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Internet via the Power Grid, Again
Damon Campagna writes "This NYT article, Internet via the Power Grid: New Interest in Obvious Idea says the FCC is looking into power-line networking again. I thought this was pretty much debunked a couple years ago?"
The primary difference in the ease of deploying IP over A/C is with the differing electrical infrastructure in NorthAmerica as opposed to the U.K. (and possibly other regions, don't know about that). In N.A. transformers were put all over the place in such a way that it presents a significant problem for getting a clean signal all the way down the line.
Damn those pesky terrorists
Hmmm...most consumer broadband options are in the 500kbps area in the US too. If this stuff were to become viable, it would certainly shutup the damned telcos and their last mile, I expect, as it's already wired.
I'm sure this is exactly what the current providers want, though. Not only do they have to compete with cable companies (and now satellite as well) to provide internet, now they have the frikkin' power company too. They're just lucky the power companies are too busy price-fixing to bother with this.
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Their is nothing in the concept that fundamentally contradicts laws of nature, so it can be done, we just have to figure out how to do it efficently.
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If this helps lower the cost of high speed access, I am all for it. If AMD were not making chips, we would still be paying $600 for a PII 300. Competition is good.
Speak for yourself guy. You know there are a large number of people who cannot get Cable or DSL... These people are stuck, with well 56K. This would be wonderful if it actually worked. BTW I am talking from a place that is 15 KM from a DSL and Cable connection. 15 KM, not 100 KM or 200 KM, but 15KM and nothing has changed in five years!!!!
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"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
What was debunked was some scam artist's idea of transmitting data not through the power line, but the EM field generated by the power line. Using wires to transmit data is a solid idea, using EM waves as a waveguide is not. Please, RTFA!
Because there are lots of places that don't have DSL, or IP over Cable TV...and even more places that don't have both. It's nice to have something avilable, but even nicer to have more then one thing so they can compete...
Simply remove the www of the original url and replace it with archive, works for all NYT articles as far as i know.
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DSL and cable are NOT the answer. They are fine if you live in a city but if you are rural you are SOL. Satellite is NOT a real option. Pricey and limited in usefulness. The only option left for rural individuals is powerline.
I frickin' want a broadband connection that doesn't break the bank and doesn't suffer major latency issues. I see no option but some form of powerline transmission. Wireless is not an option for most rural people.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
There are still, at this point, too many regulatory issues with this for it to be passed. True, the FCC is conducting a dozen or so field tests, but if they get serious about it they will issue a notice of intent to get comments from the people concerned.
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Don't know if you have noticed it, but the power company has not been sending out nearly as many meter readers as they have in the past. Rural Electric Co-ops have not needed to send out cards for the customer to write down the meter readings and send back either.
Why? Because the various electric companies have been replacing their meters with new meters that report back what the current reading is, over the electric lines themselves. Granted this does not require high bandwidth connectivity, but when you consider the number of meters involved, it is unlikely to be operating at 110 bps either.
-Rusty
You never know...
The irony here is that for the very reason you cannot get DSL or cable service, you might not also be able to get powerline service. You might be too far from the central office.
Yeah, and it's in limited use in the US. It does require a fairly clean power system that doesn't mess up the imposed RF signal, including not "cleaning up" the power by filtering the RF signal out. And it requires that all your electronic gear have power supplies that do filter out the RF signal (or a device that does it that's plugged into the wall outlet). I've worked in a couple of development labs where we did exactly this. But these requirements pretty much rule it out for most commercial power systems.
... Maybe I shouldn't suggest that. Someone will decide it's a good idea, take out a patent, and start marketing it ...)
But the main evidence that the story was about a con job was the quote
By piggybacking on this magnetic field, instead of on the electricity itself, he could obtain almost limitless speeds of transmission. [emphasis from the article]
This clearly implies cluelessness. Now, you might not expect a manager type to understand what's wrong with this statement. But you'd expect that they'd have some EEs on their payroll, and an EE's basic reaction to such a statement would be to snicker and say "Yeah; right."
Any manager who continues saying such things after a few minutes discussing it with their EEs is clearly involved in a con, and knows it. In his next con, he's gonna market a truck that doesn't damage the roads like other trucks do. His explanation will be that trucks do their damage by harming the base that the road is built on. But his trucks only drive on the surface of the road, so they won't damage the roadbed at all.
(Hmmm
Yeah, you can transmit data by piggybacking it on power lines. But making it work on a legacy power system is gonna be expensive. Ripping out the system and building a new one would probably be cheaper in many (if not most) existing systems.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.