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Broadband Over Power Lines in Canada
Patchw0rk F0g writes "From Europe, we jump to la belle province of Quebec for the latest test of broadband internet over power lines (Real Player stream available.) Seems the utility is already utilizing the system to control traffic lights and such, and is exploring the possibilities of offering a cheaper service to consumers to compete with DSL/cable/satellite. Lower prices? I'm all for it... but I live in TORONTO!"
I don't see how this system would be any more or less secure than a cable modem. You'd still need an adapter to tap into the service.
Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
Anyone know if they've done any work on the issues with BPL and interference on the HF bands?
I, for one, do not welcome the interference from BPL in the HF bands.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
It actually seems to work. I've seen 'demonstrations' before where it couldn't even control traffic lights.
If they're actually doing anything, it's a success, and it just needs scaling up. Even if it's a totally shared bus network, it could have _some_ uses. Just depends on what speed is available and what it's really going to cost to get hooked in.
I'd be a bit worried about the surges, though. Remember that a lightning bolt has already jumped through a mile or three (or more) of air, and blowing through your surge protector to eat your favorite game box isn't much more of a step.
Yes, I know that power systems have exactly the same problem, it's just that they're generally designed to absorb small spikes, and sometimes folks forget the modem is another route for bored electrons.
Best of luck to 'em.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
As a telecom Engineer working as a sys and network admin, this just sounds too out there to be viable. Nortel isn't one to trash a technological standard unless they've really tested it. There's quite a few issues with power spikes, power filters, etc that would seem to make this an unlikely competitor. Plus, the market is already crowded with cable, DSL, satellite, and wireless carriers (Sprint) providing WiFi ISP coverage.
there is a fair wallop more current going through the grid than cable. it would be easier to pick up EM flux - especially from telegraph pole cables.
We dont have to trust it, only those who subscribe to the technology need to.
Good point! One would hope that they have a way to keep your packets from being sniffed on the lines.
My biggest concern with this is the ammount of line noise in my house. Even a slow protocall like the one that X10 uses is full of errors (usually the type that turns my bedroom light on in the middle of the night).
Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
Power loss will also mean communication loss. If a business is using broadband instead of T1, they risk losing communication in the event of a power failure. Sure, they probably have a UPS but that's not going to keep their WAN links alive.
It's very scary to think of so many things being handled by one main line.
I like BPL as an interim solution before we get fiber to our houses, but in the end I *want* three cables going into my home - power, data and voice. Note that data and voice are separate. I also like having a landline and a cell phone.
Whenever I hear about multiple utilities becoming reliant on one system of infrastructure I always think of that telco parody which starts with:
"Hello? AT&T? I seem to be having problems with my phone..."
Swedish company Sydkraft also offers the service.
Sydkraft announced a copule of years ago that they would provide Internet over power line. Except for a small pilot project nothing ever happened.
The reality is that PLC might be technically possible, but the cost of deployment is much higher than compeeting technologies such as: ADSL, Cable Internet and Wireless Local Loop (WLL).
It seams that power companies like to run trials to test the technology, and make unrealistic press releases.
I live in Montreal, but I'm from Chicago. The prices on broadband here are a factor of two less than chicago and many places offer nice features like a static IP. In general the net is faster than I had with similar service in the states.
(usually the type that turns my bedroom light on in the middle of the night)
Bloddy hell, that would freak me out too. My only phenom is that my mobile phone "disconnects" my keyboard from my PC every time it checks in and is next to the cord - very annoying. Can you imagine what the EMR is doing to the Na/K pumps in our neuron's.....
m
Please bring this to Alberta! :)
But it's to be expected, as they have the most advanced powerlines going. Remember that little blackout y'all had last Summer? As soon as the loss of power hit the Quebec border the chain reaction was stopped cold by the connections to the Quebec system. People in Ottawa could look across to the bright lights of Hull just next door. This is thanks to the massive rebuilding that was required after the 1998 ice storm. Having to transmit power from damns way up north down to the south (the longest-distance power lines in the world, i believe) also means they had to learn how to deal with the effects of solar flares on power transmission. So basically if anybody knows about the issues that affect power lines, it's these guys.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
It reminds me of a scam run on the US Government in the late 90's. Millions of dollars were granted to a company which had demonstrated such a system. Turns out it was nothing more than a RF modem.
As I recall, the system was immune to scrutiny in order to protect the Intellectual Property of the company.
Also... I remember several people citing the impossibility of broadband over power lines because of the interference caused by transformers on the above ground power lines. In order to enable broadband over power lines, you would have to either find a way to sustain a pure signal through the existing hardware (deemed impossible), or design and add a piece of hardware at every transformer.
I read about this in Wired if anyone cares to go searching for it. The article was entitled Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, printed at some point in 2002, but I was unsuccessful in locating the article in a brief attempt at searching their online archive.
I think it's been mentioned here on slashdot before, but broadband-over-powerline systems have many drawbacks. Because power lines are not shielded, they will act as very effective radiating antennas for the signals they carry. Many of the proposed broadband systems utilize frequency ranges that overlap military, emergency, commercial and amateur radio bands, with the potential to cause a great deal of harmful interference to users of those services. Many countries, including Japan, the UK, and the Netherlands have already rejected broadband-over-powerline technology for this reason. Check out this page for more info:
http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/
Wired Article
2001 article. My mistake.
Holy Cow!!! The name of the company that scammed the US Government... You guessed it. Media Fusion.
IT IS A SCAM!
Slashdotting all of Canada's power lines! Shame!
Shaaaaaaaaame!
Putting up a video stream link, too! That's just wrong. *tsk tsk*
What a great opportunity for an enterprising geek to win a Darwin award by hooking his computer up to an overhead power line!
I can't WAIT to see AOL users shoving Ethernet cables into their power socket.
"You've got Bzzzztttttaaaarrrrggghhhhhhhhhh"
Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
Moderated down to -1 - Stupid.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
DS2 is a Spanish company and is the WORLD leader in PLC technology.
One of the founders of the company was a teacher of mine! (he lectures at the Telecommunications School of Valencia, Polytechnic University of Valencia
Well, then perhaps soon we'll see people tapping into power lines instead of wardriving for illegal pr0n.
Seriously though... a power-line is fairly noisy and/or is accessible to the general masses, more so than a phone-line. How does one tag an ID on individual customers (a meter is generally read manually?).
If it were integrated into meters the meter-reader could be out of the job, but could people bypass the meter and pull a little fancy hackery in order to get onto the power co's network? I could see spammers and other illegal users try to take advantage of this...
Ooops, http://www.ds2.esis the correct link
Well, I live in Quebec and Hydro-Qebec is our famous "Hydroelectricity government own company" with a reputation of doing what they announce.
:)
If they say they gona do it and they think it will work fine I have no reason to doubt their announcements.
Our Broadband services are already dirt cheap in Montreal and this can only drive them lower.
Whoo hoo!!!!
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
Found it at CBC - Avro Arrow story(real media)
The fact is that even DSL causes interference, because the twisted-pair phone wires weren't designed to convey those high frequencies and leak like a sieve. Now, go to power lines, which are not twisted-pair, have no form of shielding whatsoever, and simply aren't designed for frequencies over 60 Hz. They radiate like antennas.
Traffic lights take very little bandwidth to operate, generally they are on a 200 KHz system that works like the X-10 switches many people have in their homes. It's not good for much more. The claims of greater bandwidth than cable or DSL are absurd.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
It was proposed here in DK and I remember an article stating success depends very much on the type of infrastructure already present. What kind of cables have been laid out, neutral or no neutral, etc... For all those discussing transformers and high voltage lines: this is strictly a last-mile technology: you need fiber to AFTER the last transformer! In this sense, a power failure does (theoretically) not necessarely have to bring the network down, even if the low end receivers will probably get their power from the same line as their data.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
Didn't Linksys or Netgear (or one of the other SOHO network gear mfrs) have something similar to this for LANs? I remember reading a while back about these units (basically ethernet via the wall sockets) and there seemed to be an issue regarding security. Like your neighbor being able to sniff your traffic. Would someone who knows about this mind explaining a little more? Especially on a grander scale such as is being discussed?
Does this seem scary to anyone else that these traffic lights would be internet accessible? If some script kiddies decided to have some fun, lives could be lost.
Why bother with a landline these days? I haven't had one for about three years. What's the point of having a phone attached to the wall with 6 feet of wire? What happens if you're not at home?
Scottish Hydro has already done this.
Here in Denmark several projects about bringing Broadband to users through powerlines has been abanded. The costs up-front for the avarage user are just to high compared to establishing an ADSL-connection.
for at least a year now, although until recently it was a beta (and free to PPL customers willing to try it). The dialup support desk at the ISP where I work provides tech support for the service under contract with PPL. FWIW, according to my informal queries of my coworkers in support, BPL does really work pretty well.
That's just it - the broadband-over-power-lines brigade have been attempting a "proof by exhaustive irrelevance". They hold a new trial every few months in another remote place and end up with the same results: it usually interferes with TV reception, and in some cases interferes with an emergency band so badly they abort the trial.
This is very much like the UWB brigade, who are attempting to circumvent normal acceptance procedures by building themselves up for a massive failure - thereby claiming that it's all unfair and would destroy their business. At the end of the day they're both just inherently flawed technologies pushed forward by people who only really care about the potential returns.
I know that marketing of technology requires a really aggressive stance, but this would be like saying that jet airplane flights are just around the corner, because they've perfected the stone wheel. It took a few more fundamental developments (and new delivery methods) to make that jump!
TCP/IP over electricity lines is all so backwards and 90's. It's electricity over TCP/IP lines that is interesting today.
There's even a spec out (RFC3251) for public interoperability.
When will these people learn to keep up with the time around them?
The power company in iceland already has this service upp and running, www.fjoltengi.is although you probably wont understand it,
They claim a speed of 4mb/s but say that it can drop to 256kb/s at most.
Costs about $40 us a month, and only 50Gb download is included. (Inside Iceland)
Much higher bandwidth (means more money) and no complaints from those pesky ham operators (of which I am one).
As I recall, every time it's been tried, there have been bandwith/error problems, and you have to bypass all transformers with high voltage capacitors. And you know where the priority will lie when the ice storms take it all out...restoring power, not repairing the data network.
Your UPS is no match for my UIS!
Uninterruptible Internet Supply
then you probably have cheap enough DSL. There are 66 DSL providers, according to Canadian ISP. I don't know how much cheaper than $20 CDN (that's about $15 USD) you can expect. You can expect to pay $30 CDN for higher-than-average speeds (1700kb/s down, 300kb/s up), and/or no caps. Let's see power line internet beat that.
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
Alberta could come up with its own revolutionary Internet solution:
:P
Broadband over oil pipelines!
The main electricity companies in Spain are already given service or close to do it (depending on the company) on cities like Zaragoza, Barcelona or Sevilla.
Article in spanish here and Babelfish translation to english here.
February 18, 2003
Nothing makes me more suspicious than old, recycled news pretending to be new news and released under weird circumstances. In this case, I'm referring to the recent "news" about power-line networking. This, in fact, is a technology I've been hearing about for 20 years. Its strange and sudden promotion by the government is ominous.
Old technology. It began on January 16 with an Associated Press article reporting that federal officials (the FCC) think that power-line networking "may become the next pathway into homes for high-speed Internet access." On what planet?
This piece ran in The Washington Post and on most major news outlets. Five days later, TechTV reported the same story without questioning the source or the rationale for the idea's reemergence.
This non-news is obviously being orchestrated by some of the companies involved in the technology. Who can blame them? But why is the FCC suddenly on the bandwagon?
Phony rationale. The new angle is that power lines can provide an alternative way to connect to the Internet in a national emergency. Has anyone noticed the simple fact that during most disasters, the first things to go off-line are power lines, not phone lines? Something else is going on.
I've always been baffled by the continued development of power-line networking when all network engineers know that power-line noise is not conducive to data flow. Set up a home network over power lines and see how well it operates when Betsy cranks up her 1,500-watt hair dryer or Dad turns on the blender. Filtering all this noise is difficult, which is the main reason that power-line networking has gone nowhere. There are reports of stable 1-Mbps and even 10-Mbps systems, but all the network engineers I talk to are suspicious of any such claims. We have wireless technology, mesh concepts, and Ethernet-to-the-home initiatives. Why does development continue with power-line networking?
The reality. The idea of a personal Internet connection over power lines is preposterous, since other technologies are clearly better and more stable. The real reason to promote power-line networking is so the appliances of the future can be monitored and controlled from remote locations.
Imagine that you own a Maytag washer with an LCD screen. It's got an IP address and is plugged into the electrical system where it communicates with a Maytag server on the Web. One day, the machine's LCD tells you that you can download a new spin cycle by hitting the red button on the washer. Meanwhile, the LCD also tells you that the Safeway down the street (of course, the washer knows where you live) is having a sale on Tide detergent. The washer asks you whether you want the coupon mailed to you or printed via your Canon printer right now. You tell it to print the coupon now. The Maytag server immediately contacts the Canon server, your power-line network talks to the IP-addressable printer in your home office, and the coupon is printed. Maytag pays Canon 2 cents for this service. Welcome to our new wired world.
This has always been the reason for power-line networking. Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy and IBM were openly discussing idiotic Internet appliances such as a coffeemaker you can call from your car to make coffee or a washing machine that can call a repair person. How was that supposed to happen without power-line networking? Did anyone expect a coffeepot to have an Ethernet jack and wires running all over the kitchen?
Big Brother. The potential for abuse bothers me. Can you imagine every plug in the house being a TCP/IP connection? Consider how easy it would be to slip a little device with a microphone or camera inside the wall socket to spy on you or to put a camera inside any appliance, clock, or light fixture. Even without cameras and microphones, you could figure out what was going on inside a home by monitoring the ports for electrical activity. "Someone's using a crock pot in the kitchen."
The possibility for snooping here seems a lot
Broadband over power lines (PLC, Power Line Communications as we call it) is also being offered in Turku, the former capital of Finland.
There has been quite a lot of resistance due to PLC possibly interfering short wave radio signals and other electric devices nearby. That has made radio amateurs and DX listeners talk against this in the publicity. However, the service in Turku seems to be operating pretty well.
hapo
1.5kw through a 12 dbi antenna = 24,000 watts ERP. That's gonna be nasty for BPL devices too...
It has been trialled enough times around the world with no critical mass of market share that like the video-telephone it will not successfull ever.
A large scale roll out will more likely than not generate unacceptable (according to existing law, of unlicensed and in this case unintended radiators) intereference with various licensed spectrum users including government, military, and amateur voice and data communications.
Scottish hydro electric do a 2Mb up & down service. We're still stuck on ISDN here but I've heard that the HE service is very very fast, and cheaper than 2Mbit cable or DSL services.
http://www.hydro.co.uk/broadband/index.asp
"Seems the utility is already utilizing the system to control traffic lights and such"
I may be wrong, but wouldn't this be a really bad idea? Controling an entire system like your traffic system with a medimum that is, well pretty open to many attacks seems like a pretty bad idea.
TruePunk | Games
BPL is insane! Everywhere they a pilot project has been done it was shown that there is significant RF noise to interfere in huge chunks of radio spectrum. Whomever thought up the brilliant idea to transmit RF via unbalanced unshielded wire over the power grid should be... (I will leave medieval torture methods to your imagination)...
Several things come to mind. Most cable systems provide seperate feeds to local areas, usually using a broadcast protocol I believe, with one feed linked to one server.
Also our local cable (Chicago area) came around and knocked on the door, they had to go around and check for RF leakage. I had a segment of my internal distribution that was not up to spec and radiated too much. They changed that part of the system and brought the emissions back in line with the specifications they had to operate under.
There is an issue with frequency/channel capacity and length of cable. The data we send is square waves which can be thought of as actually an infinite series of sine waves added together to give you the square wave shape. So square waves are rich in harmonics, and those different frequencies actually travel along the wire at slightly differnt speeds, which fuzzes the signal out over a distance. Like ethernet cables have an effective maximum length of what is it 100 ft or so for good signal quality.
So for pure data you need to put repeaters inline over distance to re-generate the signal. For long hauls you modulate the signals with a purer tone but still you have to detect the transistions which slows down your effect speed.
So the claim that it could be 5 times faster than cable makes little sense.
With the powerlines you have one fairly connected system that it would be hard to seperate out segments
to balance the load for one ethernet segment. You have a problem when you have too many people contending for the the broadcast time.
I suspect they the scheme is really, like DSL just an end point distribution system like dsl or cable, just tapping into local isolated segments of the power to provide ethernet segment access to households.
I live under one of the flight paths to Ohare airport. I would hate to think the lighting up the grid with internet traffic could land one of those jumbo jets on my roof.
> I'm all for it... but I live in TORONTO!"
You poor bastard!
The City of Manassas (Virginia) has been testing this for a few months now and is about to offer it to residents for $29.95 per month in December 2003. They say it is the first in the US. You can read about ithere. If it works I will drop Comcast like a hot rock!
Toronto, That is Canada! Then you might know my friend John, in Vancouver!
Hrmm... an AC with insight!
If they're goin to determine that providing poor broadband service in the places where other services are already available is more important than the licensed uses of the spectrum from 2-80MHz, they should cancel all the international broadcasting, radiolocation services, military communications, telemetry, aeronautical, maritime and land mobile communications, amateur radio, radio astronomy, radionavigation, time&frequency standard, and fixed link communications allocations and reallocate them to the power companies. Barring that, it's illegal. Even if NTIA doesn't inform the FCC that they are not permitted to allow it, the international sanctions will put us back in our place.... Yesterday, I made a 700 mile contact with 1W and a tiny antenna with no ground system. There's no way multi-watt signals in miles-long antennae(power lines are not transmission lines much above 1200Hz) won't interfere with services far beyond our borders.
We're still working at building up our beef cattle herds. We are only a couple months away from having the ability to stampeed our way across the border.
Wrong,
just a quick look on statistic canada: Nearly half (48.7%) of all regular home Internet-use households had a high-speed Internet connection in 2001
Canadians are among the world's leaders in broadband use. Nearly half (48.7%) of all regular home Internet-use households had a high-speed Internet connection in 2001. This proportion increased from east to west, with 61% of regular home Internet users making use of broadband in British Columbia, compared with 39% in the Atlantic provinces. For the private sector, 2002 marked the first year in which the majority (58.4%) of enterprises using the Internet were connected to broadband technologies. The Information and Cultural industries continued to be leaders in broadband penetration (85.7%). Analysis by enterprise size further revealed that broadband use was higher among large firms.
http://www.statcan.ca/english/IPS/Data/56F0004MI E2003010.htm
- Curiosity is not a default !
i realize, being a ham myself, that this is a problem for amateur radio, but in most cases emergency operations for amateur radio is either 2-meter/440 via repeaters/line of sight, or its HF when the power is out. If the power is out, there wont be much of an issue with interference.
Trying is the first step towards failure - Homer Simpson
The RF interference issue is of somewhat broader significance than to just ham and CB radio operators, who will essentially be knocked off the air by BPL:
But some broadcasters use electrical wires as antennas for radio signals and are concerned that the internet signals could interfere with radio and television reception.
Broadcast expert Jacques Bouliane said the internet signal could completely ruin television reception.
"Even if you don't subscribe to the service, you would get interference from it," he said.
Hydro said it won't be a problem, and pointed out that interference doesn't occur over cables that provide both television and internet service.
Hydro's argument there, of course, is utterly specious! Cable and internet are carried over coaxial cable, which is shielded. In the USA -- I assume Canadian rules are similar -- cable operators have to go around and "sweep" their coax for RF leaks twice a year, a costly process. Power lines are not shielded or even designed to carry RF without leaking. They're big distributed antennas.
BPL creates loud radio noise across the shortwave spectrum, above AM radio but below FM. Some systems might intefere with VHF TV (channels 2-6). The key is that they knock out shortwave (3-30 MHz), where foreign broadcasts can be received. Not a lot of Americans, percentage wise, listen to shortwave, though it's popular in many other countries. But it's a useful counter to monopoly media. Clear Channel, Viacom and Fox want to control what you hear. Bush likes that, and they like him. Shortwave lets in foreign ideas and different viewpoints.
Remember, BPL Internet is not a "common carrier" service. The Powerline ISP will have the right of censorship, just as other ISPs do today. You can read Slashdot freely because there's too much ISP competition today to allow a censored ISP to get very far -- "Christian" censored ISPs do have some customers, though, especially in Dixie. If and when the FCC and the ILECs are done knocking out competitive ISPs, you can expect a lot less freedom on the net.
I guess you missed the "by area" part of the post. Canada is the second largest country on the planet, but population density wise, it ranks below Chad. I doubt if 90% of Canada even has electrical power, much less high speed internet.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Not just ham radio operators. These bands are used by everyone, including fire & rescue, police, utility companies, military, etc. Not everyone has switched to Nextel for two-way communication! It's actually quite shocking that the FCC is even persuing this since the RF pollution is so pronounced across the whole spectrum.
Sleep is for the Weak
X10 inserts data into the 60Hz frequency of Alternating Current in your home wiring. So, any signal generated is already at the frequency of AC, which the whole world has had to filter out of RF sensitive boxes for years. X10 "interferes" with AC, which no one tries to listen to anymore.
There are plenty of things that interferes with X10, by the way, as many who have used it have had to trouble shoot. This link has some of them. RF interference can be very hard to pinpoint, and the more congested the area the harder it is to figure out. This is why pollution of RF spectrum is what whole government agencies are supposed to protect. Hams are usually the first to squawk since they have the expertice and spend their lives trying to pick up tiny, low power signals out of the air.
Sleep is for the Weak
If you hate Comcast that much, by a DSL line from Verizon or Covad. Relying on the power companies for anything is a (unbelievably) service step down from a cable company.
For those not from the Washington DC area -- we've had multi-day power outages regularly here, at least 4 in the past 3 years.
Sleep is for the Weak
anything that takes a chunk out of videotron's market is a good thing. i spend 2 years being 'fortunate' enough dealing with videotron, and am fully behind any initiative that takes a market share away from them. too bad i live in calgary now!
99% of over 4,500 comments to the FCC strongly oppose BPL spectrum poluttion
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A very diverse range of corporations, organizations, associations, groups and citizens have filed comments that urge the FCC to ensure that BPL interference does not pollute our radio spectrum.
The small number of comments supporting BPL have been from Power Companies looking for quick profits at the expense of turning our American radio spectrum into an electronic version of Prince William Sound after the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers)
http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/re
National Academy of Sciences (BPL will severely disrupt Radio Astronomy)
http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/
Wireless Communications Association (BPL could disrupt Wireless Internet access)
http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/ret
North American Shortwave Association
http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/r
Sprint (the leading cell phone company)
http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/re
ARRL (Represents 700,000 American radio amateurs)
http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/r
National Association of Broadcasters (Folks that own the TV and Radio stations)
http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/r
National Association of shortwave broadcasters
http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecf
Amateur Radio operator (typical of over 1,500 citizen comments)
http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/ret
Aura communications (leading Wireless research company)
http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/retr
Amherst Alliance (citizen advocacy group)
http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/retrie
Phonex (leading manufacturer of power line equipment)
http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/
REC Networks (dedicated to promoting diversity and culture through communication)
http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/prod/e
Pulsar Technologies (supplies communication equipment to the power utilities)
http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/re
Amateur radio operator (who is also a Sheriff)
http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/retr
Having some experience with house wiring I have always wondered just how this whole 'internet on power lines' actually works.
...the power-grid?
I first thought about this with the advent of 'networking over power' in a home. My problem with understanding is with knowing that homes are fed via a center-tapped transformer that delivers 240VAC. The center tap is grounded so ground to one leg gives 120VAC. Now when I connect to a plug (with my network) and my other computer's power is from the other leg of the transformer just what is happening? It would seem that the signals have to go out to the transformer, through it and back to the house for that to work, right? Well, I would think that the transformer would dump the hi frequency network traffic right to ground via the center tap, how does it not?
Of course that it works says, well, that it works, but then does the signal couple to the hi voltage that feeds the transformer? I figure that everybody on the same transformer would be on my network but is it actually everybody in town?
How will this internet service being offered couple through the power transformers? They are wound to work at low frequencies (60 cycles) so how do the hi frequency internet service couple through?
Will this affect the 'network over power' systems that people use in their homes?
[Too bad Nickola Tesla never finished his power station on Long Island - we'd have one large antenna for power, radio, TV, and internet all together riding massive power-waves around the world.]
Just curious...
Aime Watts
aimew@sprintmail.com
Keeper of the terrible karma ---
Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought that power compagnies use fiber optics for transporting signals between power stations. I thougt they wanted to use these fiber optics for broadband use..
Just my 2 euro cents..
.
>just a quick look on statistic canada: Nearly half (48.7%) of all regular home Internet-use households had a high-speed Internet connection in 2001
:)
Thanks for backing me up!
shepd previously saith:
By population, we probably have a solid 50% or more that have access to high speed internet, excluding satellite (not an option for the reason listed below).
Thanks!
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC