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

Competition?

[phalse phace]

"if this is for real DSL and cable may have a new competitor"

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.

Not as great as /. makes out

[anticypher]

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?]

Re:I'm not so sure about this

[Bobo the Space Chimp]

> 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

Not in a European country, never! A battle between two giant government-protected coercive monopolies? Each one bleating to ignorant politicians about how they, and only they, have the right to offer The People internet service at grotesque second-by-second rates?

All this and crippled, bloodless versions of hit games, including the upcoming Duke Nukem: ForeverFightingDaisys.