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Earthlink Invests In Broadband Over Power Lines
prostoalex writes "Earthlink dedicated $500,000 to delivering broadband connections over power lines by launching a test drive of the technology with Progress Energy in North Carolina. 500 homes involved in the projects can sign up for promotional pricing of $20/month, which after 3 months will be changed to $50/month. No word on bandwidth provided, but Ambient Corp., which provides technology for the project and accpeted EarthLink investment, claims data rates exceeding 10 Mpbs."
claims data rates exceeding 10 Mpbs
You know that you won't actually get 10Mbps for this, because the ISP's end bill and equipment needs would be to much. That's why all of the DSL/Cable companies have started sending acceptable usage warnings to their customers because they used up all of their unlimited bandwidth (God I love irony) (God I love being an agnostic who says God alot). Any who, as far as I know, this tech was meant more for giving broadband to them crazy country foke who ain't got them thar new digitized lines.... Right? Anyway, what is the range of these lines? How far away can you live from a "hub" or how exactly does that work....
Pun intended. High winds or storms can knock out power lines, causing people to lose power, but if the ethernet connection is hooked up to said poles, we'll lose internet as well. Oh, whoa is me. Then again, I suppose that unless you keep a generator to run your computers in case of a power outage, it wouldn't really matter if the internet is not working while you're power is out. It's the principle that matters though!
Forecast for tomorrow: A few sprinklings of genius with a chance of DOOM!
Like most regular slashdotters, I've seen this come up a few times, and every time it's mentioned that Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) interferes with all kinds of radios and devices, including ham radios and military communications. My question is this: does anybody think that the military will actually let this happen? Especially given our current state of paranoia, I just can't see the FCC overruling the armed forces and saying, "Nah! Change all of your communication gear so we can speed up Billy Bob Hick's internet!"
Karma: Contrapositive
Not knowing much about how broadband really works, can someone explain to me why this wouldn't have the same limitations as DSL? So, with DSL there's a restriction on how far someone can be from a main telco box. Intuitively it would seem that broadband over power lines would hve the same issues, thus making it no more appealing to deliver broadband to the boonies than DSL, which the telcos have balked at due to cost. Thanks
if you say so. I like their service, and I have no bandwidth caps...I leave them alone and they leave me alone ;-)
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
At least one thing will come of this. When the equipment begins blacking out HF spectrum, the furor should put this half-baked technology out to pasture once and for all. Imagine overseas flights using 10MHz HF SSB communications not able to get clearance to enter US airspace because their comms are blacked out by this garbage?
If this gets to the point that it's deployed in my area, I plan to become *extremely* active on the HF Amateur Radio bands with *full* legal power. If it means fighting fire with fire, then by all means I'm prepared. They operate under the part 15 "non interference" rules. I operate under full FCC license to transmit. IOTW, I win. Hmm... when is the next DX contest???
To quote Part 15: "must not interfere" means that they legally cannot interfere with my operation, and "must accept any interference" means that if I kill an entire neighborhood's internet feed, that's just the breaks. They cant stop my transmissions as long as I am complying with the rules and regs.
But, being a realist, I suppose that once "big business" gets involved, then all they have to do is throw money, and they have plenty, at lobbyists and get congress to pressure the FCC to toss us hams off the air. Sadly, amateur radio does not have the status it once had.
Comments?
de N5DH
I know this is anal, but considering the lack of clear information about IP-over-powerlines, I will pose the following problem.
I am a sound freak. I replace components in store-bought devices, I spend hours adjusting proper placement of speakers and matching cable lengths to millimeter precision. Now if some big ignorant comms corporation starts pumping multi-mhz modulation on my power lines, that will most likely affect my hi-fi components due to high frequency aliasing componded by cheap cabling and long distances. Wouldn't that be VERY BAD for these multi-thousand-dollar amplifiers that rely on crystal-clean power to do their thing ? Conventional power conditioners are designed for filtering minor surges and dips in power, as well as light induced noise (interference). Now if the company injects 'noise' on purpose, with higher amplitude and reflections accumulated over hundreds of miles.. methinks it will seriously hinder the transient performance of my gear and that of many other, more wealthy and lawsuit-happy people.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
My power company only delivers 3 things: high bills (like I will want to give them extra money), power and, my favorite, power spikes (I've gone through two coffee pots, 3 baby monitors and a dozen AC adapters for various things). Yes, the equipment is built by someone else but it will be installed and managed by people that are delivering the first and third things above. This does not have warm and fuzzy written all over it.
We'll for some, a 3rd choice will be welcomed to drive rates down. For other's at least a single choice will be welcomed. More power to them.
Magic Eight Ball: Outlook not so good., Hmmm, how about Excel and Word?
Many (international) BPL interference studies can be found on the ARRL Web site: http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/
- Electricity
- Phone (VOIP)
- Cable TV
- Internet.
How is broadband over powerlines going to be affected by redundant power systems? My understanding is that unless you live in the sticks, there is supposed to be more than one path for electricity to reach your area...The only one of those I would have any sympathy for is Military Communications and maybe CB Radio. The military has advanced equipment (they'd better with these tax rates) and they can change to a different frequency. I'm sure CB can be worked around.
This is somewhat sad that you'd be willing to throw away a natural irreplacable treasure to the bane of corperate profits.
ARINC is a private company that provides radio communications for all overseas airline flights using radio frequencies impacted by BPL systems. ARINC has voiced strong opposition to the BPL, since based on their analysis, it will cause interference. Even weak radio signals can, by forming large antenna arrays over a power line grid, transmit signals over hundreds or thousands of miles. The US Federal Emergency Management agency also strong opposes BPL because FEMA also uses HF radio frequencies for disaster and emergency communications. The American Red Cross uses frequencies near 47 Mhz for coordinating disaster relief, and also has use of certain FEMA HF frequencies during disaster operations. The BPL industry itself has filed comments with the FCC acknowledging the problems with radio interference. However, the FCC is suffering from clouded thinking due to the Commissions desire to wish that their is a fairy tale solution to magically delivery broadband to more U.S. residences. And that by adding an additional technology to the mix of solutions, we will see greater competition and lower prices. The FCC, though, is itself very much aware of the interference problem but continues to hope for some magic technology solution. Numerous countries throughout the world have tested - and shutdown - BPL systems because of the widespread radio interference. BPL in the U.S. will - eventually - suffer the same fate. For now, the power line enthusiasts say they will merely not use radio spectrum shared with, for example, Amateur Radio. But that solution works for only one of the parties - by the time they fence off all of frequencies used by numerous bona fide HF spectrum users, there will be little left to provide useful BPL services.
Matt...
Save the Bottom Line
RWE, one of the big utility companies in Germany, introduced powerline internet in 2001. Read the announcement on Wired.
From the article:
"RWE hopes to have 20,000 subscribers by July and grow that to 100,000 by the end of 2002. Beyond that, the growth potential is enormous."
Right. The last numbers were 15,000 subscribers early 2004 (compared to more than 2 million people using DSL, which by now is offered with 3Mbps).
Powerline internet had technical problems from the start on and came too late.
The electro magnetic spectrum is a natural treasure. A) its the only one we have and B) its finite - we cannot go out and get more.
the portion of the electro magnetic spectrum bpl wants to destroy is also very important because its the only section of the spectrum that bounces off the inosphere (allowing for long distance communications) and its also the part of the spectrum with the least amount of bandwidth.
Their new ideas revolve around ways to transmit data through underground power cables with multiple neutral wires. Big underground power cables are surrounded by multiple neutral wires, which has some shielding effect. The idea is to differentially drive those multiple neutral wires with RF. This is claimed to emit less external RF than driving the high voltage side of the line.
In cities with underground cable vaults, it's easier to wire fibre or coax. Either provides more bandwidth. Ambient only claims 10Mb/s, and that's per cable segment, not per end user.
This looks more like a specialized technology being overhyped than a major breakthrough.
Good god, statements like this make me want to scream at someone. Ham is not and cannot be outdated. Get the pictures of morse code keyers out of your head, ham is about communications, the forefront of communcations. Picture satellites, rovers, talking from one continent to another around the world, talking from one part of a natural disaster to another. Until communications is outdated, ham will not be outdated.