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Rewriting Rules on Delivery of the Internet
mathin writes "A recent NYTimes (free reg required) article states that, 'The Federal Communications Commission began writing new rules today that officials and industry experts said would profoundly alter both the way the Internet is delivered and used in homes and businesses.' Things under consideration: broad band over electrical wires and VoIP. A little thin on details, but interesting none the less."
And don't forget Marc Majcher's nytview page. It works well if you RTFM.
-ted, waiting for the inevitable replies about "who cares if they require you to register!" and "big companies are evil!" and "who cares if it isn't goatse!"
Other, no-registration-required sources can be found here.
You probably shouldn't click this.
The FCC's talking about powerline broadband. Yeah, we're nowhere close to a commercial rollout yet, but at least the regulators are certifying that the plans won't cause massive harm to any other communications tech, so they're about to sign off on it.
Have we just completely forgotten the problem of BPL totally killing HAM radio?
Just some background information for you to read.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Yet another case of neophyte biz-marketeers turning geek-jargon into bizwords. "Broadband" is only the width of the channel, "throughput" is more important. Also, "baud" is not necessarily a "bit" ("baud" is one packet of signal waveforms in linear combinations of FSK/PSK/ASK etc in a unit-time), etc. etc.
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
As previously covered at Slashdot here... The Federal Emergency Management Agency submitted comments to the FCC stating their desire to not see BPL go into widespread implementation. Apparently it interferes with high frequency radio transmissions which are used by FEMA and others (think HAM radio operators). You can see FEMA's comments and a FAQ on the objections (slanted towards the HAM radio operators) here Forgot to add that in these post-9/11 times, it will be interesting to see who wins, Dept. of Homeland Security and their paranoia over infrastructure or the free-market wheelers and dealers at the FCC who think regulation is for the birds.
"BAUD" is the measurement of symbols per second.
16 BAUD of 8 level FSK would be 48 bits/second. (16 symbols per second, 3 bits per symbol).
That thing that sticks out into the water that the ship is tied up or moored to is a pier or maybe a wharf. It ain't a dock.
Should those of us familiar with nautical terminology look down on those that aren't? That's what you're doing here. The meaning of the term "broadband" when applied in the vernacular sense to "internet service" is clear even if the usage not correct in the technical sense. Just like saying a ship is "docked" is perfectly clear in the landlubber's environment, but would get you laughed off the bridge in a nautical environment.
yea. Any service that has to accept interference, and shut down if it causes harmful interference is going to be a big money pit for ANY investor. Now is the time for anybody who's electric utility is thinking about BPL to tell them to give a big thumbs down to this worthless thechnology!!!
c h/ DOC-243879A1.pdf
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmat
The FCC's talking about powerline broadband. Yeah, we're nowhere close to a commercial rollout yet, but at least the regulators are certifying that the plans won't cause massive harm to any other communications tech, so they're about to sign off on it.
Depends what you mean by "commercial roll-out". It's commercially available in my area, though it's still a pilot program.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Regulators agreed Thursday to set rules for telephone calls made online, and for technology to allow computer users to reach the Internet through a household electric outlet.
The Federal Communications Commission said it would decide how to regulate calls made via high-speed Internet connections, which bypass at least part of the conventional phone network.
Among the issues to be discussed is whether such calls should be subject to the same fees as regular telephone service, such for 911 emergency services or bringing telephone service to poor and rural areas, schools and libraries. Also to be decided is whether these new services need to pay fees to local telephone companies to complete calls to conventional phones.
Separately, the FCC said it would later develop rules concerning law enforcement, such as making sure that the technology that allows Internet calls also allows investigators to tap and trace them.
The commission also voted to develop rules that would allow the power lines that bring electricity to homes and businesses to also deliver high-speed Internet connections.
Once a utility or a company it contracts with installs the necessary equipment, a computer user would only have to plug the machine into a special modem that plugs into a conventional electric outlet, according to Jay Birnbaum, vice president of Current Technologies, a company now testing such connections in the Washington suburbs.
Even as it develops rules governing Internet phone calls, the commission decided that one such service, Free World Dialup, was not subject to the same regulations as regular phones. Internet users can join Free World Dialup at no cost and make calls to each other without using the conventional phones. They use special numbers to route the calls rather than 10-digit phone numbers.
Ham radio HF comm is far from "antiquated." There are plenty of error correcting digital protocols, and associated services use ALE, digitized voice, store and forward BBS systems, and other new technology. However, all these nets will be put out of business with BPL - this is not my analysis, this is the conclusion of FEMA. With the long range nets discontinued, messages to and from family members in affected areas will end. Think about how it would feel if someone in your family was isolated after a disaster and you didn't hear from them for several weeks, only hearing of casualties and scores of missing. Don't be so quick to discount those who would help you and others, because one day you may wish you hadn't.
September 11, 2001 - Remember that? What the hell do you think that not only myself, but almost every other ham I know in the area where doing? Providing Emergency Communication Services to NYC. Try actually researching something before speaking out of your ass.
Sometimes people just have to learn and adapt to change, it is one of the requirements of being a living thing.
Who do you think responds to FEMA when they need communications assistance?
RACES and ARES groups.
Who supports the Salvation Army with communications for shelters and medical assistance?
SATERN and ARES.
Amateur radio is not some antiquated spark-gap device. Providing live, on-scene video feeds of disaster areas; establishing ad-hoc RF computer networks over tens to hundreds (to thousands, if need be) miles to transfer data and images; communicating damage reports to take load off of the public service frequencies; providing primary site-to-site links between emergency operations centers and site command posts (often with agencies that do not use compatible communications equipment)...
The list goes on indefinitely. If you think amateur radio is something antiquated...you are way, way behind the times.
Jim kc0lpv
Those hams who responded to the NY attack did what RACES/ARES/SATERN hams (among others) train to do: they provided vital communications links for search & rescue, for disaster command posts, for health and shelter organizations, and for health/welfare traffic.
Rubbernecking is not the same thing as reporting and serving. The emergency service portion of amateur radio had its largest scale emergency response that day, and performed admirably.
Other instances where ham radio has provided very important service:
Every major hurricaine;
The Colorado/West Coast wildfires;
The Columbia accident response.
If it wasn't an essential service, we wouldn't be part of the emergency planning on the local, state, and federal levels. Officials are going so far as to encourage more people to get licensed: Read here.
Jim kc0lpv
Point taken, but their is something else you need to consider. You can't expect a newly licensed ham, who has never even practiced the intracacies of HF communications to just wait for a disaster to cut his/her teeth. You can read the theory and pass the tests with no problem, but until you actually get on the air, set up your first dipole, or learn the role sunspots and the ionosphere play in effective HF communications, you'll do little good when that disaster happens. Sure you could spend thousands on a linear amp and try to overcome the pollution, but would that not create another interference problem in and of itself? Let's not even talk about how shortwave listening would go by the wayside as well.
Look, I would love to see a non-interfering BPL system developed. But the RF spectrum is a precious resource; let's not waste it with a technology that is easily replaceable with non-harmful methods (DSL,cable,trunk, etc..)
Umm, just because power is out locally doesn't mean no interference..the frequencies concerned are in the H.F. band, which is approx. 2-30 mhz. The point being is that those frequencies travel a _long_ way. That's the whole point of long-range H.F. radio. You can use a transmitter in the tenths of a watt (0.1) range to communicate hundreds or thousands of miles.
An operational grid even on the other coast would prevent radio communications. Makes me wonder how that will work with the treaties we have with other countries.
SB QST @ ARL $ARLB005
/EX
ARLB005 FCC okays BPL proposal
ZCZC AG05
QST de W1AW
ARRL Bulletin 5 ARLB005
From ARRL Headquarters
Newington CT February 12, 2004
To all radio amateurs
SB QST ARL ARLB005
ARLB005 FCC okays BPL proposal
The FCC has unanimously approved a Notice of Proposed Rule Making
(NPRM) to deploy Broadband over Power Line (BPL). The NPRM is the
next step in the BPL proceeding, which began last April with a
Notice of Inquiry that attracted more than 5100 comments--many from
the amateur community. The FCC did not propose any changes in Part
15 rules governing unlicensed devices, but said it would require BPL
providers to apply ''adaptive'' interference mitigation techniques
to their systems. An ARRL delegation that included President Jim
Haynie, W5JBP, attended the FCC open meeting in Washington, and
later expressed disappointment in the FCC action.
''The Commission clearly recognized that the existing Part 15
emission limits are inadequate to stop interference, but it's
placing the burden of interference mitigation on the licensed user
that's supposed to be protected,'' said ARRL CEO David Sumner, K1ZZ.
Sumner said that if the FCC really believed current Part 15 emission
limits were sufficient, it would not have had to require that BPL
providers institute interference mitigation systems. The FCC has not
yet released the actual NPRM, and a presentation by the FCC's Office
of Engineering and Technology (OET) revealed only its broad
outlines. Sumner said the League would not take a formal position
until it reviews the full NPRM.
Anh Wride of the OET staff spelled out the scope of the NPRM, which
only addresses so-called ''access BPL''--the type that would apply
radio frequency energy to exterior overhead and underground low and
medium-voltage power lines to distribute broadband and Internet
service. She said the OET staff believes that interference concerns
''can be adequately addressed.'' Wride said the FCC's BPL NPRM:
* Applies existing Part 15 emission limits for unlicensed
carrier-current systems to BPL systems. Part 15 rules now require
that BPL systems eliminate any harmful interference that may occur
''and must cease operation if they cannot,'' she noted.
* Requires BPL systems to employ ''adaptive interference-mitigation
techniques, including the capabilities to shut down a specific
device, to reduce power levels on a dynamic or remote-control basis
and to include or exclude specific operating frequencies or bands.''
* Subjects BPL providers to notification requirements that would
establish a public database to include such information as the
location of BPL devices, modulation type and operating frequencies.
* Proposes guidelines to provide for consistent and repeatable
measurement of the RF emissions from BPL and other carrier-current
systems.
Mirroring his colleagues' enthusiasm, FCC Chairman Michael Powell
called BPL ''tremendously exciting.'' While conceding that BPL has
''a long way to go,'' the chairman said it could be ''the great
broadband hope for a good part of rural America.'' Powell also said
the FCC's OET has worked very hard to try to ''get their hands
around'' the issue of interference and that the FCC would continue
its vigilance in that area.
The FCC is expected to issue the complete Notice of Proposed Rule
Making within a few days and will invite comments on it sometime
after its publication.
Additional information about BPL and Amateur Radio is on the ARRL
Web site, www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/.
NNNN
Given lots and lots of powerline comms in the US and elsewhere, the rms sum of (in this case inadvertently) radiated interference is likely to be much greater than a few thousand CB sets all transmitting at once. The point is that HF communications will be disrupted worldwide (not all the world all the time, but some of the world some of the time) by attempts at abusing power lines in this way. Those who are behind these schemes are either ignorant (probably true if they are managers, or software engineers), or are wilfully ignoring the ionosphere.
Attempts have been made to use this technology in the UK, amateur radio and other things were wiped out locally, and doubtless at some great distance according to the prevailing conditions. I suspect that they measured interference up to some distance (a few miles?) from the source, and forgot all about the ionosphere. These tests also violated UK law about the amount of noise allowed on power lines (the signals are noise to legitimate spectrum users).
This must be stopped, or a large part of the electromagnetic spectrum will be gone for ever. It is in any case a very inefficient way to provide data communications. any progressive regime would be insisting on running fibre optics to every home or office. In the UK, BT (who had money at the time, and were ready and willing to run a fibre into every home) wanted to do just that some years ago, but the vile Mrs. Thatcher, allegedly a scientist, blocked it because it would give BT a monopoly. True, it would have, for a while, except that it could easily have been handled the same way as BT's copper wires now, via FRIACO, where other providers can get access. Of course the vile old hag had insufficient imagination to forsee that possibility, and in any case where networks and other large physical things are concerned, a monopoly, at least in any locality, is necessarily much more efficient. We could have had fibre 20 years ago (BT led the way in low-loss fibre) but for a singularly incompetent and particularly vile old bag. (Technology moves on, but a fibre good for 100MHz or more would not need replacing for a long time, even if the bits on each end were upgraded from time to time.) The same nasty piece of work also legislated to prevent mast sharing by the mobile networks (anti-competitive....) although our BBC and independent TV networks, in fierce competition, had efficiently shared transmitter sites for decades.
20 years later, I am still waiting, and have been for 3 years now, for NTL to make my cable TV bi-directional. They have done half the job, providing a digital set top (actually set bottom in most cases) box, with a network socket on the back, and increasing the rental, but they have not done the street cabinet or its links to the outside world yet. That evil old piece of malice has set the UK back about 20 years, almost as much damage as Bill Gates has done.
The moral of all this is that politicians who profess to have been scientists or other similar professionals were in fact failures in their earlier carreer, understand less than nothing about technology, and are utterly unfit to make any decision about anything of real importance. I fear this issue will be decided by some similarly incompetent piece of nastiness (although in the US the Unelected Warmongering Retard is likely to be demonstrably unelected this time), and teh damage will be done.