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Broadband over Powerlines
scubacuda writes "Today's Bottom Line links to an article on Internet-over-powerline technology. St. Louis-based Ameren Corp and other utilities are testing are testing the technology, and, according to the article, "many consider it increasingly viable." Proponents claim the powergrid technology will bolster broadband competition, lower consumer prices and bridge the digital divide in rural areas. Skeptics say that few tests prove its financial and technical viability. Kludge, panacea, or hoax? (I'd think it was a total crock had I not personally known someone working in India with a PCL company)"
The "digital divide," right now, largely consists of people who aren't on-line. Let's face it: a dirt-cheap Linux PC can be had for ~$200 at Wal-Mart; it's the $20/mo that keep people from being on-line. ($40/mo for broadband.) That, and the whole problem with rural areas, too. Through the wonders of electrification, we could now also have "digification." This could be a huge boon for those who might otherwise be left behind...
Transmission-line Internet is, IMO, a great idea whose time has come.
But...
I can't see this happening for quite a while, in the US at least. The Baby Bells and the cable monopolies will tie this up in court for years, all the while jacking up their prices to feed their war chests, and Joe User will sit there and shuck out the bucks, completely oblivious to what's going on. Small dialup providers may turn out to be the big winners of such a battle, at least in the short term.
The solution: power transmission utilities need to quietly but quickly deploy, especially in the mentioned rural areas (like where I am) that can't get either cable or xDSL provisioned.
As always, YMMV. This is just my two cents' worth...save up the change for a new monitor or something.
All the world's an analog stage, and digital circuits play only bit parts.
The same arguments made in the article for DoP ("data over power lines") can be made for DSL. And the same drawbacks that DSL has (you need to spend a lot on infrastructure, ie extra equipment in telephone exchanges) will apply to DoP. So it won't be cheaper to implement, and the 'broadband gap' (too few customers in rural areas to justify upgrading the exchange) will still apply.
Ameren admits it's not aiming for cheaper-than-DSL links, they just want a piece of the ISP/POP pie.
Yes, iirc there were such problems, but not very much.
I think another major concern was that PCL, because of operating around 30 MHz, might interfere with existing networks, such as military, shipping and air traffic communication networks. Some shortwave radio amateurs also claimed their hobby might get crushed if PLC become widespread.
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The combined human population is enough to feed every living tiger for app. 28000 years.
But let's not get too much into that: Powerlines are designed to be transport lines for 50-60Hz AC voltage, and these PLC solutions utilize the bandwidth under 30MHz.
Because the transport line isn't suitable for as high frequencies PLC solutions are using, losses for the transmitted signal are incredibly high. All this "lost" power that wasn't transmitted to the receiver, has been radiated into environment.
Thus, power lines act as a huge antenna, which leads into few things:
your data is not safe, eavesdropping is easy
HF radio bands get polluted, which not only annoys the radio amateurs, but also the army, ship traffic..
In Japan, power line communications were rejected, mostly because of the huge amount of interference.
Companies manufacturing the PLC equipment have tried to push down the amount of interference using spread spectrum techniques, which indeed drops the amount of interference in one spot frequency - but total amount of interference doesn't drop. And as you have huge number of PLC hubs in one area, interference sums up into high static noise level.
And what really sucks is, that basically PLC is a cable modem solution - user shares his bandwidth with the other users in area.
This PLC is simply put "a bad idea". Nice goal, but there are also sane ways in achieving it - like different DSL-technologies (or LRE) we already have available.
There's no need to try and send things only on the zeros. It's perfectly reasonable to try and modulate your signal directly onto the power sinusoid. Also, it seems to me you could get even more bandwidth on the 3-phase systems.
Don't become a regular here, you will become retarded. -- Yoda the Retard
Why would this be different from current internet connection options? Especially since the party most likely to eavesdrop has the power to legalize its actions?
Just a few questions...
Sending communications signals over the electrical line must involve modulating the frequency of the current. That does not cause any problems for the existing electrical equipment that is using the lines? Do you need to install filters on your appliances to ensure that they get 'clean' power? If not, what is the long-term affect of running 'dirty' electricity through your electronic devices. I understand that existing current is not frequency perfect and that there are fluctuations but does this communications related modulation fall within the existing fluctuation parameters? If not, what is the affect? If it does, how is it distinguished from existing line noise?
I have to use this cause I can't afford a real sig...
The digital divide may have been about people who have computers versus those who don't a decade ago, or even five years ago.
With the drop in PC prices and the drop in ISP prices that's not an issue as much anymore. You don't need a 2.6 ghz rig with a gig of RAM to surf the Web, send e-mail or exchange files (NOTE: ANY ATTEMPT TO EXCHANGE MUSIC OR MOVIES WILL END WITH RABID CYBERNETIC SQUIRRELS SENT BY THE MP/RI/AA DEVOURING YOU)
The divide now is one of high-speed access. I work with computers for a living so the technological midget theory is out the window. Money is not a big issue. What is I have ZERO real options for high-speed access. With ISDN not only do they want a boatload of cash, they also want my name signed in blood on a long-term contract. DSL, too far. Satellite, hahahaaha. Cable, too far.
Let's face it. A modem connection, particularly a 26.4 kbps connection like the one that runs across my barbed-wire phone lines, just doesn't cut it anymore.
As more applications go online and Web sites continue to bloat I find myself sitting here drumming my fingers waiting. If they can pipe in some bandwidth over those big fat wires that already come into my house great. At this point I'll take just about anything..
How do posts like this get modded up?
...), but inside the home just having one universal outlet for power and networking. No longer the need to wire a home for (power, phone, cable, 10baseT, and maybe fiber). Just wire for power and you're all done. Consumer manufacturers would no longer need to create a product with 10 different plugs on the back for interfacing.
Honestly, the technology could work quite well, but I think the power companies need to provide a hybrid solution. Run fiber down to the street transformers, then piggy back onto the powerline from there. Unfortunately, this solution still leaves the rual customer out in the snow, but leakage is too hard to fight and using relay devices I see as a nightmare.
Sure the solution won't benifit or swoon the rual types, but it would provide an alternative for the rest. It's bigger than just TCP/IP. Just like the cable companies can now provice a viable phone service and phone companies can provide internet service, a power company, via powerline technology could provice phone and internet (tv broadcast would be a stretch under the current technology). The speed would be slightly less and many high speed users would balk, but imagine if all computers made started incorporating powerline technology. Now imagine all corded phones having powerline technology. The ease of use and simplification of home wiring would be VERY appealing for the average home user.
I feel powerline technology SHOULD be the future for ALL residential broadband. Maybe the delivery of signal could differ (fiber, cable, dish,
Is this a dream? For years....yes! But the powerline technology is NOT the technology it was 5 years ago. It's very different and if slightly interested, you owe it to yourself to read up on it. I'll admit the technology is fair now at 14Mbps, but that's plenty for residential use. If that gets upped to 100+Mbps, then cable over powerline may be an option.
The big competition could be moved outside the home. How the content is delivered would be where the competition would be, but at least internal to the home, everything could be standarized.
It's a goofy idea. Until the electrical code and industry standards define the signal-transmission characteristics for AC power lines, this will be one of these "it works except when it doesn't" deals. X-10 barely works inside one house. Carrier-current AM radio used to be popular on campuses during the fifties: it didn't really work.
Some of the circuits in my house are still the kind in which the current is carried by two separate insulated wires about a foot a part, mounted on insulated standoffs. I think this kind of wiring was common in the twenties. More wiring has been added, but nobody every removes old wiring that's working perfectly well.
Even DSL is iffy and THAT'S on wires that are DESIGNED to carry signals.
What we need is more standardization and better engineering, not less.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
They can keep their drivelous TV. I want to know why charter just cut my so-ho account off at the knees without telling me (went from 768K to 128K upstream - and I was promised 1.0M upstream initially).
now they're trying to "guide" me into a commercial plan with less speed at twice the cost.
unfortunately, dsl, which isn't even available in my area yet, is little better.
as for the power line stuff, i'm all for any improvements that bring competition to the broadband market. it's two-thousand-and-fucking-three and there still isn't reasonably-priced broadband competition in my area?
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
My question is -- what happens when a power line takes a lightning strike? Last year I had two 100 amp fuses blown out, and that was even tho the big fuses on the transformer pole also blew. What if that came directly into the "powerline modem" or whatever it would use?
Hopefully by the time such a surge gets thru the power line fuses, your house fuses, and your UPS/surge unit (you DO have your computers on surge protectors, don't you??) it's attenuated down to something that won't fry the hardware. But what about a wall-to-modem connection? I know two people who had systems fried (modem caught on fire in one box) by lightning strikes on telephone poles feeding down the phone line, so don't tell me it can't happen.
Not to mention the high level of electrical noise -- what's that going to do to components?
[Yes, I have similar concerns about using house wiring for networking. No one has yet shown me why I'm just being paranoid.]
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?