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Broadband Over Power Lines: Coming Soon?
Decaffeinated Jedi writes "With technology improving and costs droppings, News.com offers up an interesting report on renewed interest in delivering broadband Internet access via power lines (a technology known as BPL). Earlier this month, the Federal Communications Commission proposed a new set of rules for utility companies that might want to offer BPL services as a way to 'encourage broadband for the entire United States' -- particularly hard-to-reach rural areas. As the article notes, EarthLink has already started testing BPL service in using power lines leased in Wake County, North Carolina. Could cable and DSL face a new competitor in the broadband market in the near future?"
Has there been any information released about the potential costs to the consumers for this service? I haven't heard anything other than Earthlink's $39.95/month (which isn't much cheaper than what I currently pay for cable). The only way cable and DSL will face any competition from BPL is if BPL is cheaper. Why pay for BPL if it's not cheaper or at least offers more bandwidth for the same price as cable or DSL?
The guitars sound good, now give me about 10db more on the cow bell.
The only problem with this solution is that when the power goes out you are going to lose your internet access.
=)
E.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
Could cable and DSL face a new competitor in the broadband market in the near future?"
I doubt it.
However, if it decreases the market share, then I hope that will mean good things for all of us, lower rates. And that would be a good thing.
Sent from your iPad.
Self installation kit.... Take the black wire and white wire and stick this meter across the terminals. I wonder how many people will inadventently fry?
I can think of at least one advantage of BPL from the providers' POV. It would definitely discourage uncapping.
.. is play Duke Nukem Forever on my Phantom gaming console. I've heard this same thing so many times I have lost hope - especially since anyone that I talked to at my local power provider said they either never heard of it or don't care.
- Who pays to install the infrastructure? If it's the rate-payers, this will be a non-starter.
- Who pays for the hardware at the customer end?
- Why does the FCC seem to ignore the frequency problems?
So, the proposal is to have mega-monopolies managing more infrastructure, delivering service that's not in their core area, and requiring huge infrastructre changes?Hmm. Why does this look bad? Especialy when the local power company has a horrible reputation for maintaining their existing power infrastructure. I think I'll pass on this one.
The city of Sault Ste. Marie in Ontario already has a functioning system as discussed in this article.
The good news is that Ham frequencies trample back, and as a Federally licensed operator, your traffic takes precedence to theirs, and since the stuff will be regulated under Part 15, they will be responsible for all the interference. It probably won't endear you to the neighbors though.
Black and grey are both shades of white.
Hutchison Global Communications, a Hong Kong based telecommunications company and ISP, has been offering broadband internet access to Hong Kong residents over their power lines for over a year now.
At downstream bandwidth upwards of 1.5mbits (and infrastructure to cater to upgrades of up to 10mbits) and at a cost of less than US$18/month, the service has been quite successful thus far, and as a subscriber, I cannot recall a single outage due to problems with the power lines (and not trouble at their network centres or regularly scheduled maintenance operations).
So say I put one of my UPS's on the line (such as a TrippLite w/ISOBAR, which are really great for line noise supression)...does that mean my signal gets filtered out? So I have to leave the line unsupressed, and everytime we have a lightning strike in the area (at least 3-4 times a year), I'm calling the electric company to cmoe replace another fried modem? Do I have to purchase a special ($$$$) supressor from the electric company that has a bandgap filter just for that frequency?
Seems as if there are too many variables once you are inside the house, nevermind the problems with Ham bands, Bluetooth, etc.
Chris Knight is my hero.
I dont understand what the fuzz is about, around broadband over powerlines. It has been in use here in iceland for quite the while now, and my experience of it, is that its laggy (around 500 ms) and the speed is rather unstable, since its based on how many are using it at the moment. I admit its rather cool to connect your modem into a powersocket instead of a phonesocket but its not much more than that, here at least adsl 1,5 mbit is cheaper, and faster, the only thing power has over that is it uploads as fast as it downloads.
Having the same problems for HAM operators, they tried to stop the BPL Test in Austria.
The ministry responsible for this stated that the HAM services in emergency cases are more important and stopped the testlicense.
Heres the Press Info (sorry, its a PDF) from OEVSV, the Austrian HAM assosiation.
Link here for those interested.
Now all we need is for our national telco to roll out ADSL in a meaningful kinda way ... :-/
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
In some residential areas of Madrid (Spain) you can currently get a symetric (600 Kbps upload and download) internet access via power lines for 39 euros/month. Here they call this technology Power Line Communications (PLC) but I think it's the same as BPL.
I don't know how it works though, I use regular DSL access.
You can get more info here: http://www.neo.es (in spanish).
We *HAVE* a hobby, and it's amateur radio. Try to (legally) use a CB to talk to someone half way across the world, it's not happening.
While I'm new to the debate about BPL and its effects on radio frequencies, I don't think the FCC would allow for something like this if it would completely kill other, legitimate uses of radio (such as amateur frequencies and FEMA, as the grandparent post mentioned). And either way, according to ARRL, this is a Notice of Proposed Rule Making, meaning "We're thinking about deciding on this issue, so let us know what your feelings are", not necessarily "This is what's going to happen."
Three dits, four dits, two dits, dah!
Radio, radio, rah rah rah!
Try to use a telephone (even a cell phone) after a disaster such as a hurricane or tornado. Even the terrorist of 9/11 has shown that phones cannot be relied upon.
Ham radio on the other hand only needs an antenna (A simple piece of wire can do that) and some type of power source such as a running car or generator.
Yes, the telephone works 98% of the time but when it fails for the 2%, it is nice to have something to fall back on.
since we are looking into every single line that runs into houses to bring internet to homes, are water lines going to be next? How about pulsating water like morse code to transmit data, or better salinate it so that it can carry electricity?
Not necessarily. phone line != DSL availability. DSL is only useful/available if you are within something like 15000 feet of the CO. beyond that, the signal is weak and unstable, and even so the bandwidth that far out is not worth the effort.
;) and besides, its too expensive.
Where I live, there is no such thing as DSL, nor Cable broadband. Hell, I cant even get an ISDN line because the equipment where I am is not set up to support it. (at least thats what the phone company has told me after repeated attempts to get one installed)
Now, on the one hand BPL could theoretically bring that to my house, or as one way goes, at least close enough to my house that a WAP can get the bandwidth the rest of the way to my LAN. BUT on the other hand, in the US at least, it is still in the bare testing stages, AND is NOT a licensed device.
As an amateur radio operator, I have been following this closely. The FCC rules do NOT make any part 15 changes, and in fact order BPL providers to provide a quickly searchable index of all equipment, AND provide ways to shut segments down remotely, AND to immediately cut the BPL signal off should someone on a licensed frequency complain.
So, lets say this rolls out, and I as an FCC licensed radio operator attempt to contact someone on a freq below 30MHz, but instead get nothing but RFI from the currently operating BPL system in my area. In that case, according to the FCC proposed rules, the BPL provider would have to ceace any and all BPL transmissions upon my notifying them of interference, until such time as they can fix the issue and eliminate the RFI. And that doesnt have to come from an Amateur Radio op either.
The local police use VHF here, but they also share HF freqs for paging and local comms with the Fire/EMS depts. not to mention the HF freqs licensed to FEMA and other emergency agencies.
Honestly, where I am, the only viable broadband would be satellite, but the latency on a bidirectional satellite connection would prevent me from playing games...
Ya need to keep in mind that the majority of people MAY live in or around major cities, but BPL is not meant for that use... it was meant as a cheap means of getting broadband out to RURAL areas where the popluation is not as concentrated. The tests are in major cities because of convenience, and in part because the power companies are hoping that by running it on underground cables, they can make a case that there is no real RFI issue.
But in any case, the FCC has made a proposal for rulemaking, it is still open to discussion/review/input from the public (or will be soon) and there is still a lot of discussion before anything becomes concrete.
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
Maybe I should be clearer: I don't care about your internet access.
Hmm... let's see:
160M: 200kHz
80M: 500kHz
40M: 300kHz
30M: 50kHz
20M: 350kHz
15M: 450kHz
12M: 100kHz
10M: 1.7MHz
"Wide band"? Where? Not until you get up to 2M (4MHz) and 70cm (30MHz), and I don't think those are even going to be affected by BPL. Your cell or cordless phone uses much more bandwidth than any of the above frequencies.
*plonk*
Three dits, four dits, two dits, dah!
Radio, radio, rah rah rah!