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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."
let's translate this article into geek-speak:
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.
In totally unrelated hearings, Free World Dialup / Pulver.com (who we discussed yesterday seems likely to get the preemptive ruling they were asking for that they not be subject to the regulations that the Ma Bells wish the FCC would slap them with. That battle seems over for good.
FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps has made his usual objections to deregulation and sided with the Ma Bells on the FWD issue, but as has been the trend recently, he was outvoted.
Political types also gave typical quotes about the future of technology. None of which are very newsworthy, but the columnist still had a little space to fill even though he already combined two stories into one report.
Please do not freak out. For those of you who were mislead by the headline to think that the FCC was debating the merits of IPv6 or something of the like, you can use the back button on your browser to go looking for a more interesting story on the home page now.
I didn't even though this was still a viable technology. I thought it had been discarded as one of those pieces of innovation that could have been useful but never truly was.
If the FCC is writing rules for its use, that must mean that it is viable - why write rules for a dead technology?
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When will people learn? The ONLY meaning of broadband is analog transmission (frequency division). The term "broadband" has nothing to do with speed.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Could someone please explain how a long (several kms) unshielded wire is different than an antenna?
It would seem to me that transmitting "broadband" data, which will span a wide range of frequencies if it is going to be high-speed (and immune to noise), isn't going to just cause broadband interference?
Cable modems get away because the cable itself is coaxial and thus shielded.
Even most telephone wire is buried in the ground...
But powerlines? I just don't see how it is going to work
am i the only one who cant tell if this is a win or a loss for consumers? please enlighten me!
Somewhere on this page I have hidden my signature.
Heres my question for all the law-people on /. - if the FCC decides to regulate VoIP, what happens if I start my own personal VoIP network? Must I be regulated too?
er... what about hacking?
Can I just walk into an office somewhere, plug in my laptop (with BB over power adaptor) and wahey, I'm on the network?
Imagine that - having to put firewalls on all your power sockets. I mean, it's essentially like having RJ45s all over your house/office isn't it.
BB over power - hacking has never been so easy...
Wireless is a horrible idea for most situations. You can not achieve the throughput with wireless that you can with wired technologies. Thats not bringing into account security either.
Who says home powerline doesn't work? I use it in a 4500 sqft house with 40 y.o. electrical wiring and it works great everywhere. Even with a signal booster, my previous 11b wireless network only worked in 1/2 the house. Plus, my linksys WiFi crap never worked with anyone else's hardware, but all my powerline stuff plays together quite nicely...
Mr. Copps also criticized the majority of the commission for rejecting a request by law enforcement agencies that the F.C.C. first work out the legal and technical problems in monitoring phone calls over the Internet before granting Pulver's application or considering new rules for the Internet-based phone services.
Broadband over power line (BPL)
Hmm where does this fall on the good idea scale? They are talking about running RF signals over miles of unshielded cable. NTIA filed comments strongly opposing it. This horse is dead before the starting gate even opens.
BPL is being touted as bringing broadband internet to rural areas not served by DSL or cable modem. However, if you read the fine print you'll find that the signal can be pushed less distance then either (DSL/cable) technology. This means infrastructure overbuild costs will prevent it being deployed in anything but densely populated areas. The whole rural service thing is just a smoke screen.
VOIP Regulation
Its not broken so why does the FCC need to "fix" it? I can't find too many examples of government utility regulation actually improving things. The CALEA (Communications Assistance to Law Enforement Act) points are moot as a wiretap order would permit them to tap the IP service just as easily as the phone line. The main issue is that the telcos see that "consumers" will now become their own providers and they (telcos) will be pushed to irrelavancy in the long term. Change and adaptation come slower to telcos than it does the music industry.
With any luck the FCC will deliver the coup-de-grace to BPL and keeps its fingers out of VoIP other than to declare IP end-to-end calls as outside the scope of regulation and IP to PSTN as only in regulatory scope at the point of interconnection to the PSTN.
. . .since everyone has power lines.
Well no, actually, they don't. There are those that generate their own power, and the numbers, while still small, grow steadily.
That's taking for granted that they have electricity at all, since we're talking about computer usage.
KFG
Aside from the sheer disturbance to the ham community and worldwide communications, as well as possibly satellite (and interplanetary someday?) communications, I dont like the idea of having gobs of RF coming from my power sockets. 60 cycle hum is bad enough, we're going to have to filter every audio component even more, as well as figure out how to rf protect our devices. some old and new stuff just wasnt designed to take rf directly into its components. Plus, electrocution now comes with fun burns, not to mention increased headaches for those of us who are RF sensitive to begin with. FCC should leave well enough alone.
If I were in the (highly regulated) business of selling local dial-tone, I would set up a subsidiary that just did TCP/IP networking over all the dark fiber in the US, and then sell VOIP over it. My marketing point would be "higher-quality connections with fewer drop-outs". A friend has Vonage, and while it works great off-peak hours, during lunch hours (when everyone at work is surfing instead of working), or if a big news story breaks, you can't understand him.
Chip H.
Available bandwidth/bitrate on wired connections is many times that of wireless. The only thing wireless has going for it is convenience. Granted, that is a big plus
That would be applicable on a classic copper twisted pair or fiber, but not so with BPL. The most you get is a raw 80 Mhz (Mb/s) of bandwidth. Once you consider noise issues, modulation, repeaters, usable frequencies, and a bunch of other factors, you're lucky to get 5 Mb/s on a BPL segment. 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz spectrum available to the public right now with less restrictions has over some 300 Mhz of spectrum.
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
Just like with the mass media ownership rule changes in which the FCC ignored the facts and the public, clueless Powell did the same with BPL.
The FCC cited adaptive technolgies as being able to mitigate interference. The truth is, adaptive technologies can't protect receive only stations because they don't transmit and can't assert their need for a clear frequency. It's likely that adaptive technologies will also be unable to recognize lower powered transmit stations.
It's rather ironic the FCC met with a BPL equipment vendor in late January to discuss adaptive technology.
One of the Commisioners stated that interference concerns were unproven. There has been models proving the interference potential and field measurements showing interference filed with the FCC. There's been no proof that adaptive technologies in BPL will mitigate interference.
So the FCC doesn't stop BPL due to proven interference issues, and justifies continued deployment on a technology that hasn't been proven to work in the field or using common sense engineering. They essentially ignored 5000 comments filed against BPL and showcased unproven "interference mitigation" technology hyped by an equipment vendor.
It's time that the boobs at the FCC are exposed, not at the Superbowl.
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
Hams have also been on the forefront of other technologies, such as single sideband, FM, television, software-defined radios, and digital transmission, to name a few. To quote the IARU:
BPL (Broadband over power lines, or PLC as it's known elsewhere in the world) is nothing more than a spectrum grab by the big utilities who want to use unlicensed, uncoordinated systems to cash in on the Internet craze, without considering the importance of the incumbent duly-licensed users of those frequencies. It's akin to buying a ticket to attend the theater, and having the dialogue drowned out by the person sitting next to you talking loudly. You wouldn't let anyone who wants one buy a big ugly army vehicle and drive around intimidating other drivers as though he or she owns the road, would you? Oh, wait...
And I'll say it again - "ham" is not an abbreviation or acronym, so don't capitalize it!