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First Canadian High Speed Internet over Power Grid

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the shocking-ideas dept.

oO0(MjB)0Oo writes "Sault Ste. Marie, a northern Ontario town, is going to be the first installation of BPL (Broadband Power Line technology) in Canada. As reported in the Toronto Star, wireless access points will be set up along medium-voltage power lines, providing roaming capability throughout the city to all users."

6 of 253 comments (clear)

  1. What about do it yourself? by emptybody · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Couldn't a private individual use their own gear to run their own ISP over PowerLines?

    What prevents this?

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  2. Wow, I'm moving to the Soo! by presearch · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Not only the home of the Bandettes, but now internet for everyone!
    My kind of town.

  3. Similar to ESB in Ireland then... by zoney_ie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here in Ireland, the Electricity Supply Board (ESB) - our State electricity company, is setting up something similar. They have a fibre ring following the trunk electricity routes - it's just fibre piggy-backed on their existing infrastructure.

    I'm just amazed they haven't done this ages ago - it puts them at a huge advantage to those who have to dig up stuff and lay fibre from scratch.

    Not sure what ESBs plan is to connect this main telecomms artery to anything useful...

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  4. Canada? by NixLuver · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Ok, what's the tech market like in Canada for hard-core engineer level *Nix geeks? :) How do Canadians feel about American Immigrants? LOL

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  5. Three birds with one stone! by Xoder · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Hey, no one likes Hams anyways. And CB is soo 80s! And why wouldn't everyone have the newest 100GHz phone (More GHz means more chicks). Short-wave? Can I get that on my TeeVee?

    BTW, I'm KC2DXE and I bought one of those old 49MHz phones at a Hamfest once. Worked really well until one of my younger brothers broke it.

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  6. Re:Awesome! by michael_cain · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Actually, they are using between 5 - 70 Mhz .... since nothing important(*) resides down there ...

    The powerline stuff operates at quite low total output power levels. In the US (can't speak to Canada, although the rules are probably similar in nature), the regulations call for you to be below particular radiated power levels at distances of 1m and 3m from the conductors -- several companies claim that their powerline stuff meets these rules. Recent versions of the powerline gear uses OFDM as the modulation scheme, which does allow for avoiding particular spectrum regions where there are interference problems -- it's still not perfect, of course, but they can dodge the amateur radio bands in areas where people are sensative to even low levels of interference.

    I find the claims that they're going to get reliable 150m coverage out of unlicensed 802.11b to be more dubious. For most people, there's a minimum of one outside wall between the PC and the WAP, and possibly more depending on the location of the medium-voltage power lines. If they only get 50m coverage, they're going to need a LOT more devices, greatly increasing their costs.