FEMA Opposes Broadband Over Powerlines

Curmudgeon Rick writes "According to eHam.net, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has put a submission to the FCC strongly opposing the use of powerlines for broadband distribution. The report can be found here [PDF link]. IMO, vendors should let powerline broadband die. They keep defibrillating it only because of the dollars they poured in; but it is and always was a dead duck." The submission concludes: "FEMA has concluded that introduction of unwanted interference from the implementation of BPL technology into the high frequency radio spectrum will result in significant detriment to the operation of FEMA [emergency] radio systems such as FNARS."

Comments

Emergency = Power outage?

[ShadowBlasko]

Wasn't the original and best argument about this the fact that, *in most cases* when HAMS were in use for emergency communication, the power was already out?

Would this not *eliminate* said theoretical interference?

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[LastAndroid]

Thats a good point.

However if you can only use your ham radio when the power is out, then why own one?
People won't want to own them if they can't use them. Then when the power goes out almost no one will have them.

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[Anonymous Coward]

But you want to talk to people who have power. The interference is with the receiving end, not the transmitting end. So, all we have to do is turn off all the power stations everywhere when there is an emergency so we can hear those looking for help...

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[frovingslosh]

When a disaster hits and power and communication are out, hams are not just trying to talk to other hams in the local area (which they generally do on higher VHF and UHF bands anyway), they are trying to reach points that still have power. So if their signal is is jammed by crap radiating from the power lines, then vital communication can be lost.

Besides, how arogant can you be to think that hams should have their equipment sitting around useless because of lots of broadband over powerlines spectrum polution, not even be able to pratice using it or train new hams, and then expect that there will be no problem when there is a power and communication emergency just because the local broadband interference is now temporarly eliminated?

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[Goody]

Wasn't the original and best argument about this the fact that, *in most cases* when HAMS were in use for emergency communication, the power was already out?

Amateurs need to maintain equipment and practice needed skills before a disaster occurs. If the equipment is unusable during regular times, what is the motivation even to buy equipment? Another thing to consider is that emergency stations need to be able to communicate out to areas that do have power.

Another issue to contend with is the propagation characteristics of the HF radio band which BPL is using. Interference could travel thousands of miles. I doubt anyone will want to track down interference a thousand miles away when a hurricane has just flattened their state.

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[LandGator]

Hams often end up working under extreme conditions with less-than-ideal siting and antennas, and with emergency power only, which necessitates low power operation.

So, let's pretend; you're out in the boonies with a whole 5 watts of power, trying to support firefighters whose primary radio links are down (true fact, boys and girls; happened this summer, lots).

Half a county away, Enron (no joke) is pushing how many megawatts? Over how tall an antenna?

It does not take much power to drown out a ham in the field, and Enron, et al., have lots of it.

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[Anonymous Coward]

When a disaster hits and power and communication are out... if their signal is is jammed by crap radiating from the power lines

The power's out. What crap would be emenating from the power lines?

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[frovingslosh]

The power's out. What crap would be emenating from the power lines?

OK, you're an A.C. and you're stupid; I'll type this very slowly so maybe you can follow it....

As I said above, the HF bands are used in an emergency to reach areas that do have power. They may be used to relay information about the safety of people in the affected area, they may be used to request life saving medical supplies, or to summon other emergence service providers to the affected area and let them know what to expect and what they need to bring when they come. If the areas they are trying to contact that do have power can't receive a ham radio signal because of their own broadband over powerline signal polution, then it is a serious problem. And quite simply, there are already laws against it. Hams, other people, and other industries have to follow the regulations against such interfearing radio signals, I so no reason why the power industry should not have to also.

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[FuckFema]

Of course FEMA doesn't want electrical Internet access. It's just another technology that they will have to learn how to control. Remember, FEMA is the same group that produces death camps in the USA. (http://www.google.ca/search?q=FEMA+death+camps&ie =UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&meta=) Check out http://www.infowars.com and learn truth!

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[Nuclear Elephant]

People being able to communicate during an emergency = people complaining about FEMA's poor job at handling emergency = end of FEMA. It's all about dictatorship.

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[joseph.moore]

To answer your question "would this not eliminate said theoretical interference" I would say no. Keep in mind that although the power may be out on areas that are directly impacted by the disaster, the goal is to communicate out to areas that are operating normally. ie. with power. Additionally, one of the primary justifications for changing regulations to allow BPL is that it would provide fast internet access to rural areas which are too far from population to be served by current systems. This however is not likely to happen as the cost drivers which have prevented existing systems from serving rural areas would exist for BPL as well. Given this, BPL would likely be used only in areas of high population density, thus negating the benefits of the technology as compare to the cost to existing radio services.

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't the original and best argument about this the fact that, *in most cases* when HAMS were in use for emergency communication, the power was already out?

The HF frequencies (3-30 MHz) most often used for LONG distant communications in an emergency are heavily impacted by the noise that powerline broadband generates. And almost always one end of that link is OUTSIDE the disaster area and where electrical power should be up. (Local emergency communications are usually on VHF and UHF using repeaters with emergency power.)

Also, keep in mind that disaster area communications often use crude antennas and battery power. So their signals aren't likely to be that strong. In addition, for the 50-300 miles you typically want to go in an emergency, the best frequencies are usually low HF (80 and 40 meters), where the noise problems are the worst.

Finally, if this bad idea trashes the HF spectrum, it'll be hard to persuade hams to put out $1000 and up of their own money for a system that can ONLY be used when the power is down.

--Mike Perry, KE7NV

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, what an ignorant jackass you are.

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[ShadowBlasko]

I decided to wait until evening to reply.

Thank you all for the rather informative replies. I had not taken into consideration the affects that the interference would have in areas that the power was NOT down in, in relation to how those areas would need to communicate with the emergency area.

Its been a long... LONG time since I have used my radios, but everything still works. Perhaps I will get back into the community.

Once again, thank you for the information, and, when applicable, the corrections.

-WD8VWZ

Shadow

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[w9wi]

One might add, this doesn't apply only to hams.

Imagine that FEMA is unable to test their equipment or run practice/training drills when there's no emergency.

What are the chances there will be undiagnosed equipment problems? Operators who aren't familiar with the gear? Operators who aren't familiar with proper operating procedure? (locations where they can't hear anything because there's some other interference source that had been buried under the BPL noise?)

Alternatively, do you want to have a broadband provider that stops working for a few hours a week so FEMA can run drills? (then add in the Army, the FAA, the Navy, CIA,...)

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[lelnet]

Well, this argument isn't about the problems of HAMs, it's about FEMA's problems (which happen to have the same cause)...and FEMA deals with plenty of situations where the power isn't necessarily out.

I'd say powerline broadband is probably dead, if FEMA actively opposes it.

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[Anonymous Coward]

No - power outages are not the only or primary reason to resort to Amateur Radio.

- system overload; in critical emergencies, cell and land-line telephony services can get overloaded beyond capacity

- experienced operators - running a "traffic" net is something which many Hams practice doing in and out of emergency situations. Having experienced folks available makes a big difference.

- FEMA and other agencies use all sorts of spectrum - short range UHF/VHF to longer range HF operations - broadband can be problematic at either the emergency site or a remote location.

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[1u3hr]

when HAMS were in use for emergency communication, the power was already out?

Even if true, how are operators supposed to test and set up their equipment, train, or enjoy the hobbyist part of being a ham?

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[winstarman]

just to pipe in, and not trying to be annoying.

I'm an amateur radio operator, and of the three radios I own, none of them require 110v power... the vast majority of radio's (especially 70cm through 10m) run off of 12v DC... which is.... a car battery. My most powerful radio puts out 70 watts off of 12 volt power (which is only about 6 amps) so there is plenty of room to spare in a car's electrical system.

So, power dies, but Hams are still using radios because all you need is a small generator with a 110vAC to 12vDC power supply... or a car. If the power goes out, I'd rather have a ham radio than a cell phone.

Cheers-
R-

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[Anonymous Coward]

A couple of points...

HF radio isn't only for huge disasters like the Northeast going dark or the Carolinas getting hurricanes slapped into them. As a CAP member from a state where the population (and cel coverage) is wide only in the south, if I have to go north to conduct a search for someone, HF radio may be my only way to communicate with the rest of the planet. We do these things at odd hours.. I do NOT want to have to argue with someone at oh-dark-thirty that their internet service is preventing me from calling for a rescue aircraft or ambulance...

Second.. having a radio that only runs on shore power is silly. Most should run from a vehicle, or people will have backup power.

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[PatMouser]

It would in the local area, but remember that HF signals propagate very well over long distances. This means that while the power may be out, say in Virginia due to a hurricane, the BPL pollution from a system in Georgia can still be interfering with emergency communications.

I've talked to HAMs in Arizona from Texas using 1 watt. I've also worked Antarctica with 20, also from Texas.

Pat, K0OOK

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[mr_mischief]

So if there's a terrorist attack, a school hostage situation, a 60-car pileup, or a fertilizer truck hits headon with a diesel fuel truck, the power necessarily goes out?

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[Anonymous Coward]

HAMS are still being used in most major metropolitan areas to help augment police/EMS systemsand new members are actively being recruited to join RACES (No, not REACT) teams. After all, if a major disaster/ice storm occurs then most cell phone systems are brought down by the sudden surge in call attempts. Additionally, mobile HAM units serve as extra eyes and ears for Emergency Operation Centers. HAM users can use emergency generators that are in use at Emergency Centers (PD, FD, Command Centers, ...),businesses such as large food stores not to mention automobiles, and external car battery banks.

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[gurrufio]

Maybe you people could give my lines a little thought: I acknowledge the importance of ham radios, wether there's power or not. We rely on ham radios to point our communications dishes down here in my country, not to mention police and emergency communications; so there's undoubtedly a need for radios to be functional, especially in rural areas. I live in Venezuela, a third world country recently known for its president, where our rural areas are largely communicationless. When I say communicationless I mean roads are less than adequate, phone lines are non-existent, schools, health and other social services are neglected due to the lack of proper infrastructures, so you can imagine what it means to live in these "settlements". To any developing nation (or to anyone, for that matter) it is clear that the largest network infrastructure layout is the national electrical supply or "the grid". It constitutes the most viable way to bring remote villages to the information age. I live up in the Andean mountains where, unless you live in the city or have a clear line-of-sight (unhampered by valleys and mountains, ham radios are not very useful. Once again, I do not intend to detract ham radios. As I pointed out, they're still a vital necessity, but I'm forced to think that potential benefits for communities must be considered when taking decisions regarding telecommunications that will be turned into laws. Anyway, could anybody suggest a place to read about the frequency spectrum involved in BPL and radio coms?

Re:Emergency = Power outage?

[theoldmoose]

The HF bands sure were quiet during the recent power outage, though 8-).

Haven't been able to hear signals that weak (and that clearly) in years, over the awful RF racket that seems to permeate the air in and around cities.

I was almost sad to see the power come back on, and listen to all the computer- and powerline-generated crap in my neighborhood spring back to life.

Ham operators are having to deal almost daily with the cacaphony of all the consumer electronics that somehow passed FCC certification, but once installed in the neighbor's house, magically lose all shielding, and can be heard from hundreds of feet away.

And please, don't get me started about the mess of signals that our modern vehicles put out. Some time ago, the auto manufacturers cut a deal with the FCC for blanket exception to part 15, which deals with unintentional RF radiators. At one time, this protected the car folks from having to do much to stop ignition noise, except to placate those customers that couldn't hear their own AM car radio. Now that everyone listens to FM on much higher frequencies, the emphasis is on stopping radiation only in the AM band (.5 - 2 MHz) and VHF Hi-Lo frequencies (30 Mhz and up to about 200 or 300 Mhz). Everyone else (including the mobile ham HF operators) can just pound sand. 8-(

The last thing we need is for the power companies to purposefully put wideband hash on unshielded overhead transmission lines that stretch for miles across the landscape.

Commerical

[rf0]

Well there are commerical ventures in the UK which are selling broadband over powerlines

news report

Rus

Re:Commerical

[gl4ss]

in poland too..

i don't have any links at hand though(and iirc it was used for the end distribution).

Re:Commerical

[Ion Berkley]

The difference in the UK I believe is that the actual bandwidth is being carried on fibreoptic that is strung on the same towers rather than down the actual transmission lines. So they are capitalizing on the real-estate value of the point-to-point corridors that the network of transmission towers creates. Frankly that makes a lot of sense to me. I don;t know the numbers for the UK, but the US has I suspect far more 'dark' (unusde) fibre already in the ground and hence there is probably less demand for long-haul datapipes, the problem being the classic of last mile distribution instead.

Re:Commerical

[Ion Berkley]

OK, I should have read that link first , so there is also some last mile distribution in the actual conductors also in UK it seems.

Re:Commerical

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA. They're beginning commercial trials

Re:Commerical

[owlstead]

Ok, but only commercial in two cities if I read the ISP's information correctly. No way to confirm this; you will have to fill in a form with your address etc. I would not be amazed if they would send snail mail after filling in the contact information.

That's a bit too small to call it a commercial venture IMHO. That's testing.

Re:Commerical

[Anonymous Coward]

All powerline broadband systems in operation inside the UK are in offical terms classified as trials, even if the operator markets it as a commercial service. The only body to license such systems for widescale commercial deployment in the UK is the Radiocommunications Agency who so far have failed to grant any company a commercial license, due to the issue of interferance.

At least every couple of years someone will come along claiming to have a low/no interferance system and manage to secure a trial license from the RA only to find after the trial finishes that a full commercial license won't be granted.

Too bad though...

[HMA2000]

It was a strange and most likely unworkable technology but I was looking forward to having a 3rd industry in the broadband game.

Re:Too bad though...

[jhunsake]

having a 3rd industry in the broadband game

Try again...

1. Phone Companies
2. Cable Companies
3. Satellite Companies
4. ?? Power Companies

Re:Too bad though...

[trentblase]

Don't forget wireless companies!

Re:Too bad though...

[JPriest]

What wireless company is selling broadband?

Re:Too bad though...

[monkeydo]

Just about all of them. AT&T's offering

Re:Too bad though...

[TheRealFixer]

There are, in fact, companies selling line-of-sight RF broadband access. The small town I used to live in a couple years ago had a company doing this. They provided you the antenna (kind of an odd steel grill, shaped like a small satellite dish) The speeds were not that impressive (we were getting around 40-55 KB/sec), and the signal is blocked by landscape. But for some areas where there was no DSL or cable capability or infastructure, it was an affordable solution for quick and easy broadband.

Re:Too bad though...

[BagOBones]

2 way 11Mbit/s over Microwave
Air Surfer

Re:Too bad though...

[trentblase]

Well, Sprint and Verizon both claim that their 3G offerings are "broadband", but most of us can agree that they aren't.

Sprint Broadband is apparently not accepting new customers, but there are still local and regional providers like Outlaw Wireless to be found.

ISP-Planet seems to be a good resource.

Re:Too bad though...

[ngoy]

Sprint used to be one out here in AZ. It was Speedchoice, now Sprint Broadband Direct. They still support older customers but are no longer taking on new ones due to the lack of an "optimum cost structure." It is a line of site service, so there is a diamond shaped antenna which points at an array on a mountain. Rain fade hasn't been a problem, trees growing are. Since it is a microwave system they have an fcc license or something for each installation. But the cost is only $44.95/month, six email accounts with web sites through earthlink, slow upstream speed though (Easynews using Newsbin Pro at an average of 4.5Mbps. Online gaming is ok once the command rates are tweaked a bit. And I don't have to deal with the cable company, the local phone company (Qwest, which sucks donkey balls), or an expensive two-way satellite. Too bad they are not installing customers, they skip the whole last mile link since the line of sight range is over 50 miles iirc.

Re:Too bad though...

[ngoy]

And that link for sprint was typed wrong, it is SprintBroadband, not springbroadband. Sorry.

Re:Too bad though...

[Scott Hale]

Satellite? You're kidding, right? It would be a great technology if
1)The speed of light were faster and
2)The few companies that provide the service didn't royally screw their customers.

So you end up having a high latency connection that gets turned off when you download a couple hundred MB. Dial-up is more 'broadband' than satellite.

(Yes, I am aware that there are a few companies that offer reasonable connections with no FAP (Fair Access Policy - the policy Direcway uses to screw customers). However, the good providers cost just as much (If not more) than their leased line counterparts. Also, no matter how much money you throw at it, the speed of light remains constant, so latency is still an issue.)

Re:Too bad though...

[Anonymous Coward]

Satellite Companies?

How about having a 3rd industry that actually means something to the market instead of crappy, laggy, download-only satellite "broadband?" Satellite isn't even a contender unless you live completely out in the boonies with an unobscured line of sight.

Why don't you include mailing DVDs around in your list? It's only slightly less practical than god-awful satellite connections.

Re:Too bad though...

[Anonymous Coward]

download-only satellite "broadband?"

Why do idiots like yourself keep perpetuating this myth? Download-only (dial-up upstream) died a long time ago.

Re:Too bad though...

[jhunsake]

Yes, and many other companies that provide DSL and cable have the same FAP. So you're complaint about satellite isn't really a complaint about satellite at all, but a complaint about the business practices of some high-speed ISPs.

Many regular people don't need low-latency connections anyways. Plus it's not that bad if you replace the IP stack with something more effecient (usually requiring a Windows box, of course).

Re:Too bad though...

[bhtooefr]

Actually, bandwidth (broadband being a fat band, or a wide band) has nothing to do with latency or download limits. Bandwidth has to do with how much data can be carried at a time. For example, a cargo ship has shitloads of bandwidth, but VERY poor latency. A fighter jet has hardly any bandwidth, but excellent latency. A satellite can carry a lot of data compared to a modem, but takes a long time to get there. A modem can't carry much data, but it gets there almost as quickly as DSL. Of course, not having much bandwidth can cause apparent loss of latency - the cargo ship might get the whole load (a 650 MB ISO, for example) there faster than a fighter jet that gets it there in 100 6.5MB chunks. It can also work the other way: a fighter jet that gets a 65MB file there in 10 6.5MB chunks could go much faster than a ship that's taking 65MB in one trip.

Re:Too bad though...

[mobets]

Sprint sells a vision (internet) PCMCIA card. ~$30 a month gets you unlimited data at 160kb

Re:Too bad though...

[Scott Hale]

Many regular people don't need low-latency connections anyways.

Well since most people don't I guess that means nobody does. Ever try playing an online game with between half a second and a second of lag? It doesn't work out too well.

Plus it's not that bad if you replace the IP stack with something more effecient (usually requiring a Windows box, of course).

Well if you have a replacement for the IP stack that causes light to move faster, then by all means share it.

Re:Too bad though...

[Scott Hale]

Actually, I don't recall ever saying that there was a correlation between latency and bandwidth.

I said that satellite is high bandwidth, high latency. However, the residential providers have implemented FAPs to keep you from utilizing that high bandwidth connection.

Please read the entire comment before typing up Networking 101.

Re:Too bad though...

[jhunsake]

Many regular people

most people

There is a difference between "many" and "most". But I'm not sure what your point is. Did I ever say it was appropriate for everyone? Is anything appropriate for everyone? Or are you trying to argue that since you don't like it, it shouldn't exist?

Well if you have a replacement for the IP stack that causes light to move faster, then by all means share it.

I'm now assuming you're not a computer scientist or engineer, or otherwise you'd know about things like pre-fetching, branch prediction, etc.

Re:Too bad though...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I should have addressed this more (actually I mentioned other things that lower the latency).

Well if you have a replacement for the IP stack that causes light to move faster, then by all means share it.

The latency in IP is not simply due to the medium over which the connection occurs (such as ethernet), but there is a lot of IP overhead as well. It contributes to latency because both sides must process the IP overhead for each back-and-forth that occurs. If you can trim this overhead, it makes the satellite connection closer to an ethernet connection. Of course many of these techniques could be applied to ethernet (or any other medium) as well, but in those cases it simply isn't worth it.

Thus if t0 = latency on ethernet with regular IP stack and t1 = latency on satellite with modified IP stack and t2 = latency on satellite with regular IP stack, you have

t0 = t1 = t2.

Re:Too bad though...

[Anonymous Coward]

doh!

t0 <= t1 <= t2

Re:Too bad though...

[Scott Hale]

The latency in IP is not simply due to the medium over which the connection occurs (such as ethernet), but there is a lot of IP overhead as well.

Well, of course IP overhead accounts for some latency, but not nearly as much as the trip to the satellite and back.

...otherwise you'd know about things like pre-fetching, branch prediction, etc.

Yes, you can hide the signs of latency with things like pre-fetching in certian situations. However, you can not use these techniques when the data is being generated in real time. Online gaming?

There is a difference between "many" and "most". But I'm not sure what your point is. Did I ever say it was appropriate for everyone? Is anything appropriate for everyone? Or are you trying to argue that since you don't like it, it shouldn't exist?

You're right, there is a difference. I was trying to point out that there are also people who need low-latency connections (Perhaps they don't *need* them, but thats beside the point). I'm not saying that this technology shouldn't exist, it's just that there are many people who are left with no other 'broadband' option and only have the choice between satellite and dial-up. Honestly, considering the quality of most providers, there are many people who are better suited to dial-up.

I don't think we disagree as much as you might think. I was attacking the providers (high latency argument aside), while it appears you thought I was attacking the technology.

Re:Too bad though...

[bhtooefr]

And did I say that there was an actual correlation between latency and bandwidth? No, I implied that there was a perceived correlation between latency and bandwidth. You had said that dial-up was more broadband than satellite, showing that you were looking at the perceived correlation and the download caps. Bandwidth is how much data passes a certain point, latency is how long it takes for a particular bit to go from point A to point B, and download caps don't apply when talking about bandwidth.

Re:Too bad though...

[Scott Hale]

And did I say that you said that there was an actual correlation between latency and bandwidth? No, I simply stated that your previous comment was irrelevant. I neither stated nor implied a correlation.

I'm not sure why you keep stating facts that I not only never challenged, but also never even brought up. I think you saw the word 'broadband' and in your rush to call me an idiot, completely ignored the quotes that I placed around it (Here you go, Sherlock: The quotes were there because it is a term that is often misused. I misused it on purpose, and, for that reason, placed quotes around it.).

I wondered if this was going to be a problem...

[Svartalf]

Afterall, the HAM operators have been saying that the test markets for the current set of BPL services were generating RF trash that could interfere with various longwave services since they resided in the same spectrum. Since this is all Subpart 15 stuff, they're probably going to get told to lower the emissions to practically nothing or don't do it.

Re:I wondered if this was going to be a problem...

[connorbd]

Except they actually want Part 15 changed so they don't have to do anything.

Oh well..

[irokitt]

This is sad, because there are still multitudes without regional access to DSL or cable. Satellite is expensive and still uses dial-up for upstream comm. And some of those who are still using dial-up have to deal with poor line quality and congestion. Power lines exist everywhere, and have the ability to bring high-speed access to a lot of people.

Re:Oh well..

[jhunsake]

Satellite is expensive and still uses dial-up for upstream comm.

Yeah, five years ago it did. All satellite services now offer bidirectional satellite.

Re:Oh well..

[DrEldarion]

Moral of the story: If you want a fast internet connection, don't live in the middle of nowhere.

Joking aside, a lot of the time it just isn't practical to get broadband out to people in certain areas. Besides sattelite (which is far from perfect, lots of latency and slow upload), it's really not worth it for these companies to put the infrastructure in place to serve the few amount of people that would use it.

If they could make extremely-long-range wireless, though... I'd love to be able to just run around anywhere and have a constant high-speed monthly-charge connection to my laptop. Mmm....

Re:Oh well..

[strictnein]

Satellite is expensive and still uses dial-up for upstream comm

Not true, they have two-way satellite connections. The up-stream is generally in the 64kbit range (so, about twice that of an average phone connection (which for the upstream ~32k))

Re:Oh well..

[/dev/trash]

I could get wireless high speed internet if the FCC would just all people to use a higher powered transmitter.

Re:Oh well..

[fyrie]

Yup. I recently moved into the middle of nowhere and checked out DirecWay satellite internet. Too bad the Fair Access Policy makes it a waste of money for anyone who uses any good amount of bandwidth. http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,87534 90~mode=flat

Re:Oh well..

[WolfWithoutAClause]

The big problem with 'satellite' is that this currently means geosynchronous satellite. That is about 38000km away, which at the speed of light means a round trip ping time of 38000*4 (out to the satellite and back, twice).

That's a about 0.5 seconds on top of what you would normally get with DSL (minimum ping time with DSL is about 20-40 ms).

The bandwidth is fine; but 0.5 seconds is easily enough to be irritating. Still, if you've got nothing else, you'll survive, unless you're trying to play Quake III.

Re:Oh well..

[bhtooefr]

Well, how far is the nearest person who has broadband? If it's 82 miles or less, how about an experimental WiFi link? If it's 20 or less, it's broadband time!

Re:Oh well..

[Lumpy]

and lest we forget.... INsane latency....

3000 mS ping times are the BEST you can get. gaming is not an option unless you want to be the free gibbs fountian for the other players.

Re:Oh well..

[BradleyUffner]

I live in the city of Fredrick, MD. By population is is the 2nd largest city in Maryland. I can't get DSL, or cable. It's been "coming in 3 months" for the past 3 years that I have lived here. There are highly populated areas without access to broadband too.

Re:Oh well..

[buck_wild]

Hm. I had satellite (DirecWay) last year, and the best ping times I had were in the 700ms range. Those were from the Direcway content servers themselves, but adding some land-hops should not add 2300ms.

Re:Oh well..

[CaptBubba]

along with the >900ms ping times that go along with it.

Re:Oh well..

[Anonymous Coward]

The big problem with 'satellite' is that this currently means geosynchronous satellite

Well, there's always Iridium...

Re:Oh well..

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Also has the ability to interfere with alot more service including your TV. There are better ways to bring broadband to the rural areas. One example is getting the LEC's to friggin upgrade the rural cable plant!!! It is not hard but because there are not alot of people in rural areas, it's not a priority for cable companies or phone companies. Once the cost goes way down, the rural communities will get it....and we'll have something better. BPL would not bring the internet to anyone who does not have power so that would probably not help remote areas like africa and such. Satellite CAN be better in all respects. Also, most powerlines have limited shielding and power companies are notorius for not upgrading cable plants as well. If it works, don't screw with it.

Re:Oh well..

[shaitand]

Sat connections are SHIT. Sorry buddy, but have you ever tried to keep a starband link working?

Re:Oh well..

[bill_mcgonigle]

Joking aside, a lot of the time it just isn't practical to get broadband out to people in certain areas.

They said the same thing about electricity.

Re:Oh well..

[fatboy]

This is sad, because there are still multitudes without regional access to DSL or cable. Satellite is expensive and still uses dial-up for upstream comm. And some of those who are still using dial-up have to deal with poor line quality and congestion. Power lines exist everywhere, and have the ability to bring high-speed access to a lot of people.

Well, you have to ask yourself, would it be OK to pollute the rivers in your town so that people can have cheap and affordable DSL? Imagine no one being able to use those water ways because they were too polluted.

The HF part of the RF spectrum is a valuable natural resource, just like rivers and streams. It is unique because signals bounce off the ionosphere to land hundreds or thousands of miles away, without any infrastructure other than the Earth's magnetic field and solar winds. It is used for long range Marine and Aircraft navigation, Military comms, Broadcasts and Amateur communications.

It would be a shame to completely ruin this natural resource to line the pockets of the power companies.

If you knew my politics, you would know that last statement is not someting that pops out of mouth without some real thought. (I like capitolism, a lot)

Re:Oh well..

[Anonymous Coward]

They said the same thing about electricity

And many communities (including mine) have started trying to solve it the same way... Publically funded Rural Electricity Cooperatives were the solution to the power companies not wanting to wire such areas, and community owned broadband networks such as http://www.rric.net/ may be the solution for broadband providers not wanting to serve such areas.

Power Line Networking

[Phrite]

I have been running networks over wall power for years, and I have to say that it runs fine for me. My 2 cents..

Re:Power Line Networking

[pe1chl]

You probably did not notice the problem is not for the user, but for the innocent bystanders.
Your "it runs fine for me" sounds like "I don't care if others are harmed by it".

Re:Power Line Networking

[jared_hanson]

There is a difference between the HomePlug home powerline LAN solutions for running in your house and running broadband from the power company to all homes connected to its lines to form a WAN.

Re:Power Line Networking

[N1XIM]

It isn't about the WAN--it is about the size of the antenna. Think about it. Miles and miles of powerlines already make great antennas for all sorts of things that we wish they didn't pick up (WAER in Syracuse, NY, for instance--the transmitter is downtown in the university area). One can only imagine the havoc that having wide bandwidth signals spewing from such a large antenna would cause if it were done at high enough power levels to be useful. Hell, internet over plain cable TV lines does bad things to RF freespace spectrum that isn't allocated to the cable system as primary--due to poor installations. You think that the power distribution grid is any better? Ha! You can hear a 60Hz hum on many frequencies in many places in US due to leakage on the power lines. Imagine adding internet width spectra to that!

So, the question is not LAN/WAN--it is antenna size!

Re:Power Line Networking

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you trying to say 60Hz signals are RF? Don't think so...

Re:Power Line Networking

[jared_hanson]

Dude, settle down.

I never asserted that there wasn't going to be interferance with this broadband over powerline scheme. The original poster stated that he was running data over powerlines in his house. I was just pointing out that there is a big difference between data on the power lines in his house and data on the lines that are strung accross the entire country.

Obviously when you try to move data two ways accross a system that was originally just one way, there are going to be serious issues to deal with. However, I doubt any radio operator is complaining because Joe Smith buys a HomePlug adapter to get his TiVo on his network via his in-home power cables.

Understand what people are saying before you go off on a rant that wasn't in dispute in the first place.

Well, I'm bummed

[IamGarageGuy 2]

Without looking into this too deeply, I believed that this was a great idea that only needed the proper amount of time to develop. Once again, it looks like I'm wrong. **** Look of astonishment on faces of all readers ****

Re:Well, I'm bummed

[Anonymous Coward]

I am one of those who live in the country. No cable, No DSL, Satelite does not allow VPN access.

I am screwed.

I was hoping service by power lines might be useful, but I guess some idiots can't think that far. As mentioned before, what about the rural, backwoods people? Satelite does have upload and download by satelite, but VPN access is not possible.

Re:Well, I'm bummed

[joggle]

Satelite does have upload and download by satelite, but VPN access is not possible.

So you're saying that VPN is more important than the hobby of ham radios, their use during emergency situations, and general aviation?

Re:Well, I'm bummed

[trentblase]

You can do VPN over satellite... a quick google search would show that.

Re:Well, I'm bummed

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I am saying in an emergency, I would not be on the net anyways.

I am also in the local fire department and if there is an emergency, Ooops, there goes the power lines.

Most emergencies, FEMA is not even involved. Cell phone usage is limited to emergency personnel during a widespread emergency. Why can't the same be true to internet service?

In the Fire Department, we are trained that in an emergency, we can do whatever is needed to keep the public and ourselves safe. NO MATTER WHAT.

This should be true in this case also.

Re:Well, I'm bummed

[joggle]

As it currently is, volunteer hams provide emergency communication and coordination during emergencies (such as on 9/11 when they helped coordinate hospitals because the cell network was jammed).

If, on a normal basis, hams can't use their equipment due to interference from powerline broadband, they'll give up their hobby and you'll loose that extra layer of defense on the next emergency.

There's also the issue of interference with other users of this frequency spectrum, such as flight controllers for GA (as mentioned in the article). Like other frequency ranges, HF is very valuable and there had better be a damn good reason to screw it up and frankly VPN in rural areas doesn't cut it.

There are at least two other technologies that could let you have VPN when DSL and cable isn't available: WiFi and fixed, radio towers that I believe are in the microwave range (at least here in Boulder, although they cost nearly as much as satellite).

Re:Well, I'm bummed

[N1XIM]

The internet is not subject to the same types of local controls that the phone services are subject to. End of Story. And actually, if you didn't notice, cell phone usage can only be limited once the emergency has gotten to such large propotions that they won't be doing anybody much good anyhow--since they will be swamped with 911 calls.

Re:Well, I'm bummed

[op00to]

Move to the city if you want urban services. Stay in the country if you want to be isolated. That's the choice you make when you live in rural areas. Don't like it? Move to the city.

Re:Well, I'm bummed

[Bombcar]

You forgot the Guns 'n' Roses:

Move to the city!

In fact, with a little work your post could be another verse. :)

interference.

[junkymailbox]

I would have thought that the power lines themselves would generate much more interference than the data lines.

Re:interference.

[Sotogonesu]

If that were true, you couldn't plug in an AM/FM radio and have it work.

Re:interference.

[Anonymous Coward]

> I would have thought that the power lines themselves would generate much more interference than the data lines.

recall that:

E = -L (dI/dt)

dI/dT of 60 hz AC power .LT. dI/Dt multi Kbps data signal

QED

I would like something faster than dialup myself, but not at the cost of polluting EM spectrum that is expected to serve during both non-disaster times ( with everything from AM/FM radio, TV, police, fire, air traffic control, ham, military uses ...) and during disaster times ( FEMA, ARES, Emergency Broadcast Notification, in addition to previously mentioned services).

Slightly OT, how does one convince slash dot to accept a less than symbol when using plain old text? None of the usual (Unix) quoting conventions were able to preserve the less than symbol hence the use of the FORTRANish .LT.

Simple Solution to Interference with FEMA's radios

[gristlebud]

Pull the plug

I mean, seriously. If there's all kinds of natural/unnatural disasters happening, let the Feds disconnect access until the crisis is stabilized.

Some people may complain about freedom of the press or censorship, or some other fool thing, but when a crisis is unfolding I'm much more interested in getting information from the radio, shortwave, or scanner than I am about reading /.

FEMA is an unconstitutional entity

[sujan]

Lets leave it at that.

People in general should be aware of FEMA and how much power it has. It's not even funny.

If it (broadband thingy) interferes with their activity, then it must be really serious.

Re:FEMA is an unconstitutional entity

[IamGarageGuy 2]

Well... - any ideas on where to find more data on FEMA. I think I heard some nasty stuff years ago but I believe they fell out of the spolight, maybe intentionally.

Re:FEMA is an unconstitutional entity

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent wrote: "any ideas on where to find more data on FEMA".

Uh...
http://www.fema.gov/areyouready/
http://www.fema.gov/

Re:FEMA is an unconstitutional entity

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because it is all lunatic fringe stuff that isn't worth repeating. Garbage like 'in the event of a chemical or biological attack, FEMA has plans to take all of our children.' Yeah, like they want a bunch of kids to raise.

Re:FEMA is an unconstitutional entity

[towzzer]

Yes FEMA is a great danger as outlined when walton simons the leader of FEMA, tried to take over the world using biomodifed humans.

Re:FEMA is an unconstitutional entity

[IamGarageGuy 2]

Obvious Simpson quote: DOH!!

Re:FEMA is an unconstitutional entity

[TedCheshireAcad]

Broadband over power cables interferes with FEMA's mind control satellite.

You're now entering aluminum foil hat territory.

Re:FEMA is an unconstitutional entity

[monkeydo]

Didn't you watch the X-Files?

Re:FEMA is an unconstitutional entity

[Anonymous Coward]

Your appointment to FEMA should be finalised within the week. I've already discussed the matter with the Senator. --zzp, better start pressi^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H

Re:FEMA is an unconstitutional entity

[Anonymous Coward]

hahaha - if you worked at FEMA like I did for 6 months, you would realize how hilarious this particular conspiracy is. In fact, in general, my three years in the federal government has me laughing at every black clothed secret government agent I see in the movies.

Seriously, if you saw how much FEMA has to bend over backwards to governors and local officals, you'd realize how silly this is.

And a governmental department generally cannot be "unconstitutional". Congress may try to give it powers in an unconstitutional manner, or it might attempt to take an unconstitutional action, but an unconstitutional entity?

Re:FEMA is an unconstitutional entity

[shione]

Thank god we have Denton on our side.

Re:FEMA is an unconstitutional entity

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not going to raise them.
They're going to use them for food and as a supplementary power source.
Wake up!

Re:FEMA is an unconstitutional entity

[NDPTAL85]

Can I have some of your 500% Pure Genetically Enhanced Crack Cocaine?

WTF do you mean by "unconstitutional entity"??? An organization need not be in the US Constitution to be a legal and legitimate government organization.

Re:FEMA is an unconstitutional entity

[Anonymous Coward]

"BPL IS PEOPLE!!!"

Re:FEMA is an unconstitutional entity

[evbergen]

I'm sure you mean Giskard's? Brin describes that all very nicely.

of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Why use powerlines when you can use pigeons?

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but can I use IP on avian carriers to deliver power via IP?

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

*sigh* another +5 funny comment posted by me as AC, this funny-doesn't-give-karma thing just sucks.

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should we do this? Why can't those systems use the new powerline protocols to communicate?

I believe that power line data is the only way to provide service to the entire population of the US. You want to break that for a few short term programs?

I believe this is just a simple case of proping up the old ways of doing things at the cost of the future.

Re:Why?

[strictnein]

Why can't those systems use the new powerline protocols to communicate?

Are you serious?

They're radio signals, they can be broadcast to cover large areas with no physical connection between sender and receiver. Power lines on the other hand... must have a direct connection (and a lot more non-readily available hardware) to communicate.

Interference?

[ActionPlant]

I really am curious. I can see the logic behind opposing interference, but I was of the impression that broadband would be transmitted at a very different frequency. If they do the math right, the waves really shouldn't interfere with each other.

But I'm not as informed as I'd like to be. If they DON'T use powerlines (that's a lot of wasted money) what are our other options?

Damon,

Re:Interference?

[BagOBones]

Microwave
Here in Canada our population is spread out even more than than the US.
We also seem to have the most high-speed internet options.
There are Microwave based ISPs here that offer 2 way communication at 10Mbits /s making it faster than the ADSL and Cable options. These ISPs tend to service the outskirts of the cites. The service costs a little more than ADSL or Cable.

Re:Interference?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is called frequency harmonics. For example, if you are broadcasting at 10,000MHz, there will be harmonics at 5000MHz, 2500MHz, 1250MHz, and so forth (cutting the frequency in half each time).

The amount of energy on each harmonic is about half of the previous harmonic. From the previous example, if you have 50W at 10,000MHz, you probably have 25W at 5000MHz, 12.5W at 2500MHz, and 6.25W at 1250MHz.

What certainly doesn't help matters is that power lines are electromagnetically unshielded, essentially making them giant antannas(sp?) for broadcasting. Needless to say, this causes tremendous interference.

Re:Interference?

[caveman902]

The FEMA, CAP, Dept of Defense and the Hams all operate as the same wavelength as the BPL. That is why it is opposed. The http://www.arrl.org/ has a video on their web site showing a ham radio station and a BPL system that interfere with each other. When the government or hams key up their radios it will interfere with the BPL system. The frequency spectrum for BPL to be used is 2 to 80 MHz which is the same band used by police, fire, ships, the military and hams. There is another proposal to use 5 GHz for BPL and I think that if that is allowed there will be a lot less problems for everyone. For example BPL in California could interfere with the California Highway Patrol radio system.

Re:Interference?

[Carnildo]

BPL may be on a single, specific frequency, but power lines are a very inefficient method of transmitting high-frequency signals. The net result is that the broadband signal will end up spilling over much of the radio spectrum.

Re:Interference?

[Goody]

BPL may be on a single, specific frequency,

Actually it's not one frequency, it's wideband garbage. If it was one frequency, it could probably be a workable system, but the bandwidth would be meager...

Re:Interference?

[signalshifter]

Then there are the diodes formed from corroded connections. These will rectify the RF and transmit on what ever frequency it happens to resonate on. There would be thousands of these kind of connections on a power grid.

Re:Interference?

[ActionPlant]

Now there's a decent concept. Our TV is already microwave (isn't it?) so I'm sure some people would have something to say about that, especially considering Japan's push for digital broadcasts...they'll want to keep things nice and open for themselves. Still, it's a good concept.

The problem IS that bpl is so wide. Why the two (FEMA and the BPL folks) can't work together to narrow things down is beyond me. After all, they'll have to eventually, or we'll need a completely different technology.

Damon,

Re:Interference?

[trentblase]

Actually, it's not a "direct frequency". Rather, the signal uses a wide band of frequency. Hence the name "broadband".

Re:Interference?

[jmcharry]

You have it reversed. Harmonics are at integer multiples of the fundamental frequency. For a well designed system they should not be as intense as you indicate. I think the second harmonic for a transmitter is supposed to be down about 60dB.

Re:Interference?

[RadioD00d]

Umm... NO Harmonics are MULTIPLES of the base frequency, therefore if you're transmitting on 10,000 Mhz, you'll generate harmonics at 20K, 30K, 40K, etc... Please don't embarass yourself by talking about something you obviously don't understand

Re:Interference?

[op00to]

Most microwave radio links are highly directional. Move your antenna 10 feet to the right, and boom, interference gone.

Re:Interference?

[buck_wild]

The power company I work for is running fiber through gas lines, using a fiber jacket that is non-corrosive.

Granted, this will likely not help the guy out in the middle of nowhere anytime soon.

Re:Interference?

[bill_mcgonigle]

These ISPs tend to service the outskirts of the cites. The service costs a little more than ADSL or Cable.

Can anybody here put an name to the type of wireless equipment these guys use? I'm getting lots of noise on Google. I've seen many types of fixed wireless, but they've all cost way more than DSL/Cable.

Re:Interference?

[benja]

Now there's a good point! After all, almost every household in the western world has a microwave already, so that's also a great way to bridge the Digital Divide! Em, ...

;-)

FEMA

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone listened to Art Bell last evening.

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/

Re:FEMA

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a ham and have been very concerned about the reports of spectrum polution from Broadband over Powerlines

If I were you I'd be more concerned about the upcoming holiday season. Watch out you don't get baked and served with a delicious pineapple garnish

Still stuttering along in the UK...

[rklrkl]

In the UK, broadband-over-powerlines hasn't quite been abandoned yet - see the effort being trialled by Scottish Hydro-Electric. 30 quid a month for 1Mbit/s symmetric is a fairly competitive price compared to UK cable/ADSL prices, but one wonders if they have indeed solved all the interference issues.

BTW, despite the pages looking like it's a done deal, they've only trialled it in two towns to date and have no availability checker on their Web site, so I'm not expecting this to be rolled out to a wider UK audience for quite some time yet.

Oh, and the very obvious reason why this seeming dead duck is still being touted around is that rural UK users have neither cable nor ADSL. With satellite Internet being ludicrously expensive, this powerlines gubbins [if it works properly] might be the only way that those in the "country" can get broadband at a sensible price...

Re:Still stuttering along in the UK...

[pslam]

In the UK, broadband-over-powerlines hasn't quite been abandoned yet - see the effort being trialled by Scottish Hydro-Electric. 30 quid a month for 1Mbit/s symmetric is a fairly competitive price compared to UK cable/ADSL prices, but one wonders if they have indeed solved all the interference issues.

They are constantly in a trial. The broadband-over-powerline lobby are attemping a "proof by exhaustive irrelevance" much like the UWB lobby. It's a inherently flawed technology - no, wait that's far too polite for these idiots - it's an inherently incredibly stupid idea that a few people with lots of money and lots of influence are attempting to push through to consumers.

None of these trials have worked. Nearly every trial has ended abruptly because either they interfered with TV reception next door, or blocked something more essential like police radio. All have proved it won't work. The only reason this is still being proposed is because a few people have a lot of money invested in it. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence already accumulated to show that it's as flawed as the theory it works by.

The thing which irritates me most is that despite every trial showing that it will definitely interfere with other services, they will probably be allowed to roll out. Just like UWB. Probably they'll just keep having trials until we get bored and give in.

Re:Still stuttering along in the UK...

[cruachan]

If you're a business then in Scotland there's grants available of up to UKP1200 for satellite installation. I believe Wales has a similar scheme. No idea about rural England.

In my case I have a satellite connection installed with them help of an earlier version of this grant, which I then network around to neighbours. Latency is not good, but speed is excellent and we've much better bandwidth than in town (ADSL has a 30:1 contention ratio for home users if your lucky - my satellite has the same sized pipe shared between 3 or 4 of us).

What about fibre?

[Anonymous Coward]

I realize it is expensive but there are miles and miles of unused fibre, why not make use of it?

Re:What about fibre?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the ticket - We will move the *houses* to the fiber.

Stellar idea - it's much easier to move millions of houses than it is to upgrade a bit of copper wiring...

The Energy Monopoly

[mjt AG]

Its good that FEMA advises against BPL (especially in a technical explanation). If the energy companies get their hands in broadband service . . . uh oh, we may see one of the biggest monopolies in energy.

The day they take my powerline broadband

[jlowery]

will be the day they pull the power cable from my hot frying dead hands.

So?

[i_am_syco]

What's "FNARS" anyway? Sounds like underwater diving equipment.

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

It stands for Fnars Not Ars.

Re:So?

[cyril3]

Fuck Not Another Radio System. Probably a proprietary version of the Linux prog YARS (Yes Another Radio System)

Re:So?

[Handpaper]

FNARR, FNARR!

Am I the only ex-Viz-reader here?
Thought so.

It never fails

[Anonymous Coward]

There's always a wall in the way of progress. I'm fucking tired of it.

Re:It never fails

[Simple-Simmian]

BPL isn't progress.
It's a black pit for all the money that has been spent on it.
It's not been adopted in most to the places it's been tried as it's a crap way of doing any kind of networking.
Some technology is crap.
BPL is one of them.

FEMA IS ON TEH SPOKE!

[Anonymous Coward]

fnar fnar har har har
fear is a powerful weapon witness USA and it's sheeple

But this is FEMA

[cyril3]

the secret government of the USA. So what is the 'real' reason they oppose this. And what is the hidden link with the internation space-borne mind control laser system that even now seeks out independent thought and snuffs it out like

ohh look at the pretty daisys. mummy where are you, i cant see you any more.

mummy ... sniff

Depends...

[Svartalf]

Transmission conditions would be fine- but then you're talking about a transmitter with a lot of power compared to the BPL system. The transmitter might even jam the BPL system if it were working.

What they're worried about is reception. Over long distances, while the signals are detectable, they're really pretty weak comparatively speaking. The stuff that the BPL systems are generating are in the ballpark of the signal levels that might be detectable, so the signals from the BPL will be most likely the ones you detect.

So, you might be in a FEMA office, say like in Denton, Texas, where the power is on- but the emergency is in Corpus Christi or Brownsville. Power's out THERE because of a disaster- but the locally running BPL system's causing merry hob with your reception of the signal from that location.

Re:Depends...

[TWX]

And all that's in the short term anyway. They're having a harder and harder time getting people to get into HAM Radio. The last major influx was during the Vietnam War if I am remembering what I've heard correctly. If it's not even really feasible to enjoy the activity due to interference, there'll be less and less reason for people to become HAM radio operators, and eventually there'll be some major emergency with cell towers nonfunctional, powerlines down, phone lines down, and no one to coordinate things over the air.

Re:Depends...

[ChuckleBug]

reason for people to become HAM radio

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

HAM IS NOT AN ACRONYM! It's just "ham." Why do people insist on calling Amateur Radio HAM radio, and Macintosh computers MACs? Tighten it up, people!

I'm sorry. I tried to contain my peeve, but I kept seeing it over and over and I snapped. (/me sobs into a pillow)

Re:Depends...

[Our Man In Redmond]

Keep in mind also that hams routinely make contacts with less than 1 watt of power output. I don't know how much raidation a BPL system would throw out, but the Amateur's Antenna Rule is that the higher the antenna and the more wire you put into it, the better it is. A BPL system would be a fairly high antenna and possibly miles long. The ionosphere would propagate BPL noise as well as it would propagate any other ham radio signal of comparable power output and antenna characteristics.

It's quite usual, for instance, to have the net control for a hurricane network far away from the path of the hurricane. (In fact it's a pretty good idea for obvious reasons.) A ham in Corpus Christi in the middle of a hurricane might be able to get a signal just fine, assuming the atmospheric noise would let him and his antenna stays up, but net control in Florida might not be able to hear him -- or anyone else on the net -- due to the BPL interference.

The ARRL (national amateur radio organization) is very opposed to BPL, because it would most likely cause severe interference to radio hams. See the ARRL's BPL web page for the hams' version of the story.

Re:Depends...

[connorbd]

Indeed -- it's called QRP operation, and it happens as well to be really one of the last areas in amateur radio where building your own is practical. You can do some pretty amazing things operating a simple Pixie2 radio -- for starters, a working ham rig for $10 (add your own crystal and antenna) and low-power contacts all over the world.

Also at issue -- shortwave listening, which is still a good way to get news from around the world. Not everyone can afford a net connection fast enough to stream BBC World Service.

BPL is a train wreck waiting to happen -- for it to be practical we'd need to completely redesign the power grid to use shielded delivery cable. And it's failed pretty much anywhere it's been tested.

Re:Depends...

[fshalor]

Ham Radio Operators really fear the use of power lines for broadband. Tests in Europe have shown that this kills most of the communcations in the high frequency range currently employed in the Amateur Radio hobby.

I'll add that Hams have a vital role in most emergency situations. Not too long ago I got to listen to a traffic pass from a Ham in Mexico. He was providing the Hurricane Center with to the minute live information on storm conditions right up to the point where his roof came off.

Boradband over powerlines threatens to interfear with this sort of communication.

Thanks to FEMA for the reccomendation. I hope it playes towards keeping Ham Radio alive. (Umong other things.)

Re:Depends...

[deck]

The power levels of current BPL demonstration projects are so high in the local area that they over ride all but the most powerful signals. This has been confirmed by actual reception tests. Often all that can be heard are the 10 KW (thousand watt) shortwave stations; and they are noisy even then. The companies that are wanting to deploy BPL want even higher power levels than are currently allowed by FCC Part 15 regulations.

Another problem is that high frequency radio transmission as low as 100 watts can wipe out the BPL signals.

These two cannot survive together. Wideband digital transmissions have other mediums that they can use: optical fiber, coaxial cable, shielded twisted pairs, twisted pairs, microwave frequecies. There is only ONE high frequency radio environment.

BPL is just a non-starter.

"Someone skilled in the art"!

Re:Depends...

[Our Man In Redmond]

I agree with you about QRP -- I keep thinking I'm going to find time to get a QRP rig put together one of these days, although the block there is the antenna (the lower your power, the more efficient your antenna needs to be). I also want to try PSK31, which from what I understand is usable at QRP levels and below.

As for SWL, though, that's a tough one. Many countries have found that they just don't have the resources to broadcast to a United States which is in general indifferent to their international services' existence and have moved over to systems like Realaudio. That's not to say that this couldn't turn into a listening disaster in Europe, where shortwave is still very much in use, or in places like rural Africa or South America where stations could be made unlistenable by a BPL version of a DDoS attack.

The US needs to keep in mind that, even though we're big, we're not the only country out there, and there are some decisions we make that have repercussions in the rest of the world.

Re:Depends...

[Lumpy]

I don't know how much raidation a BPL system would throw out, but the Amateur's Antenna Rule is that the higher the antenna and the more wire you put into it, the better it is.

Not 100% true.

The best antenna is the one on top of a mountian with high gain and 3 inches of coax between it and the transmitter.

MOST of your signal is lost in the coax run from the transmitter to the antenna unless you use extremely expensive coax cable. I recently bought some for $12.00 a foot and it was a steal at that price! (heliax hardline 2" 52 ohm with Connectors.) to gain only 5 DB on transmit AND recieve that I was losing with flexible high end coax.

when you are dealing with signals that are a microvolt you certianly don't want some government approved interference being transmitted by the world's largest antenna array (electrical grid).

Plus ignore emergency communications... Moonbounce communications would become useless... Transmit at the moon with 1500 watts into a 20 DB gain antenna Array and only get a little signal barely audible above the noise floor back. or amateur radio astronomy? (yes it is easy with a throw away 20 foot dish in your back yard.)

If the power lines were shielded I wouldn;'t have a problem, but the FCC screams bloody murder at the Cable TV companies if they have even the slightest leak, why does everyone even think that this gigantic interference maker would ever see the light of day?

Re:Depends...

[Our Man In Redmond]

Yes, but why does the antenna on top of the mountain beat out the antenna on the valley floor? Because it's HIGHER.

As for high gain, well that's a matter of design, and a tradeoff. A rhombic (multiple wavelengths) will in general beat out a 3-element yagi (1/2 wavelength), and they might both get beat out by a Beverage (again, multiple wavelengths).

Coax is an important design factor, of course, but it's much less critical at HF than it is at VHF or UHF. RG-8/X has a loss of about 1 dB per 100 feet at 10 MHz (30 meter band), very acceptable even for QRP work. At 440 MHz the value approaches 8 dB/100 feet, meaning you are cutting your signal strength by almost 8x for every 100 feet of coax.

To answer your final question, why would this gigantic interference maker ever see the light of day? The simple answer, of course, is money. There is a small but persistent industry group trying to get this pushed through the FCC because they see money to be made in it, never mind how harmful the interference to other services is going to be.

Re:Depends...

[shaitand]

ok, if you have power, you don't need the hams for emergency communications. If you DON'T have power, then the BPL won't be interfering. What exactly is the problem here?

Expanding the greatest communications medium in existance that has benefitted all those with access (and this would make that virtually everyone) certainly takes precendence of non-emergency communications.

Most emergency communications which are actually essential (ie calling in the firemen as opposed to telling uncle bob in taiwan your ok or notifying the press of events) are of much shorter range as well which my ham friends have informed me don't require these spectrums anyway.

It's also not as if this would destroy ham radio, there is alot of frequency in hamland and those with licenses to use these frequencies are in the minority of hams (which are the vast minority compared to internet users).

This will of course be modded down, most slashdotters like to play with toy's technologies and hobbies (not that there is much which is NEW in radio, packet radio hardly competes with packet internet, and radio + internet integration is pretty old news) so there are alot of HAMs here.

I would be all for measures and suggestions to clean up BPL, but if comes down between one or the other BPL should certainly take priority over ham radio.

Re:Depends...

[netwiz]

But MACINTOSH _is_ an acronym!

Most
Applications
Crash
If
Not
The
Operati ng
System
Hangs

okay, it's not _really_ true, esp. w/ the advent of OS X, but it _is_ clever.

mods: i know, i know, off topic. do what you will...

Re:Depends...

[Shakrai]

To answer your final question, why would this gigantic interference maker ever see the light of day? The simple answer, of course, is money.

There was a much more paranoid explanation by Mr. Dvorak of PC Magazine about 10 months ago that I recall. His observation was that the technology has failed and the only reason it's still being pushed is for the big brother (think: very highly targeted advertising + possible Patriot Act/Govt usage) benefits of having TCP/IP to all the outlets in a household. I read this at a friends house in an old edition of PC Magazine months ago and it still sticks in my head every time I hear something about Powerline Networking.

Found the original article (thanks Google) in another comment in a different /. discussion from last month. Reposting it here for easy reference: (apologies if someone else already covered this)

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 Can

Re:Depends...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or if it could that FEMA want to shut down telecommunications they would be unable to do it while the power is running.

Re:Depends...

[fshalor]

1. If Hams can't use HF, (when there is power) then we wont spend the thousands of dollars some spend on HF radios, antennas, towers, tuners, cables, mics, and rotars which could be used in case of an emergency. Then there's bateries, powersupplies, etc.

2. If we can't use it, we also wont spend the time gaining the skills necessary to be an effecient communications operator. It's not as easy as you'd think to pass traffic in an emergency situation. Air time is one way of gaing familiarity with the way things operate. You get experience with adverse band conditions, etc.

I can pull whole conversations out of static becasue I've done it for years. I've seen a friend (fellow ham) copy CW (morse code) out of dirt with two other conversations going on at the same time.

Would you want Cops to only get to touch there guns the second before they have to use them in a life or death situation?

3. I believe the last shuttle mission was an all ham crew. Most russian causmanoughts are amateur radio operators. Most nasa astro's are as well. The ISS uses Ham radio all the time too. (Different bandwidths, though, so BPL isn't that much of an issue here, I'm just making a point.

4. Expanding the internet is important. But at what cost? There are other ways of doing this aside from BPL. It may be a cheap quick solution, but how much cheaper? And, following the dollars involved, who benefits?

5. You're arguing that Amateur Radio should take a back seat to broadband. I argue against it. You are right, that most SHORT RANGE communications such as calling a fireman do involve higher VHF and UHF frequencies. But the point is, you're talking 50 miles to 100 miles. BPL interferrs with communications across the state, country and world. You may still have Hams with rigs that work on the UHF VHF bands, but you probably would not have (as many) hams, few as we already are who work on HF and have the equipment for it to pass traffic out of the regions hit by something like a hurricane and into the state emergency operations centers.

Yes, small disasters wouldn't be effected, but this DOES have the possibility of severly effecting the readyness of ARES, and RACES Amateur radio operators in large scale disasters.

If I couldn't get on 20 meters and talk to people in Michigan, canada, et al any time I had the chance, I wouldn't have spent my hard earned money on the equipment needed to do it. And if 20 meters was as bad as 40 meters can get with all the international broadcase stations already using those frequencies, I wouldn't have invested in that equipment.

6. It's can't justfy destryoing the tradition of a worthwile hobby for the sake of saving a few dollars on your broadband bill each month. Call me a moron, but I just can't see the benefits.

Re:Depends...

[shaitand]

"6. It's can't justfy destryoing the tradition of a worthwile hobby for the sake of saving a few dollars on your broadband bill each month. Call me a moron, but I just can't see the benefits."

This isn't about saving a couple bucks on broadband. Hell I personally wouldn't benefit one iota from BPL, I already have a wireless link to a t1 that is only used during banking hours (except by me). For that link I only had to pay for the equiptment and that's paid for.

This is about reaching those who cannot get internet access. This is about emergency and critical communications which are carried on the web every second of every day as opposed to TRUELY being the only reasonable option once a decade. Fast access to porn and slashdot is great an all but if it were just that I'd agree with you. But we aren't talking about a recreational medium as opposed to an emergency one.

We are talking about medium used daily in emergency and news communications. Daily in financial transactions. Daily to spread technology, learning and science throughout the world (including news and updates in *gasp* ham radio, although from what I've seen on the web hams have under utilized it). The capabilities of the web certainly trump those of radio, there is more to do if you want to pit hobby versus hobby and web technology (on hundreds of fronts from web design to programming to IM, etc etc etc) certainly there is no denying that there is more to do and more people doing it on the web than ham radio.

As for training, most hams will come from the same places they do now. Largely military training, some commercial radio operators who tinker at home. Most hams could better realize their communication goals via the web with technologies like this. With BPL the average link speed of those who CAN get the web goes up as well.

"small disasters"

I'd argue pretty much all disasters. A hurricane is about the only thing that will knock out all power and communications which also REQUIRES immediate emergency contact AND has a potential of that contact actuallying bringing assistance in time. It would also have to be a hurricane in which radio operators couldn't relay to each other (something which would be greatly facilitated by getting rid of licensing requirements for non-HF radio) within that 100 mile radius to relay the call for help. And one which we didn't see coming beforehand and therefore the radio call isn't redudant (basically something that never happens nowdays). Further, the power and emergency requirement would actually have to come so fast that 2mins to IM or email emergency assistance couldn't happen before it knocked out all communications.

Let's not forget, the hurricane must occur where there is no military base to contact within 100miles as well (they don't and should not use BPL, they already have fast links, and constantly have HF equiptment which can be used to contact other military bases) something which isn't going to be the case in say florida with the large number of air force and naval bases located there... or georgia with the large army bases there. Or really anywhere along the east coast or texas for that matter.

Re:Depends...

[Anonymous Coward]

There will always be plenty of truckers and base stations with overpowered CB radio sets...

Get ahold of a cheap Radio Smack handheld CB radio, and drive across the midwest and listen to what comes in sometimes... "Yeah, I just got through Niwot. Cops galore." ...and you're in Illinois.

Re:Depends...

[fshalor]

If I had half a mind, I'd look up the other 10 ways of getting Broadband to people in the boonies who can't currently get it which doesn't involve using the power line system.

Most of the early critizism for BPL was the state of the line infrastructure itself. Little has improved with that either.

I. BPL is a kludge of a solution. II. The fact that FEMA has recomended against it should say all that needs to be said about it's potential effects on the US Emergency management plans. III. There are other ways NOW and there will be more ways in the near future as other technologies mature.

FNARS?

[Spudley]

Fnars?

Oh dear. Viz magazine has infected Slashdot! :-o

(uh... appologies if you didn't get the joke - it's only going to be understood by the Brits...)

Re:FNARS?

[Anonymous Cow herd]

Says you, Johnny Fartpants! :-P

Re:Simple Solution to Interference with FEMA's rad

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

I mean, seriously. If there's all kinds of natural/unnatural disasters happening, let the Feds disconnect access until the crisis is stabilized.

Not only would those damn firetrucks make so much noise I can't listen to my MP3's, now they would actually cut my access to /. too. Then I could just as well leave the damn burning building.

National Security card....

[utlemming]

Looks like FEMA played the National Security Card. With all the things that have been said about BPL, this, I think is one of the most impressive reasons not to have BPL. But it does raise the question, in the event of an emergency which would require the use of the those frequencies, would the lines even be up? Then again, I can see that if it interfers with the Civil Air Patrol, it would be reason enough.

Re:National Security card....

[Bruce Perens]

There are two ends to the radio communication. Generally, in a disaster communication, one end is outside of the disaster area. And that end is not going to hear the other if there is BPL around.

Bruce

Re:National Security card....

[SagSaw]

Well, one problem is that under many conditions the frequencies used by BPL can propigate over-the-horizon. That implies that BPL operations in one location could interfear with emergency communications (Red Cross/CAP/ARES/RACES operations in another area.

In the event of an emergency affecting a large area, BPL operations might be taken out as well, as you said. However, since the frequencies might be unusable most of the time, the various agencies and organization which use those frequencies would not be able to use those frequencies for training purposes (which would greatly effect their usefullnes under emergency conditions).

Re:National Security card....

[Jonathan]

The real question to ask is whether the heads of FEMA own stock in traditional broadband providers. Follow the money...

Re:National Security card....

[connorbd]

You realize not everything is based on conflicts of interest, right? There are legitimate technical reasons for opposing BPL. Making emergency communications satellite dependent is not a good idea. /KB1KKC

Lets hope someone takes a wise decision

[borjam]

HF radio is *the* communication medium for many life-critical situations. It is the only affordable communication line for many NGOs operating in third world countries, and HF equipment is much easier to setup and more rubust than satellite equipment.

Until now, the HF spectrum has been carefully regulated to avoid harmful interference. It is just not acceptable to sacrifice it simply to get a cheaper Internet access. There are a good set of broadband technologies available which almost do not interfere with HF users.

Let's hope politicians wait to notice it until a true emergency happens...

Re:Lets hope someone takes a wise decision

[El]

Wouldn't those places where HF is the only viable communication medium be the same places where THEY HAVE NO POWER LINES?!? On the other hand, if they allowed broadband over power lines, wouldn't they have a more reliable communication medium, i.e. Voice Over IP over Broadband over powerlines?

Re:Lets hope someone takes a wise decision

[mpost4]

The interfernce is at the reciving end, so lets say there is a problem in the 3rd world, but the reciver is in a place that has BPL, the place with the BPL will not get the weak signal, even though the transmiter does not have BPL.

Re:Lets hope someone takes a wise decision

[borjam]

Of course, HF happens to be useful to communicate over long distances. For example, the central premises of a NGO can be in NY city (which has plenty of power lines, although unreliable) and locations in Africa, Asia...

It is not just a matter of "well, if there is a disaster here there will be no power". How can you communicate with a disaster are abroad if the HF spectrum at your location is completely useless?

Re:Lets hope someone takes a wise decision

[Anonymous Coward]

Voice Over IP over Broadband over powerlines?

VoIP over BPL requires:
1) a power line which is operational

2) two appropriately configured powerline switches/modems/whatever-they're-called (one at each end) to multiplex network traffic onto the appropriate wavelength of the power line, and both of these must also be operational

3) an IP router at the power station to route the IP traffic onto the appropriate IP backbone, which also must be operational

4) an IP-ready phone, or an ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter) and a regular phone, both of which must also be operational

So you're already depending on four or five fairly complex electrical devices for your communications channel, and a lot of them are at remote stations not under your control. And this to you is a "a more reliable communication medium" than an HF transmitter, a single electrical device that just requires a big-ass battery, electromagnetic radiation that's already present in the air, and someone listening on the receiving end? You'll pardon me if I pass on your suggestion for an emergency communications system.

(For what it's worth, I use Vonage over my cable connection and I love it's flexibility and price, but even though my cable modem, router, switch, ATA and phone are all on battery back-up devices, I have no intention of ever depending on Vonage for an emergency service. For one thing, VoIP services still can't connect you directly to a real emergency dispatcher.)

Re:Lets hope someone takes a wise decision

[Simple-Simmian]

Last month I was in Clovis Califorina and I could her BPL on my Mobile HF set up in the early evening at 3975. The band was long. BPL propigates just like all RF signail in the HF bands. There is no BPL in Clovis/Fresno Ca. It was skip. It was 20 over S9. BPL is a threat to all HF communications. It should be banned world wide.

Re:Lets hope someone takes a wise decision

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Let's hope politicians [] wait to notice it until a true emergency happens...

I assume that there is a don't where I inserted the brackets?

Re:Lets hope someone takes a wise decision

[borjam]

Of course. It is late here, and my fingers betrayed me :-)

I mean, I hope politicians WILL NOT wait for some lives to be lost before taking the problem seriously.

Re:Lets hope someone takes a wise decision

[dciman]

Agreed, as a HAM radio operator I am very aware of the problems caused up BPL. It would basically kill any HF work, if it were to become widespread. Things are bad enough the way they are now.

It would really suck ass if the next time I was out hiking or in a remote area and some emergency happened, and I needed to get out on HF that no one would be able to pick it up because of BPL.

Re:Lets hope someone takes a wise decision

[Kris_J]

There are a good set of broadband technologies available which almost do not interfere with HF users.

Let's hope politicians wait to notice it until a true emergency happens...

This English as a Second Language post brought to you by the letters H, U, H and the symbol ?

Re:Lets hope someone takes a wise decision

[borjam]

You know, Bad English is the Official Language of Science :-)

FEMA

[frovingslosh]

I'm a ham and have been very concerned about the reports of spectrum polution from Broadband over Powerlines. But if FEMA doesn't like it, maybe it's not so bad after all.

HAM RADIOS INTERFERE WITH THA TV

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true. Get rid of them they interfere with me football and such.

Re:HAM RADIOS INTERFERE WITH THA TV

[N1XIM]

Then your TV isn't installed properly.

Re:HAM RADIOS INTERFERE WITH THA TV

[Simple-Simmian]

I bet it's not even certified or type accepted either. 99.9% of them are not.

Re:HAM RADIOS INTERFERE WITH THA TV

[Cybo2002]

Maybe you should: 1) Wrap some Ferrite Core around your TV connections. 2) Buy a better TV.

Re:HAM RADIOS INTERFERE WITH THA TV

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously don't live beside a guy with a huge ham radio tower in his yard. I have cable and it does interfere.

Come on!

[El]

I have a rural property that's too far from the switching office to get DSL, and they're not even thinking about running cable (but if they did, I'd have to pay ~$10,000 to run the cable from the property line to the house.) They're doing everything they can to discourage ISDN use (e.g. charging a $200 connection fee), and even POTS dial-up won't connect at better than 28.8. My viable choices for broadband are wireless or power line (I even have my own transformer). I wish they would hurry up and support one or the other. All the wireless broadband trials seemed to have concluded they couldn't make any money and have been discontinued. What are we supposed to do, all move to the city if we want decent internet access?

Re:Come on!

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Satellite.

Yeah, latency is lame, but the speed is good.

Alternately, find a friend who can get broadband and set up a WIFI link.

Re:Come on!

[terras]

There is always paying to get a full T1 to your residence. It won't be cheap by any measure, but you could turn around and resell WiFi to your neighbors.

Re:Come on!

[Anonymous Coward]

So we are suppose to sacrifice people in natural disasters so you can surf porn?
I bet you drive a big SUV everyday into work an hour away, polluting the enviroment as you go!!

YOU CHOOSE TO LIVE IN A RURAL AREA...

Re:Come on!

[Anonymous Coward]

moral of the story: if you want fast access, don't live in east bumblefuck

you make it sound like you're entitled to broadband

Re:Come on!

[Anonymous Coward]

What are we supposed to do, all move to the city if we want decent internet access?

No, decent internet access IS available to you:

satellite

ISDN

T1 or better

What's that? You don't want to pay that much? Oh. Well, it's available to you, just not cheaply. If you want CHEAP decent internet access, move to where it's CHEAP.

Re:Come on!

[Anonymous Coward]

What are we supposed to do, all move to the city if we want decent internet access?

Yes.

That's the whole thing about rural life, see: compared to urban life, there simply aren't as many services and conveniences. Of course, there isn't as much crime, pollution, or overcrowding, either.

Surely you considered these matters before choosing to live in a rural area.

Re:Come on!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont' get your hopes up. In order to be afforadable BPL has to target the exact same customer base that already has access to cable/DSL/wireless internet. Even then the cable/DSL people are already lower in price than what the BPL people can make a profit at. Furthermore, if the wireless providers couldn't make a profit, what makes you think the BPL people will be able to? Therefore, your changes of getting BPL are slim and none.

Re:Come on!

[Anonymous Coward]

or get off your arse and buy sattelite...

you CHOSE to live in the sticks, you CHOSE to be there knowing that broadband was not there or available to you.

Pay for it, wait or move.

I am sick of people moving out in the country and then bitching about no broadband, no cable TV, roads that aren't plowed every 10 minutes, etc....

you knew what you were doing when you moved there... so shut the hell up.

Re:Come on!

[Anonymous Coward]

PLB doesn't work well on cable runs of over 1KM and doesn't work across any switching source inserted into the line.

The PLB signal is inserted at the step down point from the high voltage long distance distribution system to the "low" voltage consumer distribution system. The insert is normally done by running fibre the local step down transformer then muxing it onto the electricity line using a special switch.

You wouldn't be able to get PLB anyway if you have your own transformer.

Re:Come on!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, move to the city. In fact, anyone who wants broadband should. If enough people did this, it would drive up the cost of living in the cities to the point that the whiners that cried "Move to the city" could not afford to live as well. This might require them to move some place cheaper, like a rural area w/o broadband. Revenge is sweet.

Re:Come on!

[Darth Yoshi]

Alternately, find a friend who can get broadband and set up a WIFI link.

Or, alternatively, just have them install the cable connection at the bottom of your driveway and setup a WiFi link to your house (though you probably need to power it with solarcells and a battery).

Or, have them install the cable connection at the bottom of your driveway and run ethernet or fiber along the driveway to your house. You can probably get a contractor bury a ethernet or fiber digital cable for a lot less than $10000 (though more than setting up a WiFi link).

Good call. How about optical instead?

[bigberk]

The RF spectrum is already heavily polluted, it would be nice to keep data transmissions off powerlines (each powerline acts as a huge antenna).

Seems to me that you can still use the powerline infrastructure a bit for providing Internet connectivity. Why not run your fiberoptics alongside the power t-lines?

Up here (Canadian north) there are some power utilities that are installing optical data lines on top of power lines anyway for the purpose of remote sensing & monitoring. Maybe a power utility could install extra fiberoptics while they're at it, use a small percent of the bandwidth for monitoring and sell the rest of the bandwidth to telecom for providing internet service?

Re:Good call. How about optical instead?

[IamGarageGuy 2]

Well, this has got to be one of the easiest to implement ideas. Don't know why it hasn't been thought of before. The towers are already there. Use optical lines so there is no problem with interference. String a line along an existing tower, that is surely going to a place that uses power and would gladly use any excess bandwith which in turn could recover the costs of setting up the monitoring equipment.

Re:Good call. How about optical instead?

[ediron2]

I sat thru a presentation on this by the local power company a couple years ago in the DotCom heydey. 'Why not add a fiber-optic cable' got complicated fast:

1 - vendors come in, offer to pay for the infrastructure in return for exclusive rights to it. If you refuse, they ignore your town indefinitely (AT+T did this here when they owned the local cable company). Anyone approaching these vendors about subleasing access gets quoted insane prices ($20k per month to use an existing cellphone tower for an 802.11b antenna, in one case I know of).

2 - There are restrictions on putting cables onto poles. These range from weight and rain/wind/snow load design issues to vertical/horizontal clearance restrictions. Imagine being responsible to safely/quickly work on one of 25 cables (including data, fiber, and *power!*) on a single power pole and you start to see a worst case scenario.

3 - Each new cable needs full engineering, documentation, and 24x7 support staff.

4 - Buried lines are not cost-effective to piggy-back, so areas without poles are inaccessible.

5 - These aren't communications/IT gurus that are being asked to make these infrastructure decisions. They're politicians, planning and zoning staff, and a few Electrical Engineers (Power, not computer/communications). The learning curve to doing a good infrastructure with a 25-year expected life is nasty enough without this handicap.

6 - The existing owners hate complications. Power company doesn't want the liability/hassle, or phone company doesn't want the competition.

7 - The cost of cabling, repeaters, etc: let's say roughly 100 lattice lines per square mile x the area of your city. I dunno where to even look it up but I'll estimate cable cost installed at a buck per foot. And I'll throw in ten grand per square mile to handle the electronics. That's some serious cash, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn costs were much higher.

So, it isn't that the ideas aren't out there. There are even some *more* clever devices (little fiber-retrofit robots 'stapling' the fiber to the top of sewer pipe). But it's not cheap, it's not easy, and once those two concepts (hard and expensive) join forces, it becomes risky politically. Much riskier than doing nothing.

Of course, a lot of communities just nodded gratefully when presented with option one (where the town agrees to perpetual rape-n-pillage unregulated monopolies by a single vendor). Ow! Thank god for the multiple-headed threats of: powerline broadband, dsl, cable modems, wifi, cellphone wireless, and beyond, because that keeps just enough competition in my area to hopefully nudge cost-per-gig down. Hell, I left the above meeting intensely angry about the learning of the city's agreement to one such infrastructure monopoly, since there are hundreds of local IT geeks that would have volunteered to design things to eliminate/minimize a monopoly like this.

Disclaimer: These are all 2-year-old impressions of things a bit outside my area of specific experience. Actual details may vary widely, no warranty given. But the above was enough of an eye-opener for me to give me a greater respect and fear of the last mile problem.

Restrict the frequencies or use notches

[G4from128k]

It seems that FEMA only uses a limited set of frequencies. Why not install notch filters at select access points and design the broadband to only use the remaining bandwidth (either in frequency space or via notch-resistant error correction protocols in the physical layer). The same could be done for ham radio users -- bandpass filtering outside the traditional X-meter bands used by SW radio operators.

Broadband use of powerlines does not have to create a broadband noise source.

Re:Restrict the frequencies or use notches

[alienw]

You are misunderstanding how interference works. Signal doesn't have to be on the exact frequency to interfere. There are always various harmonics, sidebands, and so on that get in the way. Furthermore, there's quite a bit of spill-over. You generally cannot filter this very well with filters because filters are good only up to a point. Any signal that leaks through the filter will cause enough interference to be a problem, and that's not even taking into effect all the harmonics and crap.

Re:Restrict the frequencies or use notches

[Simple-Simmian]

Are you going to pay to replace my Radios? At 1000 bucks a wack minimum. I have 5 of them.

Re:Restrict the frequencies or use notches

[G4from128k]

You are misunderstanding how interference works. Signal doesn't have to be on the exact frequency to interfere. There are always various harmonics, sidebands, and so on that get in the way. Furthermore, there's quite a bit of spill-over. You generally cannot filter this very well with filters because filters are good only up to a point. Any signal that leaks through the filter will cause enough interference to be a problem, and that's not even taking into effect all the harmonics and crap.

Very true, it is not easy, especially when you have a sensitive radio receiver trying to pull in a nV/m signal from miles away while sitting next to a powerline carrying a multivolt broadband interference source. A simple single-stage notch filter won't cut it ;) .

But I do wonder if software radio technologies can provide sufficient control over the broadband signal to supress interference to FEMA-acceptable levels. For example, I suspect that one could kill the spillover of harmonics by creating an antisignal at the harmonic frequency (a sort of frequency-shifted noise cancelation concept).

Alas, all of these solutions do add cost and may not address FEMA's fears if faulty equipment leaks RF into the wrong bands.

This doesn't make sense

[El]

FEMA: "Broadband over power lines will interfere with radio... let's force everybody rural areas to use the only remaining alternative, wireless broadband, instead!" Anybody else see the flaw in this logic?

Re:This doesn't make sense

[LWATCDR]

No not really but then I know something about radio.
wireless broadband uses 2.4 or 5 Ghz. That is up in the microwave range. It will not interfere with the HF stuff the FEMA cares about.

Re:This doesn't make sense

[El]

Ok, let's rephrase that then: wouldn't it make more sense to simply require broadband over powerline to not emit any significant energy in the HF spectrum?

Re:This doesn't make sense

[Carnildo]

So when your farmhouse gets hit by a tornado, you don't mind that there will be no way of contacting the outside world? That the ham radio operator trying to raise the emergency coordination center is having his signal squashed by the BPL system?

Re:This doesn't make sense

[W2IRT]

Ok, let's rephrase that then: wouldn't it make more sense to simply require broadband over powerline to not emit any significant energy in the HF spectrum?

And while we're at it, let's require that the laws of physics be re-written by Congress! You just don't understand what we're talking about. Power lines are great for low-frequency AC (60 Hz power), but inefficient for higher-frequency signals.

The proposed Broadband over Power Lines service would be a shared user of frequencies between 2 MHz and 80 MHz. Again, these frequencies wouldn't propagate as well over power lines, so they would be sent at high power levels. Much of their energy would be lost in the transmission from the upstream connector to your home -- i.e. radiated out the miles-long antenna formed by the power line! Simply put, you CANNOT have non-interfering BPL if it uses the 2-80 MHz spectrum. Period.

FEMA and other governmental users' radios are scattered between typically 2 and 50 MHz in different sub-bands that are used depending on the time of day, how active the ionosphere is and the overall path of intended communications. Ditto for fixed services, land-mobile, aeronautical and marine services, beacons, short wave broadcasters and amateurs.

The problem is two fold:
1) anybody trying to receive a signal between about 2 and 80 MHz would be unable to do so.
2) Legally-licensed transmitters in that range would cause untold interferance to these "Part 15" devices. Part 15 means they can't legally cause interferance and must live with any interferance they get. Aunt Millie's not going to be happy when her cordless phone is rendered useless by broadband and Uncle Phil will be pissed when he can't surf porn because the clean and licensed 1000 Watt transmitter up the block is on the air.

This has to be killed and killed NOW.

Re:This doesn't make sense

[toto]

Yes, let's rewrite the laws of physics. That will make things ever so much easier.

Re:This doesn't make sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure if you wanted to rewrite the laws of physics.

Actually something along these lines is happening in the EU (European Union). They are in the process of drafting legally mandated guidelines covering the amount of interference power line broadband systems will be allowed to generate before being legally required to shutdown.
Interestingly the PLB lobby has so far refused to work with the commission in setting the guidelines and has refused to supply the commission with any data on interference generated by current systems. The PLB lobby has actually gone on record to the commission as saying such guidelines are unneeded and that PLB doesn't generate any interference.

Re:This doesn't make sense

[dsanfte]

Aunt Millie's not going to be happy when her cordless phone is rendered useless by broadband

Cordless phones operate at 800Mhz, or 2.4Ghz. Not in the 2Mhz - 80Mhz range.

Re:This doesn't make sense

[green1]

>Cordless phones operate at 800Mhz, or 2.4Ghz. Not in the 2Mhz - 80Mhz range.

not quite... older cordless phones work in the 49Mhz range, newer ones are either 900Mhz or 2.4Ghz... there are a LOT of those "older" phones still in service.

Re:This doesn't make sense

[W2IRT]

And not just cordless phones either. Baby monitors and other non-licensed equipment at 49 MHz will be toast. Certainly HF radio will get clobbered by BPL, but VHF-Lo will become unusable, as you'll see below.

BPL is touted as the saviour for rural residents away from cable and DSL service, right? Hope you enjoy your nice fast broadband when your house is on fire and your kids are trapped upstairs, because guess what, bunky? *MOST RURAL FIRE DEPARTMENT RADIOS ARE VHF-Lo Band* -- between 30 and 50 MHz -- since that band has much better range than VHF-Hi, UHF and 800+ over flat country. Ditto for the volunteer rescue squad and sheriff's office in Podunk County...better start IMing them for help and directions when the burglars drop by for tea, since their squad-car radios won't pick up a blasted thing as they travel on the county roads underneath all those Porn-Packed Power Lines!

Maybe you can forget about all this nonsense and just watch a little TV? Oh, I almost forgot. If you've got an outside antenna to receive local broadcast television, you can almost write off channels 2 - 6, which operate between 54 and 88 MHz, unless you're almost right under the transmitter. Don't worry about watching the weather warnings on Channel 3 a few towns away, your weather radio will warn you of the twister heading for community -- unless a nice second harmonic is creating a strong enough local signal in your house to blot out the 162 MHz band (81 x 2 = 162 MHz, where weather radios operate). Mightn't radiate very far, but it could pack just enough of a wallop to cause your WX radio to fail as that F5 bears down on you knobby little body.

And better get some more homeowners' insurance if you live near a major airport cuz one of the ILS approach nav-aid beacons ("fan marker") sits smack-dab at 75 MHz. Not to mention the possibility of radio-controlled model airplanes losing contact with their control box and going awry when junior is flying them in the park near home -- they're also around 72 and 75 MHz.

This is NOT your average FUD. This is very real, and I've heard/seen what this can do in Briarcliff Manor, a small test market north of New York City. Please wander over to http://www.ac6rm.net/mailarchive/html/elecraft-lis t/2003-08/msg00562.html to get an idea of what this is all about.

Re:This doesn't make sense

[LWATCDR]

Sure and it might even be possible if you shielded the powerlines but that would cost as much or more than running fiber on the poles.

Frankly any town that has a brain will should be putting in fiber when ever they run water, sewer, gass, or power lines.

It's a conspiracy...

[Goldfinger7400]

We all know the real reason that FEMA is opposing powerline broadband is because it will make it harder for UNATCO to sieze control of the global information network once Helios becomes operational.

Re:It's a conspiracy...

[Dimensio]

Quiet you, unless you want a visit from Walton Simons.

Perhaps someone can explain to me

[Anonymous Coward]

...why doesn't putting a signal over a power line act like a big antenna? Are powerlines normally shielded? It would seem like the interference transmitted to radio/tv/wireless equipment would be overwhelming, not merely annoying, and it would seem that interference *from* outside sources would also affect the network link. In addition, is the signal affected by step-down transformers, or do they bypass it somehow?

Re:Perhaps someone can explain to me

[pla]

why doesn't putting a signal over a power line act like a big antenna?

It does. Thus we have a ubiquitous 60hz hum that every interference-sensitive hunk o' wires within 20 miles of a power line needs to waste time/space/energy to filtering that frequency out. An if the hunk 'o wires in question actually has the express purpose of looking in the 60hz range, good luck - It might take less effort to fly to Siberia than to filter out line noise yet allow a desired near-60hz target signal to pass.

(For those in the UK, change "60" to "50")

When...

[criordan]

When broadband over powerlines is outlawed, only outlaws will have broadband over powerlines.

Re:When...

[joggle]

When dating chimpanzees is outlawed, only outlaws will date chimpanzees. What's your point?

some "solution"

[The Lynxpro]

Aside from the service issues in rural communities and the express desire for more competition in the broadband market, why would anyone want broadband via power lines? Its not like we have reliable power in the United States when you factor in all the surges and spikes our household electrical equipment experience on a daily basis. Do the powerline "modems"/adapters have built in surge suppression? Are they made of metal? Because if not, if a major surge goes through your house, the adapter would melt the plastic and set fire to your house. After all, that is how Reggie Jackson lost his classic car collection. And if power lines lose 33% of the electricity that is transmitted, what does that translate to in terms of data loss? Perhaps if the power companies wish to increase their profits, they'd invest in better cabling so more efficient power transmission would occur.

Re:some "solution"

[Eyes666]

I believe Reggie Jackson lost his classic car collection in the 1991 Oakland Hills Fire. There are now 6 or 7 houses where his garage/house used to be.

Re:some "solution"

[The Lynxpro]

"I believe Reggie Jackson lost his classic car collection in the 1991 Oakland Hills Fire. There are now 6 or 7 houses where his garage/house used to be."

That's not what I heard. I heard it was a plastic surge suppressor catching fire that caused Reggie Jackson's garage to burn down. I have a friend whose father works on product liability issues and apparently it is widely known in that segment of the legal field that plastic surge suppressors are a really bad thing and cause lots of houses to burn. But of course when a company can make something like that for $1 and have it sold at retail for $40, do you really think they are going to go out of their way to educate the consumer?

it's all about the wavelength

[solarcardork]

Considering (US numbers) it takes about 776 miles of power line to make an efficient 1/4 wave 60Hz antenna and just 2.5 feet for 100MHz, it is fairly clear that adding high frequency content to the power lines can easily cause significant radiation.

FNARS = FEMA NAtional Radio System

[Jim McCoy]

Google is your friend...

FEMA FNARS a what now?

[dswensen]

Now I have acronym headache.

Re:FEMA FNARS a what now?

[Mantorp]

FEMA SOOL, ISP's BPL TKOs FNAR.

FEMA Opposes it or Someone Telling FEMA to Oppose

[Bruha]

IMO the telco's and cable providers are probably more worried about this than anyone and they've probably filled FEMA up with all kinds of bull about what it might do to fema's spectrum.

Of course the FCC should test anything and give it a license which means it cant interfere with anyone elses equipment and FEMA's equipment is supposed to accept any interference. Either way this story is moot and FEMA needs to get their own experts that are not paid by the opposition to formulate their own studies and opinions on the matter.

Re:Simple Solution to Interference with FEMA's rad

[mpost4]

How do the people in one location know when to pull the plug? Also you have the local people mad when they loss their net access because of an emergncy, that they belive has no effect on them.

I could think about what people in a city in the US might say if they had their net access cut so that FEMA can take a call comming in from South America, the best solution is not to have people use something that would have to be pulled so that some one can recive a SOS.

Re:Simple Solution to Interference with FEMA's rad

[Carnildo]

The range of a ham radio broadcast is the entire world, and during an emergency, might be used for communications over ranges of a hundred miles or more. Are you advocating turning off broadband in several states every time there's an emergency?

When was the emergency brodcast last used ?

[rhino_badlands]

Ok i live in upstate NY and two of the most recent events that would be needed for the emergency brodcast system (9/11, and the Black out this past summer) didn't use it !

Not once was it used durring either event ! so basicaly they should have no say, its an outdated system that is never used anymore.

Furthermore if there is such an emergency they could trip the broadband so it turns off so it won't disrupt their signal ...

In anycase horid decision making done by idiotitic buerocrats, to even make a statement like they are.

If this was a valid argument the FCC would be involved.

Re:When was the emergency brodcast last used ?

[tx_kanuck]

How do you know it wasn't used? IIRC, it was used in 9/11 as a means of communication for people. HAM during emergencies is not designed for everyone to use to make a phone call. Instead, it is used for emergency personell to communicate where they normally wouldn't be able to. For example, if the phones are out between HQ and a staging area, then HAM would step in and provide communications between the two. Plus, if you consider the amount of radio traffic that would have been going on at a single point in time, if there was need for an emergency communication, HAM could be used instead of waiting for the average cop to get off the radio. Basically, bandwidth is added when necessary.

There are also many HAMs in Texas, and all over tornado alley, that are used for weather spotting. These guys are driving where there are no cell phone towers (or the towers have been damaged), and need to communicate back to the weather center. This is a system that is used every year by many people, and many lives are saved b/c of the work they do.

Re. your comment about turning off the broadband.... When do you think they will practice their skills? The radio operators have to practice calmly so that where there is an emergency, they can still operate. There are a lot of shorthand codes that they have to know so that they can give lots of information in a short amount of time. If they can't practice, how will they know what frequency to use? Who is going to be in charge? How do they organize themselves?

Basically, you're full of shit, and shouldn't talk. Just b/c there is stuff going on behind the scenes that you don't know about doesnt' mean that you can spout off. Do your research first.

Re:When was the emergency brodcast last used ?

[Goody]

Ok i live in upstate NY and two of the most recent events that would be needed for the emergency brodcast system (9/11, and the Black out this past summer) didn't use it ! Not once was it used durring either event ! so basicaly they should have no say, its an outdated system that is never used anymore. Furthermore if there is such an emergency they could trip the broadband so it turns off so it won't disrupt their signal ... In anycase horid decision making done by idiotitic buerocrats, to even make a statement like they are. If this was a valid argument the FCC would be involved.

How do you get a couple hundred independent utilities to shut off their BPL systems in an emergency ? Is residential Internet really so important as we need to wreck infrastructure independent radio communications ? And what about being about to train to use the radio equipment during non-emergency times ?

The EAS doesn't even use HF frequencies and it was established by the FCC. It's a silly statement to dismiss FEMA because you haven't heard EAS broadcasts. And then you say the FCC would be involved ?? They released a friggin Notice of Inquiry months ago. Also, the NTIA which trumps the FCC in spectrum regulatory matters has taken notice and now they're doing a study.

Re:When was the emergency brodcast last used ?

[Y-Crate]

This honestly surprises me.

On 9/11, the Emergency Alert System as it is now called should have been used to communicate instructions to those in the attacked areas. It could even been argued that a National Security Warning should have been issued to alert those in critical areas nationwide. During the blackout, a Civil Emergency warning should have been sent out as soon as information about what it was and was not became availible. Instead, people huddled understandably afraid in the dark wondering what was coming next and what could be happening around them.

Re:When was the emergency brodcast last used ?

[Anonymous Coward]

There was indeed a major HAM effort during the WTC crisis. I have no idea where the original poster got the idea there wan't anything happening.

Among other things, hams rode shotgun with Red Cross trucks, setup base stations at medical facilities, emergency staging areas, and relief centers.

911 certainly ranks as one of the biggest ham mobiliations in US history, if not THE biggest.

Aside from that, emergency networks are used all the time during severe weather and natural disasters. In the event of another terrorist attack, you can be sure hams will be involved in the relief efforts.

I was offered this

[deadline]

Recently my neighborhood was offered this service (PPL) I had just signed up for a cable modem as we are too far out for DSL. I am not sure if anyone bought it though. I found it odd that they were charging for this since it was a "trial" and people were pretty sceptical.

Of couse this is Pennsylvania, where we are all supposed to have already.

BPL FAQ

[Goody]

Here or if that gets Slashdotted, here

Re:FEMA Opposes it or Someone Telling FEMA to Oppo

[tx_kanuck]

I remember an earlier posting on /. about this. IIRC, ARRL had done some tests where BPL was being used. Using their radio equipment, they were able to prove the huge amounts of interference being generated.
BPL is not a good idea. HAM has been used for years to save lives, and we should not phase it out just to give high-speed internet to rural areas. IMHO, lives > internet access, but maybe that's just me.

That's fine

[Anonymous Coward]

Then I say no power distribution over wireless networks! Hmpf! Take THAT!

How is this interesting?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do completely false, completely benign comments like this get modded up? This person contributed nothing to the discussion...

Oh well, this is Slashdot...

Re:How is this interesting?

[HMA2000]

This person contributed nothing to the discussion.. Didn't I? 20+ comments say different.

No.

[Valdrax]

The best counter-argument to that is that there would be no ham radio operators if they couldn't use their equipment except for when the power's out. I mean, would you invest large amounts of time and money into getting equipment and certification for a hobby that you couldn't ever practice? Guess what -- no one else would either.

HF frequency usage

[borjam]

If you have a look at the different service allocations in HF you will see something curious: instead of dividing the HF spectrum into four or five chunks (air band, maritime, fixed service, beacons and fixed service), each of the different services has smaller chunks scattered all over the spectrum.

There is a reason for this: to succesfully communicate with another location, you must choose the frequency taking into account the time of the day (solar radiation changes the ionosphere's conditions), solar activity (changes in more or less 11-year cycles) and the direction to which you will transmit.

This is why the *whole* HF spectrum must be kept free of harmful interference. If, for example, you allowed the usage of the 3-12 MHz spectrum for BPL usage, HF bands would be useless at night.

Re:FEMA is a dangerous terrorist organization

[YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT]

From summary: FEMA [emergency] radio systems such as FNARS.

Actually, considering the amount of FUD that flies around about FEMA ( see parent ), I'm surprised some joker over there didn't rename the radio system FNORD.

YLFnordI

Re:Heard this on Art Bell last night.

[naoiseo]

always question FEMA's motivation for everything. just don't mention that you are.

oops.

Re:FEMA Opposes it or Someone Telling FEMA to Oppo

[Sleeper]

I don't think so. IMHO, in case BPL would get accepted they'd just step aside and watch this thing to die and then they would take over the BPL customers.

Iterference would be a huge problem fo HAM operators and everybody who use HF/VHF. But the thing is interference goes both ways. So I think if deployed in wide area BPL would just really really suck. You power line infrastructure was just not built to be protected from interference. Any kind of it. Even people with DSL have problem with intereference. And that's CAT3 UTP (in most places).

So for telco and cable providers BPL will just awake an apetite of more people for broadband. If you ever had broadband (however bad it was) going back to dial-up is just painfull. Most of my firends who installed and had problems with DSL just switched to cable. I don't even remember anyone of them fireing up their dial-up modem ever again.

As far as I remember for a long time ARRL was the only voice oposing to BPL.

The BPL people are liars.

[Anonymous Coward]

They NEVER mention to potential customers that BPL could cause and/or receive interference.

Heck, the power companies own power lines could cause interference to BPL communications. 21st century communications on 70+ year old technology is just asking for trouble.

Re:FEMA Opposes it or Someone Telling FEMA to Oppo

[Goody]

IMO the telco's and cable providers are probably more worried about this than anyone and they've probably filled FEMA up with all kinds of bull about what it might do to fema's spectrum.

And previously everyone was saying that the telcos paid off 700,000 Radio Amateurs, too. :-) The interference potential has been modeled, and field measurements have shown its existence. It's not bull, it's for real.

Of course the FCC should test anything and give it a license which means it cant interfere with anyone elses equipment and FEMA's equipment is supposed to accept any interference. Either way this story is moot and FEMA needs to get their own experts that are not paid by the opposition to formulate their own studies and opinions on the matter.

You have it a bit backwards. FEMA's frequencies are used for public safety and should be free from interference, not the other way around. ( Or is there a typo in your comments ?)

And FEMA does have a fellow agency that is investigating the interference, the NTIA.

Alternative Idea?

[notcreative]

What are we supposed to do, all move to the city if we want decent internet access?

The economics of rural service are very interesting. Right now everyone with a phone in the USA is paying to subsidize phone access to rural residents. It costs more money to service an area with a low populations density than an urban area. Fine, people need phones for safety reasons. Rural residents presumably subsidize services they don't need, like meth clinics.

It bothers me when people start talking about subsidizing rural internet access, though. El says that "they're not even thinking about running cable" near his house, and that he'd have to shell out 10K$ to connect to said cable, anyway. I'm curious: who does he think should bear these costs? Everyone in the US?

If people want to move to the middle of nowhere to get away from gangs, traffic, comedians, literacy, and culture, that's fine. It isn't reasonable to expect the same service level in the middle of nowhere that one enjoys in New York City, though. It's especially unreasonable to regard the acquisition of these services as a right. If you want to enjoy cheap services, then move to where it is cheap to provide those services. If you want to live in an area that is difficult and expensive to service, break out your wallet.

El isn't necessarily making this argument, he just reminded me of the people I had to deal with when I worked in the rural NW.

Re:Alternative Idea?

[Kris_J]

who does he think should bear these costs? Everyone in the US?

Uh, Yeah! If the whole of America was one big city where do you think your food would come from? There are single farms in Australia that are larger than most European countries, but because they're run by a family of five they suffer from one-person, one-vote. Now, I'm a city-slicker and always have been, but I don't mind in the least bit if part of what I pay for infrastructure is used to subsidise the rural areas. I think $10,000 bills just to have a couple of wires run a few kms to your house are a little unreasonable.

Re:Alternative Idea?

[El]

No, I don't think ANYBODY should subsidize the $10,000 run cable to my old residence (incidentally, that's just for digging a trench a quarter mile, then filling it back in again after the cable is laid.) The point is, it doesn't make economic sense to run cable when a $500 wireless box on the side of my house (I've got line of sight to dozens of cellular towers) or an even cheaper power line modem would do just fine -- except for the fact that noone is willing to provide me with these services.

Re:Alternative Idea?

[Azghoul]

I just want to know where you live where you can see dozens (meaning at least 24) cell towers...

Of course, I'm a Yankee. We have trees. :)

Re:Alternative Idea?

[bill_mcgonigle]

I just want to know where you live where you can see dozens (meaning at least 24) cell towers...

If he has his own transformer and a 10K install charge for cable, I'm guessing he lives up a long road/driveway and has a kickass view.

On the next hill over from me there's a house that can see about a 60 mile arc and at least 2 mountain ranges. I bet he can see lots of cell towers. :)

Re:Alternative Idea?

[bill_mcgonigle]

If you want to enjoy cheap services, then move to where it is cheap to provide those services. If you want to live in an area that is difficult and expensive to service, break out your wallet.

Kris_J sort of pointed this out, but it should be reiterated that people don't all live in rural areas to play out Walden.

Everybody depends on rural-living citizens to provide food and other agricultural products we all need to live. I wouldn't want a farmer's job - it's damn hard work, you get no sleep, can't take any vacations, and make very little money, if you're not losing the farm, literally.

What's more, these people have to drive hours to get to decent shopping, so internet-shopping is more appropriate to them than any New Yorker.

Farmers' kids aren't becoming farmers. That trend can't go on long before we have a really serious issue to deal with.

I don't have a problem supporting running electricity to their farm or getting a DSLAM into their fiber optic termination box so they can get a DSL line. I need them, and maybe someday they'll even need me.

Re:Alternative Idea?

[Anonymous Coward]

Farmers' kids aren't becoming farmers. That trend can't go on long before we have a really serious issue to deal with.

Giving DSL to farmers' kids will increase this problem. If they can get on the inernet and see what life is, outside of the farm, wouldn't that make them want to leave the farm? See, if you keep them ignorant , they'll think the farm life is the only life.

Hey, it works for all those backwater arabic kingdoms!

TG

Re:Alternative Idea?

[CharlieG]

Actually, the treand of Farmers Kinds not becoming farmers has been going on in the US for, oh 225+ years now

So, who's going to grow the food? Less people. You always hear about the small farmer going broke - the Ag giants will do it. And guess what, when they want internet access, they'll pay the 10k/month - yeah, our prices for might go up. Right now, farmers earn squat, Grocery Stores earn squat, and the middle is getting rich. If enough people stop farming, the producers prices will go up, and eventually, it'll balance. It really comes down to this - we produce more food than we need

Re:Alternative Idea?

[El]

We have trees in Oregon, too... it's a 14 acre parcel way up on the side of a hill. Fortunately, all the trees that can block my view are located on my property. They took $50,000 in timber off it just before I bought it, but that was a selective cut that left most of the trees. The sad thing is, there are 50 year old stumps on the property that run in the 4-5 diameter range. I'm probably exagerating about the number of cell towers, but wireless reception is definately not a problem, and it is line of site to towers in Forest Grove, Hillsboro, Beaverton, event Portland West Hills.

Re:Alternative Idea?

[Azghoul]

Fair enough, your description of your property leaves me (in my townhouse on my expansive 1700 sq. ft lot just south of DC) one feeling: jealous. :)

Re:Alternative Idea?

[Patrick]

I don't mind in the least bit if part of what I pay for infrastructure is used to subsidise the rural areas.

Where do you draw the line? Rural dwellers get publicly subsidized schools and roads, but not mass transit. They get publicly subsidized phone and power, but not water, sewer, or cable TV. Mail delivery, but not trash pickup. And so on. It seems pretty arbitrary to lump broadband in with things that should be subsidized.

Re:Alternative Idea?

[PiratePTG]

One alternative idea is to build your own ISP... Of sorts...

Check out this group that rolled their own...

http://www.rric.net/

Re:Alternative Idea?

[drafalski]

If people want to move to the middle of nowhere to get away from gangs, traffic, comedians, literacy, and culture, that's fine.

So many people move out to the country to get away from the hustle and bustle of reading...

Re:Alternative Idea?

[Kris_J]

I think all those things should be subsidised for rural communities. Kids growing up in the country shouldn't see the city as their only hope for the future.

Corporate control

[Anonymous Coward]

I think broadband over power lines is an absolutlely great idea. With satellite or cable broadband, it is ultimately under centralized corporate control, which is bad for freedom and liberty. Power lines are everywhere and could be used as the basis for local networks that just can't be controlled by corporations. Censorship would be difficult. File sharing on these local networks would be easy and untracable etc.

Doesn't matter...

[OneFix at Work]

The most likely evolution of broadband is cellular broadband being implimented on a wide scale once the majority of the UHF spectrum goes back to the FCC (currently sometime in 2007...I think)...

The cellular companies will get a huge chunk of the old UHF spectrum, and most likely they will start going into the broadband ISP business. It only makes sense.

As mobile technology becomes the norm (more and more ppl are using laptops) they will demand wireless connectivity. This has the 2-fold benefit of bringing affordable broadband to rural areas (99% of rural areas have cellular coverage...your little handheld phone might not get a signal, but a stationary antenna would)...as well as always-connect broadband for mobile computing...

There's a new group of consumers that are just around the corner...these are the young kids (just getting into Jr. High right now) that have grown up with the internet and have never known a world without a computer with a global network connection. They are a lot like "geeks/nerds" in the way that they CRAVE information...they want to be connected 24/7 and they want it now!!! This isn't something that's going away and as soon as these kids start getting paychecks they're going to be driving the technology industry into new directions...

Hamming it up...

[TWX]

Yeah, I know. a lot of people write it like that though, and I tend to interact with them enough that I just don't give a damn.

Here is why it's Ham Radio.

Not and acronym, and not kosher...

mod parent up

[Cryofan]

truth hurts, don't it, moderators?

Re:mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

even if every single one of those things were absolutely true, even if they were true only of the US and nowhere else, the rest of the world would still be panting trying to catch up to the US and its world domination.

SUCK IT DRY, NON-AMERICAN PANSY ASS FAGGOTS. WE PWN j00!!1`~

Dilbert

[Adam_Trask]

Reminded me of my favorite Dilbert strip. It goes:

The Boss (to Wally):
Our competitors found a way to send broadband internet traffic over the power grid.

The Boss (to Wally):
I want to you find a way to send data over the sewer system.

Wally (thinking):
I thought i was already doing it.

----------
Btw, i am curious. If only the text is reproduced (like i just did), is it a violation of the copyright? What if i told this to somebody?

Use other technologies instead.

[rice_burners_suck]

"FEMA has concluded that introduction of unwanted interference from the implementation of BPL technology into the high frequency radio spectrum will result in significant detriment to the operation of FEMA [emergency] radio systems such as FNARS."

Not to mention that when the whole danged power grid goes down all over the western hemisphere, we'll lose not only the power, but also all of our communication... and that would be really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really bad.

Instead, I think we should use satellites, dedicated lines, the cable television system, the phone system, line-of-sight, radio waves, and every other system out there or that we can devise. Also, I think that companies should come out with generators that every Joe Shmoe can use to generate his own private power, so that when the danged grid goes down, most people will still have their own private power, so it will be a minor inconvenience, a road bump, a small glitch, rather than a dangerous situation for an entire region.

Everybody's talking about the New York power outtage, but not many people remember that five states in the western United States were without power for several hours because of a similar event.

Oh well.

Re:Use other technologies instead.

[DunbarTheInept]

If the whole dang power grid goes down, then it doesn't matter whether you have a working internet connection or not, because there won't be enough electricity to run the communication system's machinery anyway. Yeah, there will be giant server rooms with big UPSes on them, but for the internet connection to operate you have to have EVERY step along the way working, including your own computer, every repeater transformer along the way, every router and every hub, not to mention that the server you are talking to on the other end has to be functioning too. With enough battery backup that stuff can function for a short while, but not for long.

solution...invert the process

[Frennzy]

Instead of hampering hams with BPL, why not encourage and support IPoHR (IP over ham radio?). I'd bet with enough tweaking, modulation schemes could provide fairly decent bandwidth to rural areas via ham, which could be wire-distibuted locally. Even better, get some folks to setup 'time share' systems.

Let's get the hams involved, and provide incentive to 'make it work', which they already have a history of doing. I'd betcha there is more than one ham-fisted-geek out there who wants to build a ham-IP gateway.

I recall reading something about this in the dim, dark, past...but I'm too lazy to google it.

Re:solution...invert the process

[Anonymous Coward]

Because, a ham must always be in control of the transmission, therefore, it's simply not a practical solution. There are severe restrictions to allowed content over ham radio such that any broadband solution involving ham radio just wouldn't work for most people. For example, you couldn't connect to EBAY and sell your baseball card collection if the connection was going over ham radio as that is a commercial message.

While wireless internet may not be profitable for companies, that doesn't mean communitiets could not pool their resources to make it work. Get a T1 to whoever has the biggest hilltop and setup wifi links to everyone who is helping to pay for the T1. I don't see this as any different than other comminity supported services like volunteer fire departments.

Further, whoever said that celular broadband is the next generation is spot on. BPL might seem like an interim solution but it's a day late and a dollar short. It will go the way of the dodo bird and the floptical.

daryl

Re:solution...invert the process

[Nate B.]

IPoHR isn't a new concept, it's been tried in various forms for almost twenty years. The real fly in the ointment is that the Amateur Radio Service in the U.S. and most of the rest of the world is a non-commercial personal radio service. We are not permitted to carry traffic that would be of commercial benefit to ourselves or our employers. Incidental commercial traffic may occur in the U.S., but such traffic may not be conducted regularly. We also have an additional restriction with regard to profanity and obscenity.

Hams may not receive compensation for their communications, directly or indirectly. So, while the idea of using ham radio to implement free wireless access seems workable, somebody's gonna want payment for that bandwidth somewhere along the line, so who pays for that.

Certainly, these restrictions are regulatory and could be removed by the FCC. However, most of us hams would rather not have stuff that generally traverses the Internet on the ham bands--even at 2.4 GHz. Also, most of us would rather not turn the Amateur Radio Service into some kind of quasi commercial radio service. Amateur radio can be thought of as the public parks of the radio spectrum in that it allows the common citizen to enjoy radio communication technology.

Re:solution...invert the process

[Frennzy]

Good point...I was unaware of the commercial limitations.

It's too bad, really. Perhaps we could reclaim some spectrum from the vast swaths that are currently (and from what I hear, extremely inefficiently) being used by military?

It's a good point about not wanting to clutter ham BW with internet traffic, though. Spam alone would make it almost unusable, without some really tricky filtering going on at any IP-ham gateway.

Hmm...where did I put that IP-neutrino gateway...I know it's around here somewhere...man...I probably should have patented that thing...

Riiiiiiiight...

[SoupaFly]

Oh cruel irony, why do you mock me so!

Thank you...

[siskbc]

But this is FEMA,the secret government of the USA

...Agent Denton.

Emergency != Power outage.

[Kymermosst]

Emergencies do not necessarily mean there is a power outage.

Suppose the phones go down. This happened in an area where I was living when someone cut the sole long distance line in the region. Hospitals could not communicate, and family members could not check on the status of their loved ones. Hams like me carried the messages.

Emergency to a ham doesn't necessarily mean disaster, it means any situation where the normal lines of communications are disrupted.

Examples of times where Hams are used for communications even when the phone lines are up, and the power is up:

- Coordinating evacuations (fire, etc). You coordinate the evacuation of thousands with the phone system or the internet... let me know how it goes.

- Car accident in the middle of nowhere.

- Search and rescue efforts. Clicking and talking on a multi-access channel works a lot better than cell phones.

There are also communities where it is a primary method of communication. There is a place called Three Rivers here in Oregon, near Lake Billy Chinook. They do not have power, they do not have phones, matter of fact, they don't have any public utilities. There's several hundred homes, each with solar and wind power, and wells or trucked water. Some cellphone coverage is available, but not much. *Everyone* has a CB or ham radio.

Re:Emergency != Power outage.

[shaitand]

"Suppose the phones go down."

You use your high speed BPL connection to instantly initiate a realtime video conference with your friends and loved ones who also have these affordable readily available high speed connections now.

Re:Emergency != Power outage.

[shaitand]

"- Coordinating evacuations (fire, etc). You coordinate the evacuation of thousands with the phone system or the internet... let me know how it goes."

Not exactly something that goes on over HF and a small portion of HF is all that is relevant to this dicussion.

- Car accident in the middle of nowhere.

ditto

- Search and rescue efforts. Clicking and talking on a multi-access channel works a lot better than cell phones.

ditto

HAMs in FEMA just out to protect their turf!!

[Cragen]

1. Ask me how much I care about anything having to do with HAMS? nada, zilch.

2. This is HAMs in FEMA trying to protect their little toys. Back to reality, boys. Ask FEMA how many times do they use FNARS, for what, and at what data rate? (Usually voice.) Rarely. Data is all at T-1 or better these days. Ask for actual emergency usage data. If you can get it.

Now. Ask them how much it cost them to make their little 10,000W per XMTR base station network in the name of surviving a nuclear attack from the Ruskeys? (That's the sound of silence you hear...)

FNARS is the biggest and most expensive boon-doggle that COOP security fanatics idea ever conceived, which included the Ollie and all his ilk . Same bunch that thought the 5-star Greenbriar hotel, 4 hours from DC, was the ideal "hole in the ground" for Congress in case of WWIII. Never mind that it was so far away that Congress would've had no chance to get there!

Somebody ask FEMA for all relevant data about FNARS and enjoy the watching the doors slam shut. Hams, indeed.

Sincerely, *cragen

Re:HAMs in FEMA just out to protect their turf!!

[Anonymous Coward]

ahem.... in the name of all the ham radio operators that SAVED your ass many times and invented most of what you use today...

Shut the fuck up you know nothing asshole.

I'll bet you are in middle management... with the lack of grey matter you have it's blatently obvious.

Why not just bury the power lines?

[voss]

The interference is only an issue for above ground powerlines using this technology if im not correct. Sure burying the powerlines would be expensive BUT if they had the potential of making money off broadband, they could afford to bury the lines that would be used for broadband, right?

Power Company Monopolies

[Mooncaller]

The power companies are an open monopoly. They have been trying to expand their control to broadband for at least the last 5 years. To find this out, all one needed to have done was visit their websites during the so called California Energy Crises. It is pretty obvious that this was an engineered event. One of the outcomes of the raise in power costs in CA was the doubling of the operating expensis of many of the companies that were directly involved with bringing braodband to reality. The increse in operating expensis was one of the factors that helped percipitate the tech bubble burst.

Broadband over Powerlines will interfer with wireless. It is possible to design the system so that this does noy happen. But this is definatly not in the best interest of the power companies. You can bet that once a system is in place, it will be incrementaly "upgraded". Each upgrade will introduce more problems for wireless providers.

I do not think I want to turn over control of braodband access to a group of companies with a very long history of monopilization. We (myself included) tend to enjoy bashing Bill G. In reality he is just a "Kinder - Gentler" version of Thomas Edison. It is worth noting that all of the major power companies are controled by the same group of investors.

In the US, all one realy needs to do is play "Follow the Money" to see what could be happening. Hopefully my conjectures do not pan out. But most of the factors to allow them to happen all ready exist. We need to keep a suspicious eye on all developments.

Has anyone read "The Complete Venus Equilateral" the last publication of George 0. Smiths "Venus Equilateral" stories? On a side note, Broadband over Powerline, done right, would be great.

How did France do it?

[sirReal.83.]

Huh. In France, they've got powerline broadband and I haven't heard of problems. Probably in other EU countries, as well. Is this foot-stamping on the part of FEMA? Is there really no way to work it out? Maybe not... I'm just bitter about paying $40/mo for a 2Mb/512Kb connection.

wrong

[alizard]

Emergency / disaster organizations use the Net, too.

what if they don't use powerlines?

[alizard]

There are generally very nice fiber optic cables routed over the same towers and poles used to carry electric power, used to carry information to/from the utility companies to their sites and equipment. CitiLECs have been using them for years to distribute broadband access to end users.

What about DSL?

[thebigmacd]

Everyone on here is arguing about whether HAM or Internet is most important.

What about DSL? It can get 3 Mb/s over unsheilded twisted pair at a range of several thousand feet.

Why does this not affect hams?

Re:What about DSL?

[Simple-Simmian]

Because it's not a radio frequency sent along the wire.
It's an electrical signal.A weak one too.

Re:What about DSL?

[thebigmacd]

Pigs will fly when HF electrical signals don't induce radio waves.

Re:What about DSL?

[Simple-Simmian]

What? DSL is a HF signal I don't think so. It's an electrical signal on a twisted pair using.
BPL is RF on an electric line. Are you confused? I am not. The parent was.

Re:What about DSL?

[aXis100]

DSL is a HF signal I don't think so

DSL is a broadband electrical signal, covering frequencies from kHz to MHz. Im betting that would make it high frequency. BTW - telephone copper is often (or mostly) not twisted.

BPL is RF on an electric line

You can't send radio signals (photons) down a wire, but you can send their electrical equivalent.

For all intents and purposes, HF electrical signals == Radio. A wire can act as an antenna, so any HF electrical signals can produce RF emissions.

So, DSL can also cause interference - it's just that it is spread spectrum, so doesnt cause mass interference on a particular frequency.

Re:What about DSL?

[Simple-Simmian]

OK smart ass :-)
My reply was a "simple" answer to the guys question.
Yes RF is generated by sending and electrical signal down a conductor (usually).
The amount of RF leakage down a telephone cable is near zero and unintended.
The amount of RF leakage from BPL is massive and intentional.
Damm /. pendants :p

One reason you don't want BPL.

[Simple-Simmian]

I am getting ready to get on the 75 meter band with 1200 watts PEP of RF.
If you had BPL in my neighborhood you would be dropping packets left and right ;-)

What about the rest of the world?

[Roddersofnz]

Understand the comments however, think that they are being pushed by the old guard, note used to be into Amatuer Radio at High School, know Valve Theory@#$%@#, but the reality is that in many places there is no network other than a power grid, the development of PLC is going to be very important for the global rollout of broadband. About 14% have telephony but about 40% have power. RF issues are being dealt with, and even in the USA with great Broadband optiosn, many regions will only have a powernetwork for potential broadband, which I see as another long haul alternative, rather than trying to lay fibre, which is not econmically viable in many areas, of low population density.

WiMax could make rural broadband possible.

[MtViewGuy]

I think we really don't need to implement broadband Internet over powerlines anyway.

The development of WiMax wireless networking technology (WiMax is essentially a development of 802.11 WiFi wireless networking that has a range up to 30 miles and supports thousands of users easily) could make the whole idea of BPL superfluous in the long run. With WiMax's long range, this makes it possible to expand broadband Internet to places where stringing out copper and/or optical fiber wires out to the customer site is not economically practical.

There is a potential solution: WiMax.

[MtViewGuy]

I think what may finally bring broadband Internet access to rural areas is essentially a development of WiFi wireless networking called WiMax.

Since WiMax has a range up to 30 miles and the ability to support thousands of users per connection point, this may finally make it possible to put up WiMax antennas out in rural areas, which eliminates pretty much the last mile connection issue for broadband Internet access.

Re:Simple Solution to Interference with FEMA's rad

[shaitand]

Explain to me again why ANYONE in the US should be inconvienced so that ANY call in South America can get through no matter what type of emergency?

commercial pricing?

[Dragoonkain]

I would be all for this idea, my only concern would be the pricing range. Would internet prices go up in the summer like regular power does? Or would a flat rate be charged all year. How much would a 5 meg power line compare to a 5 meg cable line.. Though im sure people with no alternatives would pay whatever it takes. Fast internet nowandays is as much as a requirment for productivity as gas is for a car :P

FNARs?

[NeuroManson]

Hmmm, from my MU* and IRC experience, that stands for "For No Apparent Reason". Sneaky!

They could have gone for a Pinky and the Brain angle though, and just called it "NARF".

It's not just hams, BTW...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a LOT more than just interference to hams.

Being a ham myself (extra class, for 35+ years), it's not just about what BPL would do to amateur radio operators.

BPL itself can/will suffer interference from any nearby transmitter, particularly HF, which would certainly include most amateur gear, as well as various civilian and military agencies.

I'm not real sure I'd want to risk my data to that kind of uncertainty. And, I'm not real sure I really feel like having to superencrypt all of my outgoing and incoming data to attempt to frustrate probable eavesdroppers.

There is far, far too much RF pollution these days - look at all the hoops that the cable TV companies have to go through to avoid being fined by the FCC. Why should we have to suffer interference to our car broadcast radios and CBs from power lines?

BPL is a fundamentally stupid idea that should never have been allowed to get as far as it has.
I hope the Manassas debacle quickly proves this point.

Nice acronyms

[ruiner13]

IMHO, someone better EOL this BPL idea PDQ before FEMA gets PO'ed. OTOH, if this could somehow work in GNU or dare I say BSD as well as MS PCs, despite the dangers to FNARS, lets give it a try. Sure beats DSL to speed those TCP/IP connections.

Already in use

[Bega]

From what I know, Imatra city's (In Finland) citizens are already capable of using powerline broadband. It's been a while since I last checked, though.

Single point of faliure

[carcosa30]

Not only that but having two things running on the same infrastructure can't be good. Right now, broadband's mainly for entertainment, but who knows what it's going to turn into.

(*I* would like BB over powerlines, I think it's a maximally cool idea, but cool does not always mean intelligent. Oftentimes it means the reverse.)

no secret about the reasoning here...

[alizard]

Broadband over powerline really does hose most other forms of RF communication anywhere remotely close to a powerline. That might include your 802.11 network.

It's a bad idea, and this is as good a time as any to bury it.

The head of FNARS is a ham

[Animats]

The head of FNARS, a FEMA employee, is Paul Reid, N4EKW.

FEMA has a point, though. They've put in a nationwide HF network for emergencies that can stay up even if other communication systems go down. So if somebody does bring down the phone system, they have backup. Someday we might really need that.

Fiber to the house a better choice.

[Audrey23]

Hey Guess what ? Someone has done it already, and all the farmers there are just happy as clams (fiber to the house). http://www.gcpud.org/Zipp/default.htm Its been in service for about two years now, and I know some buddies that live there and are always bragging about their "screeming fast internet"... OH and guess what ? Its cheap! BPL is just plain wrong, fiber is just plain right! Doug

Interference is not a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't you heard?

Radio spectrum interference is a myth!!!

Re:Come on! - solve it by sharing.

[cruachan]

I'm living in the middle of the Scottish Highlands and I've got broadband - by satellite. If you do the economics right and you're not too isolated it's as cheap if not cheaper than ADSL in a town - and with more bandwidth.

The solution is to use a satellite provider who doesn't mind you networking and then to share the connection around. Satellite broadband starts at 512Kb uncontended, so compared to town ADSL with a similar pipe but a 30:1 contention ratio for consumer connections you've got oodles of bandwidth spare.

Ideally like me you've got neighbours close enough that you can run cable. Ethernet typically runs out at leat 100 Metres. If you're running farther then either use Ethernet to Fibre (up to 40Km) or a point to point wireless connection (expensive). You might even get by with a wireless lan.

Of course you've got to be something of a geek to set this up and do the administration to keep it going, but my connection, which costs UK Pounds 99 p.m. is shared around between myself and two paying neighbours which brings costs down to comparable to ADSL in towns. We also share it out for free to our elderly neighbours as sort of social responsibility.

Installation costs are higher of course - although if you're a business in the UK there's a good chance of getting a grant to help and you may be able to get neighbours to make a contribution to that too. In my case between all this we got the install costs down from 1800 to about 350 each - not trivial but not impossible either.

$200 is a problem??

[Gorimek]

Dude, $200 is 3 days rent for my one bedroom apartment in San Francisco.

If that's all that's between you and fast internet, pay it! And don't think for a moment that city dwellers get away cheaper than you in general.

Re:$200 is a problem??

[Anonymous Coward]

$200 is also sometimes just shy of a week of take home pay in rural areas. alot of the jobs in rural areas are distribution warehouses for companies *cough*amazon.com*cough* that pay $8-9 per hour and the take home pay is roughly $250-260 after taxes/s.s./etc. then yes, $200 is alot of money to that person.

BPL doesn't unlock rural areas (was: Oh well..)

[Anonymous Coward]

BPL doesn't work over long-distance power lines, only for the short runs between the distribution points and the home.

So, for people who live in the middle of nowhere, a BPL provider still needs to bring in equipment for the single lone user, just like with DSL and cable modem. And economically, it's just as unfeasible.

So, BPL won't unlock areas not covered which are currently not covered by DSL or cable. It will only add a competitor to those ares which most likey already have cable and DSL. And for that,
we would loose the HF spectrum, public safety and many other things.

BPL is a losing proposition. Drop it and get on with life...

HF Users

[Detritus]

FEMA isn't the only user of the HF spectrum. By the time you install notch filters for amateur radio, FEMA, air traffic control, maritime users, the military, and everyone else, there isn't going to be much left for BPL.

BPL is a bad idea that should have been strangled in the cradle. It's a testament to the power of greed that it has gotten as far as it has.

Re:Simple Solution to Interference with FEMA's rad

[MWelchUK]

Why?

Because it's called being conciderate to others in a global community. The global community in which you are currently airing your naive, elitist views.

Explain to me why a call in South America, no matter what type of emergency, should be denied so that you may have the convience of receiving a broadband connection over powerlines?! Especially since Ham radio has already been in use for years.

FEMA Wants the Power Grid

[NerdHead]

Broadband over the power grid must be a great idea if FEMA is so concerned. But why would any government agency want to allow something as anarchistic as the Internet to use something that would benefit their own desires? I'm sure that FEMA or NSA or FBI would love to take advantage of wires that are connected to every house and building. It looks like FEMA is taking the first step.

Re:Oh well.. Just Use the Exiting Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Just setup a rural internet fund where everyone who has internet access contributes to paying for those who don't. Perhaps extend the Universal Service Fund to provide internet access. (This is the fund everyone pays to insure rural comunities have phone access) There is also the e-rate program to insure schools get wired.

Either program works basically the same way, those who have access, have an obligation to provide the service to those who have not through mandatory finanical support.

Manassas, VA First BPL in US

[Manassas]

We have BPL in Manassas, VA. http://www.manassascity.org/ http://www.prospectstreet.com/psb/

Re:Simple Solution to Interference with FEMA's rad

[mpost4]

Lets turn your question around, why should any one care if the US gets attacked ( like in 9/11 )

The anser to my question is the same anser to your question, because we are in the same boat, what happens to other countrys will affect us, and also people might have famaily there, and would like to be able to know if they are safe (Hams do provided a free service of message passing, usefull to get a message to a place that might have phone service out, and no net connection, and a message can come back)

Now with what I said, think about this you have a sibling in a place that had a major disastor, all other forms of comunications are out, all that is left is one ham with a HF station, that ham now becomes the only link for that place to the outside world, would you not want the message from your famaly member to come in, or would you reather have BPL and never know that your sibling is safe or dead or what.

God forbid that anything like this would happen to you or any one, but we must reconize that it posable.

Farmers Steal from America

[notcreative]

First of all, no one "suffers" from one-person, one-vote. It is a political compromise that avoids the one-person one-AK47 scenario. By definition, if every person gets a vote, how can anyone "suffer" from that? Are you saying that some people are better because they have more property, and should therefore have more votes?

In any event, the myth of the noble farmer is something that comes up repeatedly in American politics, and it irritates me because it is so far from the truth. Sure, there are some farmers out there who are living like their pappys did, scratching out a living on the land of their grandfathers. The vast, vast majority of farmland in the US, however, is owned by coporations or "large scale" farmers who have something close to the land mass of a european country. The myth that the average farm is a four person family with 25 acres and a blue pickup is simply not true, if it ever was.

The other farmer myth is that we need American farms for our food supply. The fact is that much of the food in your local grocery store comes from other countries. Food is cheap to produce. It is so cheap to produce that we have protections to keep the price from falling too low. If Megafarm Alpha can produce corn for 1$ a pound, and it costs Sympathy Farm 3$ a pound to produce it, then Sympathy Farm can go to Congress with their straw hat in hand and say that they needs to get that price set above 3$ a pound, or they'll lose the farm! Never mind that this amounts to a consumer subsidy of 2$+ a pound, or a price increase of 200%. Of course, Megafarm Alpha is crying all the way to the bank. The US Goverment will also buy up food for higher-than-market prices (Gov-mint cheese?) to support these inefficient yet sympathetic family farms, and incidentally the huge Megafarms that contribute to political campaigns. Obviously I'm ranting, but I wish the populace at large was aware of what a huge burden inefficient farming forms on the American taxpayer, because it is certainly unjustified using the current argument of protecting the food supply. How much farmland does the US use for cash crops, cattle feed, and other non-human food produce? I am confident that, with modern farming methods, we are in no danger of losing our ability to feed our population. We are, however, getting ripped off.

Re:Farmers Steal from America

[Kris_J]

Here in Australia most farms are owned by the banks, since farmers have been getting screwed out of their land for decades now.

Most food in my local store comes from Australia, with specific products labeled as imported or containing some imported ingredients depending on the season. The fresher and less processed it is the more likely it is to be Australian.

We prop up our ailing farming businesses because we'd rather not rely on other countries for our food supply. As an American, which countries are you willing to rely on for food? Out of that list, how many are actively supporting their farming industry and not just turning into one big city?

Re:Farmers Steal from America

[notcreative]

Isolationism does seem to be in vogue here in the states, but it is an illusion. We could swear to become "self-sufficient" in farming here in the states, but it would be an illusion. The tractors, gasoline, chemicals, harvesting labour, and electronics that are required are supplied from foreign countries, and without this trade our society would collapse. I don't understand the scenario of "What if we didn't trade with anyone? Would we be ok?" The answer, of course, is no. We could be rolling naked on piles of steak and cookies and we would still be SOL when we ran out of gas, labour, electronics, etc. The "rely on other countries for food" scare tactic assumes a scenario that subsidizing farm income doesn't solve. If we're really scared of relying on other countries for food, we should start teaching berry harvesting in middle school, because we won't have any immigrants to abuse when the mythical hammer drops and the Congo Navy blockades the US coast.

Australia is perhaps a special case since it is mostly desert and in the middle of nowhere, shipping-route-wise.

Re:Farmers Steal from America

[Kris_J]

America's reliance on foriegn resources is a major factor in the long running saga of the its involvement in the Middle East. In this case it's oil. Do you want your friends and family dying in a war over Asian rice next?

Re:Farmers Steal from America

[notcreative]

I hate to sound incredulous, but you must not be reading the papers. China is a net food importer. They import food from the US, amoung other places. In any case, our problem isn't that we rely on foreign resources. Switzerland, Argentina, and Japan rely on foreign resources too. They don't get in wars every five years, because they have learned to solve problems without trying to impose an unilateral military solution.

tit for tat

[Eil]

So. The radio geeks don't like this innovative method of affordable broadband screwing up their radios. The expansion of the information superhighway will not halt for 20th-century technology. Why don't they just switch to VoIP?

FEMA - the hidden government

[Anonymous Coward]

FEMA is the hidden government. Search "hidden government FEMA" in google and you'll see what I'm talking about. They have the power to revoke your constitutional rights, to put people in concentration camps, take over our agriculture, the transportation system and much more. I don't see anyone here fearing what FEMA is doing with Internet over power lines but you need to consider that this is government forbidding us to engage in harmless commercial activates. The vast majority of what FEMA is about is not emergencies like hurricanes or earthquakes but in our own government's paranoia for citizen uprising, terrorist actions, nuclear war, etc. Only 6% of their budget is for actually helping us in more legitimate emergencies. FEMA is a real threat to the average US Citizen. In a country based on freedom, part of that freedom needs to be the freedom to change and have power over government otherwise the government can rule with an iron hand. Search "hidden government FEMA" in google and you'll see what I'm talking about. FEMA's powers come not from elections or the voice of the people, but from presidential order primarily during the cold war. Never underestimate the paranoia of government. Under the guise of "we help you", FEMA has the very real potential of becoming "we own you." Just look at how paranoid they are right now with these terror alerts. This terrorism threat is something they manufactured. Usama was their making in the 1980s in Afghan to fight the commies.. They helped Sadam with billions (?) to fight Iran, AND they even invented the nuclear bomb. All three threats they handled irresponsibly (especially the nuclear one) and now we are supposed to suffer our freedom because of their failures. I say make them suffer, not the people. They should find an alternative to using our power grid for emergencies so that we free (ha ha) people can engage unfettered in our affairs. Fear government or suffer the consequences.

Re:Simple Solution to Interference with FEMA's rad

[shaitand]

"has already been in use for years"

I will not dispute that it's science which is to old to be called technology anymore.

"global community"

my INTERNET community trumps all
my LOCAL community trumps my national community
my NATIONAL community trumps the global community
The nonwired global community ranks dead last on this list.

If someone in south america has an emergency they should be calling someone a wee bit closer than the US. If they are merely calling to spread the word because people are nosy (like the news media) then my broadband and anyone elses should come first. The internet isn't about browsing porn, the internet carries critical communications every second of every hour of everyday. It lets loveones know we are safe and ok EVERYDAY. I carries news like wildfire globally in seconds.

HF communications may prove critical to an emergency once in a great while (generally the people who need contacting will certainly be contactable over other frequency). The internet never stops being critical for communications.

Re:Simple Solution to Interference with FEMA's rad

[shaitand]

Sure I'd like to know if they are ok. That's a silly question. The real question is, do I believe that knowing they are ok A LITTLE SOONER is worth preventing the expansion of a communications medium that is critical and passes critical and emergency messages EVERY SECOND OF EVERY DAY.

And no, I don't think anyone in south america should have to lose their BPL connection simply because the US is having a disaster either. Maybe along the borders of mexico and Canada this would be an issue, but once you get far enough away that you need HF to communicate, it's too far away to actually arrive in time with emergency assistance 99% of the time.

Quite frankly, the spreading of 9/11 news was hardly something that warrants this hinderance of technology either. Those who could (and did help) certainly didn't need to be contacted overseas to do it. The rest could have waited for other forms of communications like emergency internet carrying power to be restored. It's not like knowing about 9/11 an hour sooner (AFTER it happened) changed the bottom line.

Hanging in the air

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if thing are done differently around the world, but Over Here the telcos and power companies have long since cut down their poles and dug the cables into the ground.
The power companies also has spun enormous lengths of fiber cable around the long-distance power lines for high-bandwith data transport.

Is there the same amount of interference with cables in walls and the ground as hanging in the air?

Re:Simple Solution to Interference with FEMA's rad

[MWelchUK]

I will not dispute that it's science which is to old to be called technology anymore.

From www.dict.org:

technology
1: the practical application of science to commerce or industry [syn: engineering]
2: the discipline dealing with the art or science of applying scientific knowledge to practical problems; "he had trouble deciding which branch of engineering to study"

science
2. Accumulated and established knowledge, which has been systematized and formulated with reference to the discovery of general truths or the operation of general laws; knowledge classified and made available in work, life, or the search for truth; comprehensive, profound, or philosophical knowledge.
3. Especially, such knowledge when it relates to the physical world and its phenomena, the nature, constitution, and forces of matter, the qualities and functions of living tissues, etc.; -- called also natural science, and physical science.

Nope, still a technology.

If someone in south america has an emergency they should be calling someone a wee bit closer than the US.

I don't know if you noticed, but your country shares a common border with South America, this is not about trying to call into the US. It is about your potential HF spectrum noise destroying communications between 2 settlements in South America which happen to be unlucky enough to be near the boarder.

the internet carries critical communications every second of every hour of everyday

...Into your home? Tell me, do you run a business from your house - let alone one that could be considered to require these "critical communications"? Are you seriously concidering running your communications over powerline, in the unfortunate event that this technology actually is allowed to be used? Wouldn't it be far better to get a slighty faster connection - being that the comms to your house are so critical?

It lets loveones know we are safe and ok EVERYDAY. I carries news like wildfire globally in seconds.

Ah, I use a telephone for the first one (its nice to hear a voice don'tca know) and the second, well hardly "critical" say, in a natural disaster kind of way. At least the news being spread isn't going to be of use to those in the effected area as ham-radios would be - i.e. to co-ordinate rescue efforts.

HF communications may prove critical to an emergency once in a great while (generally the people who need contacting will certainly be contactable over other frequency).

No, that's the point. This is one of the few radio frequencies that can be easily picked up over a reasonable range, utilising battery powered devices, which also allows many devices to transmit and recieve on a common channel - which is essential in a disaster situation.

Not only that, but there are still hobbist that enjoy using ham-radio, there are probably many in the US. What gives you the right to stop them from using ham-radio or so little gain? This is not going to be hugely fast and will require a fair amount of infrastructure change. For example, if I start up my nice lathe that is sitting in the shed, which uses a noisy 3-phase motor, unless special damping is going to be provided, this is going to kill comms over power lines dead whilst it is running!

Yes, I know this is the case as I knew some people working on the technology at university whist I was doing an Engineering degree and any use of noisy equipment near there lab (even though it was isolated as best as possible) was causing havoc. It's a nice idea, but ultimately flaud in so many ways that I believe that, at least in the UK, there is very little funding to work on it anymore.

Re:Simple Solution to Interference with FEMA's rad

[shaitand]

" 1: the practical application of science to commerce or industry [syn: engineering]"

It's no longer practical when it interferes with the growth of the net.

"I don't know if you noticed, but your country shares a common border with South America."

umm no, we don't. Look a bit more closely at your maps. Our continent shares a border with south america, not our country.

"Ah, I use a telephone for the first one (its nice to hear a voice don'tca know) and the second, well hardly "critical" say, in a natural disaster kind of way. At least the news being spread isn't going to be of use to those in the effected area as ham-radios would be - i.e. to co-ordinate rescue efforts. "

Using high speed internet allows for video and voice conference. You can route phone communications through it as well. Simply because you don't utilize technology hardly means it doesn't exist.

co-oridinating rescue efforts requires only short range communications. The best you've got for hf is calling for help to begin with. For that I refer you to by past comments.

"I knew some people working on the technology at university whist I was doing an Engineering degree"

BPL speeds are phenominal compared with your average internet connection. I doubt they'd compare with your university link. But BPL is looking to reach where dialup can't and to replace dialup. It EASILY smokes a dialup link.

"..Into your home? Tell me, do you run a business from your house - let alone one that could be considered to require these "critical communications"? Are you seriously concidering running your communications over powerline, in the unfortunate event that this technology actually is allowed to be used? Wouldn't it be far better to get a slighty faster connection - being that the comms to your house are so critical? "

Business is nice and all, but explain to me why police, fire, disaster services are incapable of being contacted via the net with instant communications?

That's not going to happen.

[Svartalf]

They (The FCC) have made it as lax as they can and still make it useful. Rule 15 in a nutshell, is, if you're not licensed and you're interfering with licensed services, you get to redesign to avoid interfering or stop doing it altogether. Licensed services (i.e. HF Amateur, FEMA, and Military radio) have precedence- and they're not going to change that rule because of some commercial Part 15 service- partly because the military is involved, and what Uncle Sam wants, Uncle Sam gets.

If they're dinking with RACES or MARS (which is the case), then they're going to stop the emissions no matter what.