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!"

Comments

Amateur HF Band Issues

[Kymermosst]

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.

Re:Amateur HF Band Issues

[Anonymous Coward]

I just got an arrl newsletter telling all of their members to contact their congressmen and tell them what a bad idea this is. Apparently, according to ARRL research, broadband over powerlines causes significant interference not just in ham bands but across the spectrum. Although I havn't exactly looked at the research in detail, I can't see how the power companies could avoid interference. Powerlines aren't shielded, and for any reasonable bandwidth to be passed through the powerlines, the frequency would have to be high enough that a significant amount of power would have to be used. Unshielded wire is always agood antenna, and for some situations the best. Granted it won't be well tuned, but I've seen worse situations cause a lot of interference. My home is near high voltage power lines (read a large part of San Francisco's power) and even at 60hz, I get interfering harmonics all the way up into 10 meters. Avoiding electrical grid contamination is something every ham has fought with. Hopefully I'm wrong, but unless there is some way of preventing interference, this seems like one of those thngs that will be really good for pacbell and really bad for the rest of the wireless world.

Re:Amateur HF Band Issues

[Bruce Perens]

BPL works by using the power lines as the medium for a radio-frequency modem. The problem is that the power lines work as antennas to radiate that radio frequency into their surroundings. You can't really "focus" it. It just goes into the air, and tends not to go down the wire where you want it since the power line is so bad a medium for high frequencies. So you have to use lots of power, which means a very strong signal in the air.

And of course the BPL providers don't care how much they pollute the radio spectrum.

Bruce

Re:Amateur HF Band Issues

[Myself]

Phone lines are twisted, so they don't tend to radiate much of the radio energy that's poured into them. HomePNA kicks out some noise but it's nothing compared to BPL.

Power lines are widely spaced, unevenly spaced, and not twisted. From the perspective of a radio signal, power lines are not transmission lines: they're antennae! BPL also works over much longer distances than HomePNA, meaning that the power levels involved are much larger. Dumping tons of RF onto the power grid will simply turn it into a massive radio jammer.

John Q. Public should be worried. In times of civic emergency, ham radio operators need all the spectrum they can get. Find a local amateur radio club and attend a meeting -- you'd be surprised how much stuff goes on behind the scenes. Hams are hobbyists, refining their equipment and honing their skills "for fun", but then swinging into action during emergencies to maintain communications when other methods fail.

Destroying a large chunk of the radio spectrum will not help anyone. BPL is technically inferior to cable and DSL, and it's only being hyped by those who see opporunity for profit without regard for technical or civic responsibilities.

One point in its favor.

[Hanzie]

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.

Re:One point in its favor.

[pe1rxq]

Bandwidth has nothing to do with the current through a line (or not much....)
A normal power line has been designed for 50hz (or 60hz) AC. A coax cable was designed for frequencies in the Mhz to Ghz range. A telephone line was designed for atleast several Khz (speach).
The dampening of a power line will be far greater than a coax cable.
The same is for shielding. A power line is very suceptable for interference from the outside and can radiate itself far more. That is why greater bandwidth (higher frequencies) will be a huge problem on these lines.
Simply put: They weren't designed for this.

Jeroen

Nortel

[JohnnyComeLately]

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.

Re:security

[mholt108]

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.

Single point of failure

[Gary Destruction]

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.

Re:Single point of failure

[mattjb0010]

If the power is gone, the communications are gone anyways, so where is the issue?

I was over in the US when the recent blackout occurred. I still had about an hours worth of net access after the blackout occurred thanks to backup power on the network and the battery in my powerbook. So it's not necessarily gone.

redundancy

[nounderscores]

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..."

No Sydkraft Internet Service

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Hydro Quebec are really out in front here

[Space Coyote]

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.

Sounds like a scam to me

[Evets]

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.

It's not all good...

[JimDog]

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/

Shocking prediction

[lewko]

I can't WAIT to see AOL users shoving Ethernet cables into their power socket.

"You've got Bzzzztttttaaaarrrrggghhhhhhhhhh"

BPL pollution

[Bruce Perens]

BPL makes a total mess of the wireless spectrum wherever it's used. HF receivers are 10 dB over S-9 with the interference. There are lots of users of that HF spectrum. And of course the BPL promoters attitude is "F**k-you, wireless users! We've got money to be made, and if it causes you pollution, that's too damn bad!"

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

RWE Powerline in Germany: dead

[XenonChloride]

While the article states:

German utilities company RWE started offering Internet service over power lines the summer of 2001...

it fail to mention that this service went out of business again in summer 2002.

Don't get too excited!

[zeptic]

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.

If you live in TORONTO...

[peter_gzowski]

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.