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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 FCC Might have debunked it, but it seems to work over here. Some companies have started large scale trials. 2000kbps might not be a lot over there but it's still faster than the 512k/1024k that's the norm over here.
The real future is in distribution of electricity over IP.
I thought this was pretty much debunked a couple years ago?
...And a year ago...And 6 months ago...And a month ago...And a week ago...And two days ago...
This is not only in trial in many places, but in full-scale production.
Poland, for example, has been rolling out power-line internet for at least a year.
0 A = SomeElectrical.stockShares(); 1 A.Buy();
2 echo("we can use the electrical grid to carry data at speeds faster than we've ever seen");
3 A.Sell();
4 Debunk(2);
5 GOTO 1;
Using the power grid for internet access is a great idea, provided that they don't later claim prior art on the use of sockets.
Any fool can talk, but it takes a wise man to listen.
Most homes have powerlines, phone and TV cables going inside. These three mediums, add radio, are the obvious ones to deliver internet through.
So if the momentum has built for DSL and Cable, why push for the third option too? It all started with DSL, but the telcom companies squeezed things till the development on Cable started. Now, at least here in Toronto, the same Telcom companies are squeezing both these mediums, thus pushing for the possibilities on power lines.
Ideally, cities should have fibre lines going into homes controlled by a government department, that allows private companies to deliver the Internet and not compete with them.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
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.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
So the next time I shock myself, I might get some pr0n too?
With my luck, my hair will probably just stand up in the form of an x10 popup ad....sigh.
trick learned from a previous post:
replace www with archive to avoid the registration
link
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.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
There are already trials going on in Scotland for IP over power lines, which aparently have been very successful. The only problem is that RF engineers are up in arms over the interference caused by transmitting high frequency signals through overhead power lines. They may have a point - the RF spectrum is a precious resource, and it would be a shame to waste it to save a bit of effort laying cables.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
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.
Everyone knows about the problems with pylons acting as transmitters but there is actually another reason why the electricity grid is highly unsuitable for transmitting information over.
The problem is that the higher frequency signal you used for the data transfer slightly distorts the 50HZ sine wave used to carry the power. Now for a lot of appliences this isn't a problem but for applications where a pure current is important (high end hi-fi comes to mind) this will severly impact on the performance of that device.
Sure it's trivial to incorporate rectifiers into new devices but do you want to be the guy from the electricity company having to tell people that they now have to replace their $5000 amp?
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!
Simply remove the www of the original url and replace it with archive, works for all NYT articles as far as i know.
--My sig is bigger than your sig--
...with my computer, I have a choice of unplugging the net connection if I don't like it for whatever reason. But if the connection is both always-on, and through the same feed that I need to power the computer in the first place, I lose another bit of control over my own equipment. And yes, I always have my computer connected anyway, and yes I have a firewall. But I would not want for example my TV to be connected to the internet (so it can transmit the programs I watch). And with internet over the power grid I may at some point no longer have a choice.
There is a related article today on C|Net via Reuters:
ComputerUser.com has a longer and more detailed article.
As a Marylander who despises ComCast, I'm hopeful !
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
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.
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
Couple of weeks ago I saw a short data-over-power-grid demonstration in Finnish television. They demonstrated how you could connect an IP telephone to power outlet and make a phone call through power grid. I think their idea was that it is easier for them to provide functionality similar to the telephone network than vice versa (when talking about last mile solutions).
The topic has been quite frequently up in Finnish media because Turku Energia (home page in Finnish) has been selling their new data-ower-power-grid product to consumers since January.
At last - a way to get back at spammers. Read the headers, do some digging, and WHAM - 14,000 volts right to 'em.
It worked quite well, especially since it had a built in power source. Gotta wonder why more folks aren't running the LAN off of this principle.
Though if you were going to do this on any large scale, you MIGHT want to equip your appliances with a band-pass filter to prevent the higher frequency signals from interfering with your switching power supplies.
It won't work for any large organization, unless someone can figure out a way to implement packet switching. Your collision rate would be terrible with everybody connected to a giant dumb hub. I'm pretty sure the same traffic protocols used for wireless would solve this problem too.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I guess it really depends on where you live, but at least in my neighborhood, power is interrupted much more often than either cable or phone.
So then you have to go online and watch TV in the dark. Much as how they did before electric power was invented.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
I don't see how this could be economically viable in a large scale. Not that it's not possible in small highly controlled circumstances. If a city decided to upgrade it's electical infrastructure to allow this then sure. But it seems like to make this work on *any* electrical lines would be tremendously difficult.
Can it be done? Yes. Will this be the cure-all for rural broadband? Probably not. Not because it's not possible but because the $$$ won't make it worth the capital outlays it would require.
--- We have a pool and a pond, the pond would be good for you.
PP&L (pennsylvania power and light) has been testing this here for a few months. I tried hard to get in on the pilot, but I dont live in the right geographical location.
Turns out it is my ISP handling the broadband end anyway, and as I already have DSL through them, it probably wouldnt make much difference. The speeds that PP&L quoted me are just about the same as the DSL speeds I am already getting.
So its not "debunked" its just not controlled by the FCC at the moment.
Maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
Are running a series of trials, one in Crieff - a small town about 20 miles from where I sit. Given British Telecom's ridiculous criteria for only installing ADSL where there is 'sufficient demand'* there's been a great deal of interest in the Scottish Highlands and Borders for alternative suppliers. Scottish Enterprise have some info at http://www.scottish-enterprise.com/sedotcom_home/s ervices-to-business/broadband/broadband-news_event s/broadband-projects/broadband-power_line_trial.ht m
*British Telecom regularly seem to leave something to be desired when it comes to 'public service'. A friend of mine has this story about how he recently installed an ADSL modem for a business in the centre of Glasgow - a city of nearly two million people. Naturally he assumed that ADSL would be available so neglected to explicitly check, and he was consequently scunnered when BT told him that it wasn't available due to 'insufficient demand'. Apparently the local exchange serviced quite a small area, and one where there was a disproportionate number of warehouses and areas under redevelopment, so despite being right in the middle of the city it had not met BT's criteria. Fortunatly given where they were the embaressment factor was sufficiently high that BT upgraded the exchange anyway, but it just demonstrates what we're up against.
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...
"I thought this was pretty much debunked a couple years ago?"
.... i mean entrepreneur... and his particular invention which would have brought endless bandwidth at light speed to power lines. The physics seemed a little screwy on that "invention", but this is just old fashioned sending a signal down a wire. So nothing new here in physics circles.
The article you reference talks about a particular scammer
This has more to do with business and legal issues than new technology. Just happens that power companies already have big cables running to every home (right of way) and they are just trying to figure out an economical way to use them for telecom. Just as the cable companies did. Except the electrical distribution grid is not as easy to convert as the cable networks were.