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?"

Comments

Power Grid

[Zephy]

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.

Re:Power Grid

[gobbo]

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.

They've got it backwards

[wcbarksdale]

The real future is in distribution of electricity over IP.

The History of Power Grid Internet.

[jetkust]

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...

It works

[GiMP]

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.

Re:It works

[Bastian]

I don't think whoever wrote the blurb for the story RTFA on it being debunked last time.

What was debunked is the idea that if you burn lots of money, break a few laws of physics, engineer electronic devices that can modulate information transmissions at rates orders of magnitude faster than the best we've got right now (but will cost under $60 apiece), and break a few more laws of physics, you can transmit data over the power grid in the exobit range. (That's thousands of gigabits.)

Other companies that aren't scams have had much more modest success. The idea works, the problem is finding a way to make it financially workable, too.

Re:It works

[jc42]

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.

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 ... Maybe I shouldn't suggest that. Someone will decide it's a good idea, take out a patent, and start marketing it ...)

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.

how to play casino-NASDAQ

[muyuubyou]

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;

Prior art?

[AccUser]

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.

Redundant

[mnmn]

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.

Re:Redundant

[SerpentMage]

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!!!!

I gotcha last mile RIGHT HERE!

[siskbc]

2000kbps might not be a lot over there but it's still faster than the 512k/1024k that's the norm over here.

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.

Huh.

[Geekenstein]

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.

no registration

[HeyBob!]

trick learned from a previous post:
replace www with archive to avoid the registration
link

Radio Interference

[kinnell]

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.

Competition

[BeowulfSchaeffer]

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.

Voice over IP over power lines

[Johku]

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.

Has interesting anti-spam potential.

[djh101010]

At last - a way to get back at spammers. Read the headers, do some digging, and WHAM - 14,000 volts right to 'em.

I feel like a pioneer

[EvilTwinSkippy]

How many of you remember those heathkit intercoms? They carried your voice over the power lines inside of the house by modulating them at a higher frequency that 60 hz. The reciever, of course, was a simple 60Hz filter attached to an amp.

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.

Really redundant

[GQuon]

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.

Scottish Hydro

[cruachan]

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.

Re:They debunked ONE theory of how to do it.

[gurps_npc]

No. You are assuming WAY to much. A better way to say it is:

In short it is possible, but using the relatively insensitive machines that were proposed once before, without changing the specs of the power currently being transferd, the signal would have to be so strong that the electricity grid would radiate excessively, And the proposed means of shielding that raditaion is so expensive so as not to be worth it.

It CAN be donel. You do realize that your phone's run off of the electriicty supplied by the phone line (I.e. unless your phone has an answering machine it does not need to be plugged in.)

There are 3 Barriers to doing it, and if we conquer ANY one of those barriers we can do it: [li]Use far more sensitive reading and writing mechanisms (or a dramitcally different method). [li]Use good RF shielding on the power lines [li]Change the power grid specs dramatically.

While changing the shield or the power grid specs dramatically would require a massive revision of our powergrid, the first option is VERY likely to occure with the next 10 years, if it has not already happened, and will not be expensive or require masive upgrades.