offering this service to the masses.

Re:Competition?

[mark-t]

Will a power outage affect it?

Although the issue of whether or not a power outage will affect it may be of concern to a certain type of person (read: die-hard techno-geek computer junkie), considering that most people run their computers off of the power line coming into their house anyways (laptops notwithstanding), having the internet connection die at the same time as the whole power goes out doesn't seem like such a bad deal to me.

Deadborn - why?

[Thor Ablestar]

I believe the project is born dead. Let me explain why.

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 :-( 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.

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.