Slashdot Mirror
Cincinnati Gets Broadband Over Power Lines
kotj.mf writes "According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, Cincinnati-area electric utility Cinergy has become the first electric utility in the country to offer broadband over power lines. There's also a press release. At $29.95/month for 1 Mb/s both upstream and down, it's only a few bucks more than the local dialup providers. Can we expect the power companies to start giving Cable and DSL providers a run for their money? Finally, my town gets AHEAD of the times, for once."
Cincinatti is famous for something other than WKRP.
And why did you staple the trout to the RAM?
I don't see anything that great about this change. Am I missing something? Is this like changing to electric powered cars?
I want to see the first guy to to try tap into that broadband illegally....bzzzp!
I can't wait! I'm going to go tear a lamp cord off the lamp, fray the wires, and jam them into my modem port. Pretty soon I'll be surfing the way Al Gore meant us to!
signed, Les Nessman.
Since when is twice as much "only a few bucks more"? Hint: AOL doesn't count as one of "the local dialup providers".
I wonder if they will deliver on the promise of 1 mb/s upstream. Getting a megabit down is common place these days, but that kind of upload bandwidth would be nice to have for 30 bucks a month...
-dewhite
Ham Radio will interfere with it severely, and there won't be a damn thing the provider can do because it's under FCC part 15, which must accept any harmful interference, especially from PROPERLY LICENSED services. Of course, the same rules will also hold the power company for any interference caused to the amateur radio service. Don't expect this to be available for long. Maybe now everybody will see that it doesn't work and let the abomination die like it should.
Why is it that the (currently) most controversial method of broadband internet access gets symmetric speeds by default? Are power companies the only ones to realize that it makes sense to give identical upload and download?
print 'Hello world!';
http://compbrain.net
so what are the interference ramifications of this?? i still hear people complain about this. i think the biggest thing to note is the price. im under the impression that cable/dsl are typically 40-50 around the US. if this is an indication, then i think power internet will become prevelent quickly. cheaper and more widely available (theoretically)
So a major city has it. Seems to me the only people who would really gain anything are people in rural areas. I get > 3Mbps with my cable line, more than 3 times as fast for about the same price. Although, I can see it being great as a proof-of-concept...
bash: rtfm: command not found
I know that broadband over power lines sounds nice, but what if you lose power? How ya gonna surf the....oh...um...nevermind.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
It basically means that all those ppl without a cable provider in their area can now get broadband. And at quite a good speed and price as well. I pay more than that for a 512kb/s
I live in a pretty big apartment, and my landlord takes care of all of the electricity. Will I still be able to get broadband over power lines? I assume they should be able to work it like a cable modem (i.e. everyone in the building is on the same cable line), but don't know technical details about broadband over power lines.
Will this increase the possibility of power outages at all?
The circle continues?
don't worry, Cinergy wasn't slashdotted, it was just a bad link actual Cinergy site
Theory of flight?! I'll teach you the theory of fist!!
With that bandwidth at that price, Cincinatti gamers will be some serious LPB's. I am filled with gaming envy.
"You know Myra, some people might think you're cute. But me, I think you're one very large baked potato."
Ham Radio will interfere with it severely, and there won't be a damn thing the provider can do because it's under FCC part 15, which must accept any harmful interference, especially from PROPERLY LICENSED services.
If you live in the Cincinatti area and have a HAM license, it's time to find some major power lines and start transmitting like your life depended on it!
Time for a industrial grade surge protector.
Yep. And since I'm a duly licensed amateur radio operator, then if it's rolled out in my area then they have to put up with the interference.
I still think that interference with government services on the HF bands will be the death, if not at least the curtailment, this technology. At the very least it cant be deployed near any government installation.
At least then the take up may improve if it's shown to be successful.
Whats the data quota?
Would be nice to be able to have broadband without having to rely on a phone service being active.
using technology that hasn't already been tested and proven through 40 years of rigorous use.
That's why I use Not@Home cable service.
tcd004
HAM Radio - The fat nerds Playstation.
Expect somewhat intense resistance to BPL from telecoms and cable companies. They are not just competing for broadband customer in the DSL/Cable/BPL high speed Internet market.
Once you have a megabit-per-second+ line, you can start talking about all sorts of things, including VoIP and video on delivery piggy-backing on national grid.
did you RTFA? "He said the utility has found no problem with radio wave interference, a concern raised by many amateur radio operators." After a 1 year test, it didn't interfere, and the FCC really wants this to happen. It is going forward.
Throw away your surge protectors for more bandwidth! Install lightening rods to increase your chances of power surges! ;)
> Don't expect this to be available for long. Maybe now everybody will see that
> it doesn't work and let the abomination die like it should.
Sounds like a good time for US based geeks to take a bet. In the UK gambling companies will take bets on pretty much anything legal (though they pretty much all have policies which prohibit betting on the likely date of death of celebrities, or changes in (drug, for example) law). Perhaps someone in Ohio (or elsewhere) can check it out.
another area's ham radio operators get it up the arse
73 de F8EJF
Yup - sure,
Until your local FEMA | Red Cross | ATC |GVT | HAM | fires up his transmiter and attempts to do their job.
You'll be lucky to get a SYN,ACK for your SYN at that point. And, being a 'Chapter 15' device, your complaints of poor service will fall on deaf ears - BPL must accept any interfearance it gets.
Plus - If your local, licensed HF operator can show that BPL interfears with THEIR operations? Well, it's up to the BPL provider to fix it. Can you say: 'Connectivity outage' while they re-engineer sending broadband data down 50 year old wires?
Amen. The interference this service causes on the amature bands is well documented at the ARRL website. I know there is the usual cry that Amature Radio is dead, and isn't useful, and what have you. But the fact is the amature radio service is a vital emergency service, and has a large population of experienced old-school hardware hackers who are still experimenting and adding to the art.
Broadband is good.
Broadband over powerlines - not so good.
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
Have fun when you guys need to hold a huge event or get hit by a tornado or whatever, and the hams who are trained to do it can't do their jobs properly because of all the interference. Would you rather have 1 Mbps internet for $40 a month, which isn't that great compared to cable or DSL (I've seen 3000/800 Kbps for cable, by RCN), or reliable emergency communications? How would you feel if BPL shut down 911? I bet you wouldn't be too happy.
I thought the PlayStation was the "fat nerd's PlayStation"?
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
What if the power company clocks the datastream by using the 50 Hz (IIRC) that AC power cycles at? Could one then screw up the connection for other people by feeding back aperiodic signals to the power grid?
These guys are full of sales pitches. Penn Power and Light is the first BPL deployment in the US. IdaComm is the second, these guys barely make 3rd.
Fuck you, HAM operating piece of shit.
LOL no that's the Xbox
This is pretty bad. I was using my electric toothbrush after I had my house wired for electric internet. I noticed this bad taste, and all of a sudden, I'd somehow downloaded some porn spam into my mouth. Yeecchhhhhh.
Cincinnati Bell migrating from 768/386 DSL @ $40/mo to 3Mb/768 at the same price.
I fail to see how this $30 1Mb/1Mb broadband is a great thing.
this will probably cause a major brownout around june of this year.
Marge Schott WAS really keeping Cincinnati back in the 19th century!
This could lead to some interesting power surge attacks in the future to disrupt communications etc . I Like the speed and the price, but I don't know about plugging my nic into the outlet.
I live just north of Cinci and the local DSL provider (Zoomtown) just bumped their customers up to 3/1 MbPS (something like $40 a month). Roadrunner cable (~$45 a month I believe) is also a big competitor in the area. Cool technology, but are they really going to get a big market share with cheap slow dial-up at $10 less a month and bigger band at $10-15 more? Seems to me they need to increase their speed to compete with broadband or lower their price to compete with dialup.
1: Could someone with a properly configured radio reciever monitor traffic over this system wirelessly?
2: If it's possible to monitor signals with radio equipment, could you transit? Is it unreasonable to call this analagous to the power co. deciding they're going to switch all their equipment over a wireless network?
Maybe you'd like to read more than the power company's own propoganda?
/. about how Austria dropped this idea due to interfearance issues. (sorry, I don't have the link)
::Baaaaaa!:: ::Baaaaaa!::
http://www.computerweekly.com/Article127428.htm
http://www.arrl.org/news/features/2003/07/08/
As well as the report recently on
Of course those that're looking to get your $29/mo are going to say it works!!
Now all they need to do is invent a UPS box that can store 30 minutes of surfing for backup when the power goes out....
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
that I would be able to plug in anywhere on the grid and have access? How would all of this work from an 'account' stand point?
You are in a maze of twisty little pasages all alike.
they could only get 500 meter from the substation. Any transformer between you and the substation. Ok for city broadband but not much use for rural.
Can anyone in Cinci report an increase in HF interference?
"Technology.....the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it." Max Firsch
Fuck the ham radio nerds. I want my 1mb downstream!
I've had DSL since 1998. I believe we had one of the earlier successful, widespread DSL rollouts. (Before that I will say that there WAS a big void in broadband - ISDN was never a real option here.)
Note that over the weekend Cincinnati Bell jumped residential broadband from 768kbs downstream to 3Mbit, without a rate increase! This is the second time they've significantly increased the bandwidth with no change in rates - the first time was just before the RoadRunner rollout. Long live competition!
Yes, but over here in our little corner of the universe we like to call "Rational Land," scientific "studies" conducted by for-profit organizations, especially when such studies appear to benefit said organizations, are considered highly suspect until corroborated by external researchers.
But thanks for playing.
Am I going to be able to pay the 30/month and transfer data upstream AND downstream 24/7? Or am I going to pay 30/month and be bitched at and disconnected after I download a couple gigs?
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Cincinnati is also famous for racial profiling and riots. Don't forget the riots.
SiO2
Oh well, I guess I will be selling excess bandwidth back to the power company along with any extra power.
When do these winter clouds move out?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
As usual...
did you RTFA?
Do you know where you are?
Don't waste time... procrastinate now!
In other news, bread manufacturers are providing lots of evidence that the Atkins diet is crap.
ARRL says it interferes. The power company says it doesn't. Duh. I'd like to see some objective studies on this. Amateur radio has just as much right to exist as anything else in the spectrum. And it's true that power lines in general are quite good at causing RF interference. But I have not yet seen any objective evidence that Broadband over Powerlines causes more interference than the existence of the power lines themselves. Maybe the studies are there - if they are, great. But I haven't seen any that aren't sponsored by either amateur radio groups or energy companies.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
OR... It will interfere heavily with ham radio, which will complain, wail and moan to no avail. you sound pretty certain of yourself there with your "properly licensed" service and all, except that's about as solid as a fart in the wind. The FCC almost 10 years ago knuckled under to the New Improved GI Joe Walkie Talkie (cellular) industry, and drew a line across a chunk of public spectrum and said "Thou shalt listen here no more." They've approved an ignorant consumers nightmare called HDTV, the implementation of which has far less to do with HDTV than it does bulldozing certain spectrum into the control of those who hope to profit from selling "personal wireless services". you can no more count on your license remaining valid (or even useable in the HF bands) on the basis of the existence of either the past, or the FCC. I know hams have deluded themselves into thinking they shall overcome, but there are billions of dollars to be made, and your passion for HF radio will be painted as the outmoded, troublesome activities of a handful of eccentric hobbyists. Your interests will be portrayed by the media as quaint and evocative of simpler times. And "logical" voices will call for the removal of your "anachronistic" sorry asses from the path of progress. The FCC will act against the least financially endowed, or simply NOT respond to the interference complaints of those without corporate monies, and POOF. It HIGHLY more likely that ham radio enthusiasts will disappear from the HF bands than broadband providers. Sorry. I hate it, but if you think otherwise, you are seriously lacking in understanding of how money and the United States government interface.
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
Let me tell you about how Part 15 certification *really* works. They found no problems because they didn't go looking for them. The only BPL trials so far have been: 1) very limited in area, 2) very limited in time, (1 year? Continuous? Hardee-har) 3) some of them on underground primaries, 4) they don't poll HF spectrum users to find out about interference.
The BPL trials have winked on and off so fast that no interference complaints could be logged. It takes a *lot* of time to document an interference complaint so that it is sufficient for an FCC filing.
The Part 15 industry is notorious for submitting "lab queens" to the FCC for certification. Especially the Part 15 devices that run on house wiring and over power lines... they only *model* the power lines, and the models are pathetically simple-minded -- the better to pass Part 15.
Part 15 is a cesspool of spectrum mismanagement and BPL is the biggest turd ever. What galls me is that the FCC should be playing honest broker here, but instead they are cheerleading a questionable technology.
http://www.hamtronics.com/forest_fire.htm
Although this story refers to the 2m band it just shows that amateur radio communication is far from being useless.
PG&E has enough trouble delivering electricity over the power lines, let alone internet access.
Speaking of which, wasn't Cincinnati one of the cities that got hit by the east coast blackout?
Rank Presidents by th
yes, I know FEMA depends on it. Yes, I know it's valuable in emergencies. Two points:
1) if there's an emergency, the power's probably out, and ham will work anyway. If you want to practice, do what amateur astronomers do and go out in the country where I can guarantee they won't have this. It's nice to get out of the city anyway.
2) If ham radio dies, there will be something to replace it in your life. Most of the longtime computer users I knew where I grew up got into it in the Altair days as an extension of ham radio. If you don't want something different, well, I knew a lot of people that loved to ride 3-wheeled ATVs, and hated quads, but they got used to them. the times they are a-changin' and all that shit.
Don't drag down progress by clinging to an anachronism. Please.
I would suppose you need a special modem designed for the internet pipe coming from the power co. BUT what are the possibilities with the currently available Ethernet over Home Power Adaptors? Could you pick up signal from the power co? Would the adaptor and the power company interfere? I don't know the specifications of either technology so this is why I ask. It would be interest to go to CompUSA and get $60 adaptor and have 1mb u/d for free....
First, this isn't a "first in the nation", even though the article claims it is. We've had BPL in Manassas for a few months now. I'm pretty sure I've also heard about a city in Florida and somewhere out west, but I'm too lazy too search Google for them.
On the impact to Telcos, Qwest has announced "naked" DSL where you don't need to purchase dial-tone to get DSL and one of the reasons they cited for packaging it that way was to compete with BPL.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
As another poster mentioned, ham radio operators (of which i am one [not fat! not old!]) are not the only services that are licensed to use the HF bands.
The federal government is still a big user, as well as state and local services. Broadcasting is still done in the band - its one of the only media forms that can reliably reach en masse into third-world countries.
this interference causing technology isn't the best available. there'd be much more use gained by opening up more bandwidth for 802.11-type services. i'd rather see infrastructure capital go into the best technology possible.
If nothing it will at least put some pressue onto the DSL and Cable proivders (quite possably Satalite aswell) and maybe make them lower their rates or push even more speed out of their lines to keep their customer from hopping onto this for the higher upload. Also should be an interesting read of their AUP to see if they allow people to run personal web servers on their connections or not.
GeekLeak.com - Silly name, serious geeks
"Did you RTFA?" You must be new here. Moving on, moving on.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
Hmmm...A long legal battle between amateur radio operators and a power company. Can I bet on it?
-B
the utility has found no problem with radio wave interference and microsoft has found no fundamental security weaknesses in its products. and enron saw no problem with inventing intangible investments. bush found no reason to think saddam wouldn't make a mushroom cloud out of us any day. and i have a marvelous over-water vehicular conveyance device located in brooklyn i can let you have for a pittance. and i see no problem giving you a quit-claim deed to it.
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
I live in Cincy and have the phone company's dsl service (very good service I might add). Last couple weeks they've been upgrading everyone to 3mb/1mb and dropped the price a bit. Nice to see some competition stirring up the pot now. Good news on an otherwise sad day here in Cincinnati. Marge Schott passed away. :(
Cable lines are shielded (COAX); power lines aren't (and can't be, really, at those power levels).
DNA just wants to be free...
If I buy a UPS, will it function as a transparant cache?
Hate me!
I think this is an AMAZING thing to happen because power outlet internet access would be the most easily accessible form for people to connect to.
And what if the power company next puts mega wireless access points on top of their power poles?
We really need to get an entire city running internet wirelessly.
What moron put this as flamebait? If you can't debate something then try and squash it....
One should not theorize before one has data. -Sherlock Holmes-
In this situation, the "said organization" only benefits if the service is successful. It'll only be successful if interference is not a major problem. Knee-jerk anti-corporate thoughts aside, I think we're still squarely in "Rational Land."
The government created the Internet in America. Why shouldn't it be treated like any other large piece of infrastructure that makes life better for all citizens? The interstate highway system for instance. The damage caused by greedy gatekeepers to the Internet results in the "digital divide" which is just anti democratic IMO.
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
But Qwest wants $32, while in bundle with home package the same DSL costs $27.
Besides, only in some areas Qwest offers 1.5 Mbps downlink, in most markets its 256/512 at most. Plus they are not available where I live, so if BPL came around I'd be in line to sign up anyway.
/me runs to get a HAM radio ;)
From the article:
Tim Barhorst, an information technology consultant in Hyde Park who has been using the technology for a year, said he's been impressed. "I find it's very convenient," he said, noting that he can set up his computer anywhere there's an electric outlet.
So, it looks like you can connect with your own account anywhere.
A modern day witchhunt.
Too late, she died today.
The majority often times rules. Or at least lately those with the most money make the rules/laws.
I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of computer/internet users would side with $30/month symmetrical 1Mbps.
Nothing personal and I'm not trying to offend anyone.
Who will guard the guards?
I live in Brownsville, Texas, an absolute shithole where everything gets to last. And yet I'm only paying $30 for 3mbps down and 384kbps up with Road Runner. I don't know where you get this loco weed hallucination that cable upload costs a shitload if you want it over 128kbps.
Wonder what it'll cost to get a line run up to Ann Arbor / Ypsi from Cincy? :)
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
You can't pump a high speed signal through transformers like that, (transformers are tuned to a specific frequency domain), so anyone think that their running the signal on a seperate line on the poles until they get to the transformer to your house or aparment. Since the signal only travels a few blocks at best, there would be a signifigantly smaller amount of interference than everyone thinks.
You forgot the absolutely fantastic ice cream! If any of you are ever in town, stop by Greater's or Aglamesis. Some of the best ice cream you will ever have
Some things still exist even if they are anachronistic. There are some powerful players in the amature radio arena who desire to keep the service. By your reasoning, we should have no public parks, public roads, or other public properties as monied intrest have long salivated to turn these over to themselves.
Not really a 'Power Company'. Just a weasely subdivision of a power company that's gonna be trying to get the linemen and regular joes within the power company to now maintain this twinky service that 1-4% of their customers are using.
---
If there is truly a conflict, I hope the hams can be given some other chunk of spectrum to operate with, because the number of people interested in accessing the Internet truly dwarfs the number interested in ham radio. I do have some sympathy for "we were here first" but at some point it would simply be a tyranny of the minority.
"When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it's always twenty years behind the times."- Attributed to Mark Twain
Good to see that on issues of technology and consumer choice they are gaining some ground cause they always seem to have those itsy bitsy riots when they oppress minorities
Seriously. I wish they'd make the hams fall under part 15 (ie THEY can't interfere with everything else) with a provision that they can crank it up in emergency situations or periodic emergency tests.
I remember when I was a kid we lived near a ham with a rig that was powerful enough that if the amp was turned on to our stereo speakers we'd pick him up. Didn't even need to turn on a tuner. He was just an ass about it and the FCC didn't give a damn (all they care about is fining Howard Stern when he swears).
And while there are some real uses for hams (emergencies, etc.) I don't think I've ever heard a ham on any of my scanners or shortwaves that wasn't talking about 1) the weather or 2) their radio equipment.
Les Nessman was the nerd.
Venus Flytrap was the black guy, and he was cool as hell.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
you'll have digital telephones using the power lines too... Now tell me, how the @^$# do you call PG&E, when you have a power outage? :p
My other dog is a Wienerschnitzel.
Then we can be free of the tyranny of the power company!!!
You don't have to go back very far in slashdot to find articles about DSL, or wireless, either. What this tells me is that there is no need to use government monoploy power over any high-speed Internet ventures. Power companies are offering high-speed Internet access because they believe they can make a profit at it. Other companies (cable, DSL, satellite) think they have the best way.
The good news for us: We get to sit back and enjoy high-speed Internet at better availability and prices, and with no government interference. All thanks to the folks that brought you the free market!
There's a project underway in my community to replace the septic tanks with something more modern.
I keep suggesting that we do a wireless sewer, but no one ever listens.
Then again, I wonder if sewer gas conducts electricity? Could be onto something... But seriously, we may very well be laying down fiber optic cable alongside the sewer as it's installed. Just as long as both pipes end up with enough bandwidth...
Weeks of coding saves hours of planning.
Whatever the turnout from this is (technically speaking that is), I think it's a good thing creating a little extra competition for the big boys. Whereas they were able to pretty much keep any other DSL company from joining the game, all of a sudden there is a new broadband provider to make these established DSL fellas make sure they have competitive pricing and decent customer service. That's definitely a good thing and I'm looking forward to the competitive benefits. Now to see how all this VoIP works out...
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
By the same logic, let the firefighters sit at home 24/7 until there's a fire, THEN go train, THEN go to the firestation, THEN go to the fire . . .
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
NT(No Text)
Don't you remember your physics?
They can be inductivly shielded. AC current travels over two lines with opposite current flow in each line (and the current in each line occilates).
To shield, simply form one wire into an insulated tube and run the other through it.
I'm not sure what to use for insulation though.
boyz and their drama...
so that means you have an x-box
You get what you deserve, I guess.
Oh, and the things I said are true.
The problem is, the only people who give a shit are amateur radio groups, and energy companies. Who else is going to lay down the moolah?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Hams object, not because it's a good and valid method of delivering bits, but because it interferes with emergency communications.
8
There's lots of ways to get good Internet feeds to folks; just look at what Robert X. Cringely has done with 802.11b. Look in the archives of his columns at www.pbs.org and see there are untapped alternatives.
To understand why we're concerned, go switch your hi-fi to AM, tune to a vacant spot between stations, and turn up the volume about half way. Then, try to have a phone conversation over a bad cellular connection with your ear six inches from the speakers, and you will still have an easier time communicating than hams will when we experience the 16 db over S9 interference already demonstrated by BPL.
I will make a small wager with you, shaka999. If you live within North America, I'll wager your state's or province's emergency plan counts on hams. So does your county's emergency plan, and your city's.
You see, hams _practice_ at getting data through emergency conditions. We do it at our expense, with equipment we buy, build and maintain ourselves, without government funds.
There's even a subsection of every national ham organization dedicated to emergency services. Yeah, I belong to one, and was out in the last ice storm, two months ago, delivering nurses to the local hospital because the roads were otherwise impassible, and the locals had already overloaded the cellular network to the point where a fast busy tone or "All Circuits Busy" signal was as likely as dial tone.
BPL threatens the entire ability to function on the frequencies needed the most for long-range communications, the HF bands. If this interfered with TV (VHF and UHF), well, everyone would kvetch, but instead the power companies have designed these systems to use HF (aka shortwave) frequencies.
Long range radio relies on HF, because it takes those lower frequencies to effectively bounce off the inner layer(s) of the ionosphere. Higher frequencies (VHF, UHF, SHF, microwave) just zip right through the F, F1 & F2 layers, so we can't do bank shots to get a signal from Earthquakestan to Resourceland to let them know how many units of Type A to send.
Satellite? Well, gee, that presumes the ground stations survived that quake/tornado/hurricane/typhoon, that the power didn't fail, and the phone lines to the earth station still work. Oh, yeah, and IF there's a free satellite channel for us, which NASA's problems have not made any easier.
Now, America's three-quarters of a million hams are not alone here, as you make it seem. The NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration), who you'd expect to be gung-ho over more bandwidth to previously underserved areas, and also FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), have gone on record to object. They document that BPL was a complete disaster, interference-wise, when tried in Japan. The Austrian trials are on hold because the power companies there were not able to rein in the interference.
But, it's Politics with a Capital P; who is beholden to whom, and who bought whom.
Now, you might say, 'well, if there's a disater, the power's down, right'? Not necessarily. BPL can cause interference for miles and miles, but if a hospital needs to call for blood, what's the power company supposed to do, shut down the entire grid?
Besides, remember that hams buy their own gear to practice and learn with. If we can't use HF, well, no one will buy new HF gear, no one will learn the tricks of HF (which is _very_ different than the skills needed for the garden-variety, talk-around-town two meter and 70 cm band users), and no one will bother to keep the automated packet netowrks in service, the digital backbones of the ham world which move the vast majority of message traffic.
Sometimes, _nothing_ but Morse ("the original digital") will get through, but with BPL jamming the HF spectrum, morse will become a dead letter.
I mean, man, you can put a bra on Michael Powell, and yuk it up all you want (see URL) but, damnit, these changes will *kill* people.
http://www.wweek.com/story.php?story=485
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
If so, please share. If not, you're not giving the FCC the credit they deserve for all of their hard work.
Well said. I'd moderate this up if I had any points.
The number of people this could benefit far outweigh the number of Ham operators. Being kicked out for the sake of progess sucks but it is sometimes necessary.
The emergency services argument doesn't hold much weight. If something hit a populated area the service could easily be shut off.
One should not theorize before one has data. -Sherlock Holmes-
I just love how people here at slashdot are so smart. They know about every virus that comes out and can set up a zillion services on a zillion different computer platforms. But, when it comes to actual networking they are a bunch of chowderheads with nothing to do but speculate and make jokes.
I have run networks over the powerlines of companies for about 10 years now. First it was serial communications to control facilities (AC) and the like. This is nothing new. Nowadays many homeowners use power connects for their computers and have X10 stuff in their house for home automation as well. Cisco makes stuff for this. You guys are scared of it because you have not seen it. Once you see it then you'll be all into and pretend you were never the luddites that you are right now.
The only real problems with this technology is the need for a frequency router to connect different phases of power together. Again, this has been for ten years as well. Next time you go into your companies network room (if they let you in there) go and look at the UPS. See if it has a box with a 9 pin dshell on it that is connected to a wall socket. Then go and look at the AC system. Then marvel over ancient technology that was under your noses for 10 years.
Run away screaming now. The Outlets are alive.
And with out other studies that contradict it we should assume that it is bull? You think that we should assume the worst and condemn a study that does not agree with your preconceived uncorroborated notions?
If you have real evidence that disproves the study, feel free to educate the rest of us, but without that your comment was neither constructive, helpful nor insightful.
Underloved Movies and Pub Quiz: donotquestionme.org
It isn't just amateur radio. Try ships at sea, aeronautical communications, police, fire, forestry, government, military, disaster services, broadcasting, and many others. Those services are allocated those frequencies by international treaty. They are not going to vacate their frequencies so that a few pr0n addicts can download photoshopped pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar a little faster.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
FCC of US will do what is necessary according to its charter or equivalent directive goal set. Only genuine complaint founded in fact of experience with proof and isolated to this supposed interference as cause will end this service. Complaints are mixture of supposition and blunt misinformation if made in other circumstances. Nothing apart from those proved to be effected will change policy, such is necessary and just.
The possiblity of the introduction of such services has long been a concern for radio users. Power Line Telecommunication (PLT) DOES cause interference in the HF bands. Radio Society of Great Britain: http://www.rsgb.org/emc/pltnew.htm
But the fact is the amature radio service is a vital emergency service
I would assume that if we were having to use ham radios for emergency communication, then people would be unable to get online anyway and interference becomes a non-issue. Besides the same could be said of internet communication and probably even moreso, since it's more widespread. Imagine if telephone lines caused interference with ham radios. Do you think that anybody other than those hobbyists would care?
Don't get me wrong. I think ham radios are a worthwhile hobby and situations exist that make them a necessity, but I think internet communication is definitely a higher priority in this century.
Did you ever consider the possibility you had a lousy stereo?
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
I guess that would be nefarious, not famous. Doesn't Cinci have one of the least amount of parkland per capita out of any US city? Also, haven't they been plauged with scandels over the years?
FEMA could lay it down... they use the same frequencies and have the bucks and the authority to do something. The already filed comments saying it has the potential to interfere.
I also believe that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (part of the U.S. Department of Commerce) is doing their own study.
Underloved Movies and Pub Quiz: donotquestionme.org
UNCORROBORATED? This is like asking for a study to see if people die when you shoot them! Wideband signals, when pushed through a long, unshielded wire, radiate. This is fact. Several very famous people in the 19th century figured this out.
Next stupid question? Perhaps you'd like an experiment to see if water freezes when you cool it?
I guess the biggest factor playing in favor of this technology is that power lines are ubiquitous. I don't call the ISP and fret at the usual "Sorry, this facility is not available in your area", anymore. Hell! It better be available. This can be a big advantage. Almost everywhere you go, you have power. So, you have potential for internet connectivity. No more worrying about whether that place will have an RJ11 or RJ45 jacks or 802.11. I'm really concerned about the security though. So, your next bank transaction is going through that big ugly power transformer sitting a few meters away from your house. How does that make you feel? I mean power lines are easily accessible and so I guess easier to tap into. On the positive side, there are some cools things that may happen. I would assume soon we'll have computers with no ethernet ports. Just plug in the power cable and that's all you need for power as well as network connectivity. Or, the gadgets at home might talk to each other using the power line they are anyways connected to.
My other dog is a Wienerschnitzel.
Finally, my town gets AHEAD of the times, for once. You realy have slow tech in the US! Germany have had this for several years, and here in Norway we have had it for almost 2 years already. There is absolutly nothing new about it. Pleace wake me up when I can play UT with the man eating mars aliens ;)
...since they have a habit of censoring just about everything under the sun.
:)
The C stands for Censorship. After all of this, what's left to justify broadband?
Make cheese not war 8:)
There are already two competing companies, Time Warner (i.e. cable) and Zoomtown with DSL. This will make things interesting. The price for cable is $40.00 a month with downlstream _advertised_ around 2Mbps and upstream much lower than 1Mbps. I would switch to pay $10 less, it would ammount to $120 a year!
So...
How's the rent, and are there lots of restaurants?
=)
Amateur radio has just as much right to exist as anything else in the spectrum.Actually, by law, Amateur Radio has more right to exist in the spectrum in question that broadband over power. Sorry. Not all portions of the EM spectrum are equally free in the US.
YOU are the minority. There are people on this planet OUTSIDE the USA, do you know that? There are BILLIONS of people who are not interested in your cheap broadBAND access, but they certainly are interested in broadCAST access.
/.
BPL is RF pollution of the worst kind. It does NOT stop at your borders, quite on the contrary. It makes it impossible for millions of people all over the world to listen to a shortwave transistor radio, to get information, to be entertained and to connect with others.
BPL uses the entire shortwave spectrum and creates a noise floor that can be heard all over the world (Ever heard of shortwave propagation? Ever heard what BPL sound like? I guess not.). With your snotty narrowminded attitude you are in fact denying people their right to free access of information.
Cincinatti goes broadband with hundreds of watts of RF energy dissipated into the atmosphere and South America won't be able to listen to their AM radio stations anymore.
BTW, this is not about ham radio, even though I have had my ham radio license since 1979. No, this is about the millions of villages all over the planet, tuning into shortwave radio broadcasts as their only source of timely information. Hundreds of Millons of individuals will love Americans for denying them that.
Tyrrany of the minority, indeed. Since Americans barely represent 5% of this planet's population that statement fits the shoe perfectly, though I suspect it was made with a slightly different angle in mind in your case.
BTW, "I hope the hams can be given some other chunk of spectrum to operate with" is about as perfect a display of ignorance as I have seen, even here on
Does anyone know how these guys are able to comply with the FCC part 15.107 & 207 regulations on conducted emissions? What frequency are they using? If they are above 30 MHz, what about 15.109 & 209 regulations for radiated emissions? Are they taking a risk by staying below the regulatory limits or are they operating on a waiver of some sort?
There's a fatal flaw in your argument.
You claim that if you have to use ham radios for emergency communication, it will be because the power's out/the internet's down/pick your catastrophe... and then BPL won't be interfering with the hams, who can then step in and save the day.
What you fail to recognize is that if BPL obliterates the HF spectrum, hams will no longer have incentive to maintain the ability to use the HF bands they currently use. Next time there's a tornado, earthquake, 9/11-type terrorist attack, there may not be hams there to help.
You're new here, aren't you?
(I've just always wanted to be the one to say that)
I don't know why this is so widely publicised? In Pennsylvania, we've had BPL for half a year now. Sure, it's a great technology, but do we need to here about every single place that has it? Granted, I wouldn't have minded seeing my tiny little city being on /., but still! Cya
Water doesn't always freeze when you cool it. It will not freeze if you supercool it. Any other 'stupid' questions you want to ask?
Underloved Movies and Pub Quiz: donotquestionme.org
Broadband over power has benefits in that it's (generally) faster than dsl, requires no additional wiring, last mile costs are already taken care of. The problem is that it interferes with the HF radio band. The millitary is hosed. Ham radio is hosed. Ship to shore communication is hosed (Guess what...carefully aiming a satellite dish at a satellite on a rolling ship is hard to do). Long range aircraft communication is hosed (VHF is good for 140 miles at 30,000 feet. 140 miles ins't 1400 miles or 2800 miles and the ocean is a big place). It would be ok if they could get rid of the interference. Shielded power lines maybe? Just replace the grid and all house wiring (in all houses everywhere) and you are fine!
the Ronald Reagan Expressway...
two stadiums for teams that have traditionally rewarded their fans with either stinginess in acquiring/keeping talent (the Reds) or just plain incompetence (the Bengals), paid for with taxpayer money (local sales tax). The Reds actually told the city where they wanted their (free) stadium and the city complied. This is fiscal conservatism, I guess...
the police seemed to have been trained by the LAPD Rampart division (although they're apparently improving...)
These are some of the glories of Cincinnati... The chili and the pigs are good ideas, though. Cincinnati is a pretty city, but I am a clueless liberal and don't understand anything their government does.
My DSL router is plugged into my UPS. Sometimes I wouldn't even notice that the power has gone out if the UPS didn't beeping.
Well it was my dad's 400W RMS/channel beast. Half heat-sink, analog meters and could probably shake the foundation of an apartment building and as I recally it cost an assload of money at the time.
I really don't think it was a lousy amp. And this was a modular setup and as I recall, neither the tuner nor the preamp needed to be on for the signal to come in...
That said it shouldn't even matter. I've lived on military bases and driven around radio towers and never pick up *their* signals. But I only have to be sitting near a truck with a (presumably fairly low power, since it's in the car) ham transmitter it'll completely overload my car stereo...
Yea, I know most hams are responsible and if they have good equipment and USE THE LOWEST NECESSARY POWER FOR THEIR TRANSMISSION you never even know they're there. But man, getting that license just makes it possible to be sooooo obnoxious.
Race riots.
A city charter that makes discrimination on sexual orientation legal.
Really bad drivers.
How would you feel if BPL shut down 911? I bet you wouldn't be too happy.
Yes, because then we wouldn't have had dead firefighters.
Oh, and this is completely besides the point that maybe... just MAYBE... the power companies would turn off the BPL. MAYBE.
Please mod this down immediately.
These groups are very much distinct, although both like to steer laws/rules in their favor :-) Which one are you suspecting here?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I personally, think the ham-radio should yield. An enthusiast-only hobby (admittedly, not one of mine) vs. cheap Internet access for the masses? Sorry...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
If the only time that the Ham bands could be used is when the service is shut off, then people will not buy and use Ham-related equipment. So, the emergency services that Hams provide may not be there when the BPL is shut off. So, the emergency services argument does hold some weight.
Oh, God NO!!! All interference is due to evil, selfish hams! It sucks that everytime the subject of ham radio comes up that someone who had a crappy experience years ago with one guy has to unlimber his tarbrush.
Unfortunately, the visible side of ham radio is the interference, the on-the-air whining about bunions and bypasses, and the useless contesting which probably does more to clog the HF airwaves on weekends than BPL ever will. We hams are going to reap the benefits of bad responses like this guy's (which never get forgotten), the inability to relate our hobby to the kids, and promotion of some odd kind of secret society mentality. Yeah, we do public service, but not enough to save our asses this time.
yes... yes I do.
At the skyline by the university there is typically a line out the door at 3 AM. Best Munchie food ever!
Put down the ham set and pick up the power line. The Internet is now infinitely more accessible and far-reaching than amateur radio ever was or will be. Sure, you can link up with satellites and coordinate a large effort to talk with someone on the other side of the world for a few minutes. Sure, the hardware's interesting and it's a nice nondestructive hobby. But the world of radio and wired communications has been growing exponentially while the ham community sits still. Every other person in developed countries has a pocket-sized radio that will let them talk to anyone in the world. Sending images and documents to another person either wirelessly or over land lines is no longer an exciting event to be shown off at the local ham club meeting, it's something ordinary people do every day.
There's something to be said for maintaining old traditions and primitive tools, but don't try to preserve it at the expense of forward progress. There are isolated cases of ham radios playing important roles in emergency missions, but these are very rare and you have to know that the hams were bounding with joy behind their microphones at the opportunity to do something more useful than lie about their last fishing trip.
...
But I have not yet seen any objective evidence that Broadband over Powerlines causes more interference than the existence of the power lines themselves. Maybe the studies are there - if they are, great. But I haven't seen any that aren't sponsored by either amateur radio groups or energy companies.
Well, if you can get Aunt Fannie's Quilting Association to sponsor a radio frequency interference profile, be my guest.
My guess is that the military and FEMA are conducting tests now, but the results may not be available to the public for a while...if ever. Expect the FCC to swiftly and severely crack down on power companies that interfere with military operations.
Jim kc0lpv
As a duly licensed ham radio operator. I feel compelled to point out that Ham radio's mission in life is to provide emergency communications in times of national emergencies or natural disaster. The fact that we get to play with slices of spectrum is a nice benefit but not the primary rationale for Ham Radio.
During 9/11 Ham Radio was the only viable wide area communications system which still worked after the loss of the facilities located on the WTC.
Most governental radio systems were kaput.
This is just another example of the current administration selling out the average citzens welfare for the benefit of moneyed interests.
There are two large problems with this type of thinking. For one, "tyranny of the minority" in this case happens to benefit all people, inluding those with broadband, which ceases to function when power lines go down. During hurricanes, tornadoes, and other natural disasters, I think most people will be relieved at the emergency services offered by HAMs. FEMA and other organizations rely on them.
Changing radio frequencies is not all that easy. These are internationally chosen frequencies, because the HF spectrum works worldwide. I doubt the ITU will be willing to change the entire spectrum for a few cities to get broadband. Those are major infrastructure changes, and those frequencies are valuable. Who else is going to give up theirs for HAM's who will not pay (because it is amateur radio for hobbyists)? In this sense, "we were here first" is an excellent argument.
Que tout ce qui est vrai.
This is a terrible idea! You couldn't surf the internet while the power is out!
Haha, sorry, but I'm from Cleveland and currently live in Columbus and had to poke!
Berto
If this were in my area, then I could ditch the cable line altogether like I did with the phone line. Right now, I'm paying almost 50 dollars a month for my 39.95 a month cable internet. I don't watch tv. I don't need cable. I do however need power. It'd be so great to have my internet added on to my utilities.
Yeah, and Trans continental flights as well as ocean wide shipping are archaic as well.
Hey the military really does not the communications.
Explains why the BBC stopped broadcasts to the US as of late.
The static here will cross the globe via F2 propagation Mr. Science.
You are soooooo high tech. Certainly do not want to be in YOUR way as you pollute the airways world wide so you can get your dose of PORN.
Imbecile.
Ahh, he never said that water always freezes when you cool it. He merely used a sarcastic statement to point out that you are an asshole. Get it straight!
Actually, FEMA uses ARES for it's emergency services in most areas....
What about the other power companies that see a potential 10 billion dollar market in broadband? They might spare some lawyers. Especially juicy is the idea that they may be the only high speed option for rural houses. Unless Johnny
Cochran has a 40 ft antenna in his yard, I think the HAM people will lose this one.
-B
You may have a point, if your dialup line is the same as your voice line, but if you have a separate line for dialup (as any parent who has let their kid use their computer long enough to discover the joys of instant messaging would certainly want), depending on how much an extra line is in your neck of the woods, broadband over power lines might actually be a few bucks *LESS* than dialup + extra phone line.
paintball
Heck, just spread the rumor that those boxes up on the power pole are used to monitor your every activity to the government and watch them develop small holes from flying lead projectiles. In the rural areas just tell them that they are for target practice.
Parts of southern Ohio are more southern that parts of the south.
I could care less about South Americans not being able to listen to AMERICAN radio stations. They don't pay for them. GET A LIFE FREELOADERS!
"YOU are the minority. There are people on this planet OUTSIDE the USA, do you know that?"
1 .html
Irrelevent. This is between the FCC, and power companies in the US. Unless you are afraid Joe User's BPL service in Kansas is going to interfere with Claude User's HAM in France...
If transmissions that are unintentional can affect an area that far away, power companies ought to get into the broadcasting business.
Besides all that, have you heard about the experiments in the UK with BPL? You think that the US is the first to do this? Talk about ignorance. Go read http://www.hydro.co.uk/broadband/index.asp or http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/2722
I could be wrong about the distance that the interference reaches, but if you are wanting to blame something on Americans, find something else.
That said, there has been much fear and apprehension to many new technologies being deployed. I welcome the rollout of these services, as they will confirm those, or belay them for good.
> Every other person in developed countries has a pocket-sized radio that will let them talk to anyone in the world.
Of course, amatuer radio is present even in undeveloped countries and in some cases is the only way to communicate with someone other than the locals.
Don't assume that simply because the Internet has changed how communication is done that it is the end-all solution. What happens when an attack brings down the core routers? The Internet isn't quite as capable of routing around failures as everyone hopes.
As for commercial radio, even with walkie-talkies, you can't even come close to the distance, variety of services, independence of infrastructure, or ease of setup that amatuer radio offers.
kc8apf
Am I an asshole for saying that the poster should keep an open mind? Maybe I should have been more careful with my wording:
Perhaps you'd like an experiment to see if water freezes when you cool it?
Well, people do experiment with this, and call it supercooling when the water doesn't freeze. Sometimes obvious things are not that obvious and more research is needed before leaping to confusion.
Trying to get people to think rather than have knee jerk reactions and stick their head in the sand is hard work.
Underloved Movies and Pub Quiz: donotquestionme.org
Ok, so it's for people in the middle of nowhere, and people waiting for the apocalypse. In neither case is broadband-over-power a problem.
...
heres another one. several companies and researchers worked on this all over europe last couple of years to conclude that its just not that nice and completely dropped any plans about it being implemented other than those experimental areas. Nice, and what i usually hear about the US is that you guys got such crappy wires you cant go much further with this.
Good luck anyway!
I see as the town people get their cable, get their DSL and are chugging away....
where am I?
Sitting back with my Yugo class internet....
Can we get some plausible alternatives? I mean, cellular, satellite and broadcast internet are great ideas, but some currently cost $60/month for inferior service...
..also many of these rumors of broadcast wireless internet seem years and years off ...I GIVE UP!!!
now to wait 5 minutes for this submission to go thru...
Eat a Chicken, You know you want to.
Zoomtown is not yet 3/1 MbPS, though they claim to be making the changes. RoadRunner has changed to 3, but it's not available in Northern Kentucky. Additionally, not everybody lives in town -- most rural communities out here don't have anything.
Unfortunately, some areas use Hamilton City power, so I doubt it's available to them.
I bet this will be big in Northern Kentucky.
Ok, yeah my rant there was probably uncalled for. And didn't really make the point I wanted to anyway.
I never said all interference comes from hams. And in fact I do agree that hams have their uses in emergencies. And in contrast to my rant, you get the hams popping out of the woodwork complaining that the broadband'll interfere with them.
I don't question that most hams are good guys who do their best to not trample on other signals, but I *do* question whether they should get priority over other signals (be it broadband, my cordless phone or a cheap baby monitor) during non-emergency situations.
Who wants a net connection that drops every time there's a power failure?
Oh, wait.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
So, you are saying there won't be any WKRP in Cincinnati?
Come on now, how many power lines are at sea or in the sky? The signal levels they are talking about are very very weak. You have to be right next to the power lines to be affected, if you are affected at all.
Had a vcr that went stupid every anytime there was a transmittor nearby. Amateur or otherwise. Only vcr I have had a problem with. The problem was fixed using 2 x 15 cent capacitors and 3 coils made from hookup wire wound a around a pencil. A simple filter and the problem was fixed. The problem was fixed using 30 cents (retail price) worth of parts.
Neighour complaing of tvi problems. The feed line to his tv antenna had broken and needed to be replaced. Still blamed me.
Powered computer speakers acting as a radio receiver. Speakers should not act as radio receivers. If a speaker acts as a radio receiver there is something wrong with the speaker. At least it should be easy to fix.
My favourite. Another neighour complainng of tvi even when all my radios are turned off. Their problem was a very bad reception area for the tv channel they were trying to watch. A better tv antenna fixed the problem.
I can under stand why he might have been an ass. Not excusing it because he should not have been. But if you receive enough complaints and it is mostly because of shody comsumer goods or the people are just clueless it is easy to become a bit cynical.
What are you talking about? Are you saying that emissions from BPL on a power line in the USA will reach more than across the street? You better do some more homework.
Every time something really new gets posted it seems like we here this massive chorus of:
"WE CANT DO THIS BECAUSE OF _____."
in this case it's ham radio interference, or evesdropping or whatever. Most of the time the nay sayers are wrong. Usually those details are thought out and the product isn't half as bad as the naysayers here say it will be. Instead of being skeptical to the point of paddling down a certain river in Egypt, why not be a little more open to innovation?
-- $G
I hope this helps turn other places around, here in Texas it's against the law for utility companies to offer internet service. I still haven't been able to figure out why not...
For all you Ham radio can die types here is some news for you all. I am going to be forced to run my 1200 watts PEP on HF all the time to overcome your interfence folks. Lots more people will be buying HF RF amplifiers. Instead of the lower power levels most have been running they will run the max as the rules allow for. "The minium power necessary to carry out communications" up to a max of 1200 watts PEP. They will be installing gain types of antennas instead of the usual dipole non gain types.
Bottom line don't try and out tech a techie and don't try to out geek a geek. All the packets you will be dropping and connection failing will make you wish you were back on your old dialup. You are not even close to know how screwed the interference is going to be to your beloved broadband over powerlines. While I simply am just doing what I legaly can to maintain communications from my licensed amateur radio station. You r man made interference will loose out in the end. everytime I hear that racket in my radio I am going to be on the phone to my power company complaining about the RF leak. (Not allowed under the current regulations which are not being waved.) They will have to come out and "fix" it. So good luck.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
Good luck! Your outdated equipment doesn't stand a chance at interfering with a superior digital product. Doesn't matter how much power you throw at it, unless you connect your power amp directly to the power line.... There's an idea! Get back to me and let me know how that worked out!
-1 Troll?
/.. We all have opions and enforce them when we can with moderator points.
Okay. The mods are on crack tonight. "Put down the crack pipe and move away from the mouse." You can choose to ignore reality, young welp, but it will eventually bite you on your posterior.
So, how is that Dungeons and Dragons thing working out? Have you kissed a girl yet or do you shave your hands on a daily basis? ; )
I'll accept the mod. This is
SiO2
If the power lines go down...the interference disappears. Thus HAM radios can operate, if there really is a problem.
I want to see a full, independent study of this.
Let Cincy activate it, run it for a year or 2. Then do the serious polling of HAM operators. If there is problems then we should hear about it.
There is no doubt that Ham radio hackers have added an imense amount of knowledge to the subject. I think they have fallen way behind when it comes to newer technologies though. When was the last time you saw a functional spread spectrum frequency hopper in the HAM circles? 1996? Oops forgot they never got it to work.... I say let the HAM radio guys listen to a little bit of static here and there if they are right next to a power line.... bring in the new stuff!
Finally, my town gets AHEAD of the times, for once.
/. bitching and moaning about being stuck to cable or even dial-up and not having DSL available in their areas, I think it's safe to conclude that quality broadband is still not available major parts of the US today, let alone five years ago!
What? Are you kidding? I remember visiting Cincy back in '99 and drooling over the affordable 8mbit DSL connection my cousin's husband already had at his disposal.
Cincinnati Bell was offering this "Zoomtown" service years before anything comparable became available here in the Netherlands.
And considering how often I see people here on
Power lines don't cause RF interference. You are thinking of electromagnetic induction. Not the same as radiated emissions. I think that is what a lot of the confusion is over... Just because your car stereo crackles under the power lines doesn't mean that that it is picking up radiated 60Hz signals, that would be very ignorant to think so. It is field around the power lines that you are coupled to . Just move away from the field. You would have to be in outer space to pick up radiated 60Hz signals...
What many people seem to be forgetting is that hams aren't the only ones affected. The US Military uses the HF frequencies extesively. If the problems are as bad as the hams fear, DOD will go to bat against this. The military can not afford to lose commo because somebody is sharing his p0rn collection.
The purpose of language is communication, If the idea is clear the grammar ain't important
As much as I'd like to believe that the FCC are stoic defenders of the airwaves, if by some odd chance this risky scheme actually works, you'll find support for Hams weak at best. Look at how fast we lost that little piece of FM when they were fishing for wireless phone bandwidth.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
More power to them, and bandwidth, for less, no less.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
You know what? I've read through a lot of the comments here and as an outside observer I'd say that people are addicted to the Internet.
Notice all the flipping around to justify it.
One is even suggesting a kill switch. I can only conclude that the advocates have never faced a disaster requiring Hams. They most likely have never hammed in their life.
I just hope that these addicts don't end up destroying a good thing in the process of getting their fix.
I was under the belief that ANY ground based radio wave lengths do not follow the curvature of the earth....so how does this natural curve NOT protect SA from NA? Unless you still believe the world is flat....
[SIG] Remember Mattel handheld games?
In other news, bread manufacturers are providing lots of evidence that the Atkins diet is crap.
Cute. But there -are- a lot of nutritionists who've said the Atkins diet is crap. Just because the source of a given report benefits from a particular outcome does not, by default, mean the results are biased and should be discarded.
ARRL says it interferes. The power company says it doesn't. Duh. I'd like to see some objective studies on this.
Also note the amature operators don't stand to make money by showing broadband over power lines interferes. The power companies, however, stand to gain quite a bit here. You want to presume bias? Ok. Then apply it here and decide who's more likely to bias their studies.
Maybe the studies are there - if they are, great. But I haven't seen any that aren't sponsored by either amateur radio groups or energy companies.
They are. I gave you the URL if you'd care to look. But see my first comment. The methodology used in the ARRL survey is well documented and, unlike a bazillion user bread study, is something you can duplicate yourself. You're kind of taking the "I haven't visited the moon myself, or seen a picture of the LEM on the surface by anyone but the US government, so the landings were probably a hoax" stance.
Don't believe it causes interference?
Grab a receiver that covers the HAM bands, and go someplace where they're trying this out. You want objective studies, then DO them. Radio isn't rocket science.
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
Perhaps you'd like an experiment to see if water freezes when you cool it?
yes I would, can I choose to have it supercooled and bet it wont freeze as long as nothing touches it?
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Redundant? Would someone mind pointing out where everything I said was said before over and over?
Seems to me someone is abusing their mod privelages...
I do have some sympathy for "we were here first" but at some point it would simply be a tyranny of the minority.
the gays,lesbians, and atheists already have the "tyranny of the minority" angle covered.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
If theres not enough interference now with all the power running through the lines, what harm can some packets cause? I mean, theres already a signal running through them, even if it is natural current. If packets are sent through in an orderly fashion wont there be less interference cause from them than there is caused by the power, since the packets will have a wave pattern and be easier to detect and filter out? I don't know much about the physics of it, but it seems to me that if there isnt interference with the lines in place and operating alrezady, there wont be any if you send different signals through them.
do a google search on tropospheric ducting to see an example of how far radio waves can propogate.
It all depends on wavelength.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
This is pissing me off. People in America getting excited that they are getting 1meg?
. jp/kojin/tepco/hikari.htmlo pt/index.html
p romo.yahoo.co.jp/promotion/service/45m/i ndex.html
Try 100meg each for $50 a month
http://www.usen.com
http://www.netsurf.ad
http://www.flets.com/
For 40meg each for $30 a month
http://www.flets.com/adsl/index.html
http://bb
http://www.so-net.ne.jp/ADSL/?ac_adsl1
http://www.odn.ne.jp/english/
1meg is disgraceful! The U.S. is going to lose any and all advantages in the not too distant future if we don't make sure we stay ahead of the rest of the world.
Kids in Japan and Korea will grow up with 100meg net connections and they will therefore be the ones dreaming up uses for it while our kids will grow up with 64k to 3meg and will therefore not be inspired to consider the possibilities.
If I run my house on 220 volts, will I get twice the bandwidth??
I did the search and read about a dozen articles (mainly from William Hepburn...he seems the most knowledgeable apparently) and it still seems this phenomenon is dependent on weather; not the wave lengths themselves or any other outside force. The reason people can receive AM transmissions further from their source is the fact that they have a longer wave length versus FM...hence some of these waves can travel over a curvature longer....like the earth's surface. That's why you'll lose a FM station faster from the point of origin than an AM station. In bad weather, you'll lose both at the same rate....which also lends credence to William Hepburn's theory; weather. This may, or may not affect transmissions from SA to NA, however in either case communications in ALL forms are usually affected by the weather so we're back to square one; regardless of how they propogate.
[SIG] Remember Mattel handheld games?
"Ham radio operators are constantly pushing the limits of communications technology,"
They are not. Have you even listened to what these yahoos do with their ham radio gear?
They talk to each other and tell each other what kind of equipment they have.
The guys into this are like male nurses and clowns all tied together in one scary package.
I know...I've visted a couple hamfests. It AIN'T pretty.
With DSL, if you have a UPS, you may keep your connection if the power goes out--phone lines, in many areas (mine, anyway, no matter where I've lived) often operate during power outages. What happens to BPL if power goes out? If you have a UPS, can you still remain connected?
http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/#Video
Shocking. No pun intended.
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
Damn, I nutted all over myself more than a few times watching her ta-tas in the re-runs.
I suspect the fellow you are responding too is truly ignorant to the scope of the situation.
I thought the exact same thing as you. The issue is not interference with HAM operators -- that's just a side effect of the bigger issue.
The problem is that most people don't understand what RF even is. We need a good analogy that regular people can understand so they can appreciate the scope of the problem.
For instance, there are rules that state how bright and wide the beams can be on our vehicles headlamps. These guys are metaphorically attaching aerial flood lamps to a school bus so everyone in their vehicle can see for miles. The side effect is everyone else on the road is now blind. In this case the light is the transmitter and your eyes are the receiver.
How bout this one, your in a gym having a conversation with some friends -- then a marching band comes rolling in screamming the schools fight song. Guess who the band represents. Try carrying on your conversation now.
The FCC part 15 rules exist for a reason. We just need to make sure they are enforced.
I say let these guys launch the service then we can document the scope of the problems this technology creates before we crush them.
I like the idea of BPL. The power companys just need to run RF grade sheilded power lines first.
Oh, oops thats right. It would cost money -- alot more than just bribing the right senators.
there is the usual cry that Amature Radio is dead, and isn't useful, and what have you
I hope these newfangled cars don't run too many horses and buggies off the road! Vital emergency services are provided by horse drawn carriages.
What are you talking about?, "Finally, my town gets AHEAD of the times, for once." Cincinnati had DSL and Cable LONG before just about anyone else, and still has it faster than almost everywhere in the nation.
While I agree that the ARRL has a vested interest in this debate, I think it is fair to say that they know a thing or two about interference (see this link for instance). Not only has this been shown to interfere, think of the interference to BPL. Allowing this to go forward will force something to give.
This isn't just a local problem either. Have a look at this report from the ECC (they are a European agency) [NOTE: Sorry, it is in MS Word format]. They clearly believe that interference potential in the frequency range up to 30 MHz "are such that the risk of interference to radio services cannot be limited to a national or regional scale" (see the section entitled "General Conclusions of the report). This is a 112 page report, and while I freely admit I have not read all of it, they clearly say that this won't be a local problem, so just leaving the city isn't going to help. They go on to say that complete interference level restrictions won't work since so many devices currently give off interference in these ranges, but that the BPL (Called PLT in this report) will give "much higher" level of interference.
Several people in this tread have argued that amateur radio is a "dinosaur" or lived passed its usefulness. Many have already pointed out the problems with this. In many parts of the country, HF radio is the only reliable form of communication. In emergency situations HAM radio has proved itself many times over. Have a look here for instance. FEMA have defended the need for amateur radio on numerous occasions.
There is more at stake here than HAM. Have a look at this chart. Of particular interest are the chunks that are noted as "Radio Astronomy". Have a look at this report. Of note here is that the radio astronomy bands have issues with interference already. Solar and molecular cloud observations fall in these wavelengths. Do we really want to add to the pollution of the electromagnetic spectrum? The BPL system will also be subject to interference. This seems like a lose-lose situation to me.
for god's sake, we already gave you NAFTA, now you want to deny us cheaper highER speed internet???
screw ham radio
Yeah! The bastards are stealing our air too! WTF?
I seriously hope you were being sarcastic.
Building a better backup.
Zettabyte Storage
I chose DSL over Cable because I could get a static IP with no ports blocked. What will the electric company offer?
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
The window of spectrum used by HAM is special purely because it is capable of reaching very long distances. Yay for the ionosphere. . .
This is a most unfortunate conflict of interest as I would LOVE symetric 1mbps for $30/mo.
But there are other ways of getting high speed access, there isn't another frequency range that transmits as well.
Building a better backup.
Zettabyte Storage
Not sure about this particular source, but it was top on google, and its a very well documented effect.t m
http://www.realscience.com/propagation.h
In related news, Maxwell says "Suck it".
Building a better backup.
Zettabyte Storage
Although this one is made to Europeian standard, I am sure it would not be that hard to make a similar one for the US.
SIGBUS @ NO-07.308
Fine...I read the article and I have no problem with it. I'm sure it's scientifically correct. The problem is that's not what I was referring to. What I was trying to say is that radio waves DO travel in a linear pattern and the only limiting factor IS the weather (or the sun). ALL communications on this planet are affected by weather; HAM included. Are we now disputing that wave lengths flow in linear patterns? Even if they bounce off an ionosphere during transmission does not mean they are non-linear. It doesn't even mean they can reach the opposite side of the planet. There are transmissions sent out to the universe by planet earth 45 years ago that were limited in their process by the 'ionosphere' and 'troposphere' but still made it out to the freedom of outer space on a linear wave length.
[SIG] Remember Mattel handheld games?
I used to have a lot more respect for HAM operaters before this while BPL issue came up. Most of them don't know what the hell they are talking about. I say if the best they can come up with is that we need them in emergency situations, then lets require them to implement new digital spread spectrum systems to communicate. problem solved. I doubt any HAM out there is up to the task. Come on guys, you are behind by 2 centuries now...
There is also the fact that for atmospheric reflection, not all frequencies bend at the same angle (think prism). An FM signal gets smashed in the upper atmosphere due to the nature of its transmission method, so not much sky-wave propagation is taking place even when FM is used at lower frequencies.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
If only my town would move out of the dark ages and into the glorious revolution of high-speed internet. Oh well. I guess I'll have to continue living in a third-world town. *sigh*
$29.95 a month is how much cable modem service is where I live. Eat that Cincinatti!
WHAT!
LAW AND TEACHING?
What about the fact that the world all over is perfecting this
technology for the use by goverments and citizens to not have
to depend only on an untested virus ridden/infested system?
The net is really great but Radio is at the top of all
technologies used for communications. So instead of taking
out a very proven techology that has served humanity very
well, think of how to merge it with the WWW explotion.
"The problem is that's not what I was referring to. What I was trying to say is that radio waves DO travel in a linear pattern and the only limiting factor IS the weather (or the sun)."
You really don't know what you are talking about, because that exactly is what shortwave propagation is about. With my ridiculously small ham setup I can talk to my buddies all over the planet - my bandwidth being some hundred Hz and my output power not even reaching 100 Watts.
BPL setup radiate with HUGE antennas (power lines ARE antennas) and with lots more power and the entire bandwidth of the shortwave spectrum. Please do some background reading before you go on a wild assumption ride.
"Are you saying that emissions from BPL on a power line in the USA will reach more than across the street? You better do some more homework."
I only see one of us in need of doing his homework and it certainly is not me.
Of course they are effected by the weather, it's a propagating EM wave. It's got all sorts of fun with scattering and absorption. I am not disputing in any way that weather effects radio.
Nor am I disputing that EM waves travel in a linear fashion (with corrections for GR and peculiarities of the medium).
I fail to see how this is relevent to the discussion at hand though.The point is that certain wavelengths show a degree of reflection off of the ionosphere, we agree on this correct? It follows then that a range greater then could be achieved without reflection is possible correct?
I'm not sure I understand your last point, are you saying that if the ionoshpere reflects then how did the radio signals escape? The ionosphere is not a perfect reflector, a portion of the wave is reflected and a portion is transmitted.
Building a better backup.
Zettabyte Storage
Since hams are only licensed for modes which consume narrow bandwidths under 30mhz, it's highly unlikely that any amount of activity by hams could result in disruption of broadband service delivered over phone lines, at least any legal activity.
I'd also work on your rhetoric: there are a heck of a lot more people out there who want broadband than want to become hams. When push comes to shove, the FCC is likely to take their benefit (and frankly, the dollars that the resulting market signfies) over those of the tiny minority that are hams.
Frankly, I hope this dies as well, because there are undoubtably far more creative uses for HF spectrum than to allow it to be merely sapped as an incidental casualty, but I think the case for ham radio as a "creative use" falls a bit short.
There is much pleasure to be gained in useless knowledge.
For many broadband over the powerlines may be the only way to get connected to the information age. I hope, for these peoples sake, that the broadband via powerlines isn't curtailed and that Ham operators are forced to find ways to not interfere with those services.
Ever try to run ethernet over telephone wires?
Over long distances?
Now add a few thousand volts to the brew.
Methinks you'd have better luck with tin cans and string.
and they leave out "to be", for instance, "the carpet needs swept".
:-)
"To be" or not "To be" that is the question.
You think your town gets ahead of the times? It's so typical people in US forget that the rest 95% of population in the world is OUTSIDE of US. It think the broadband over power lines is not that new for rest of the world. For example here in Finland there are multiple companies offering real broadband (even up to 4,5 Mbps) of power lines (for example www.dsturku.fi or http://www.kuopionenergia.fi/). And those are usually around 30 euros / mo.
Another thing is that people in US tend to think 256kbps as broad band. In my home town typical broadband connection is 8Mbps (downstream, 1Mbps upstream) or 10/10 Mbps (that's up and downstream). Price for such connection starts from 29euros/mo (~33USD/mo). Technology for such connections is VDSL. Im looking forward for new versions of VDSL which will increase the speed to 20/20 Mbps. Here you can even have 100mbps connection in some areas.
Sorry, but the cultural center of ohio is Cleveland. Cincinatti is populated by a bunch of rednex with no class or education. If it really were a decent town, the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibits in the 80s would have been no big deal. The town wouldn't have the big smear of being very segregated and full of white supremacist racist assholes. And maybe... just maybe, they'd have a prayer of getting half the culture that Cleveland has. The biggest problem with any towns south of Independence, Ohio is that there aren't many jewish people down south. The Jewish community is largely what makes Cleveland such a culturally rish town. Or at least it did, until out fucking worthless shit head of a governor started gutting our funding in deference to the loser city that is our state capital: Columbus. That fucking ass of a governor didn't even have the decency to break away from his vacation when we were in a blackout last August. You know that if Columbus was affected, he'd be back in a heartbeat. I can't wait to vote that fucking butterfaced goon out of office. Heads are gonna roll in November...
That not only Amateur Operators (of which I am proudly one) are on the HF bands...
Truckers. Thousands of them.
What's the difference you ask?
Amateur equipment is designed to a MUCH higher standard than CB equipment. Ever hear those truckers bragging about their 'linears'?
Crappy imported, cheap built power amplifiers (unauthorized on the CB band, but irrelevant for my point.)
Now imagine all that 'dirty' HF being thrown into the BPL mix. Heh, I'm not even grumbling about the illegal radio wielding truckers anymore...they're fighting my fight and don't even know it!
Don't park drunk, accidents cause people.
This issue is not about ham radio, it is about worldwide communication. Let me point out just some of the services that depend on shortwave communication and let me also give you some background on shortwave propagation itself:
Shortwave propagation is not line of sight communication, it is global. An RF signal transmitted in Cincinnati can easily be picked anywhere. Shortwave signals are reflected on the ionosphere and they are propagated on different paths, depending on season, time of day, frequency and direction of RF energy.
That makes it a global issue, not a local issue.
Ham Radio only uses a tiny portion of the entire shortwave spectrum. Other radio services use the spectrum as well and some of them are exclusively depending on it:
- Military
- Broadcast stations
- Emergency communications
- Embassies all over the world
- Offshore oil rigs, ships
- Aviation
- Time Synchronization
- Scientific Observation (Magnetic field of the earth, Sunspots, Atmosphere etc.)
- Intelligence Agencies
- Satellite communication (Yes, there are shortwave satellites)
- Digital broadcasting
Contrary to widesp^WSlashdot belief, commercial satellites are not the solution to every communication problem. One of the issues is independence. While shortwave communication is point-to-point, a satellite adds an unwanted layer of dependency on communications and terms of use of a commercial entity.
Please, please, please understand that a shortwave radio signal does not stop at some man made border. It travels all over the planet, affects *billions* of people (No, I am not exaggerating) and their access to information and in many cases is the only way to communicate with remote places on earth.
A ship in a storm cannot use a satellite, neither can an Antarctic research station amidst a storm. Satellite antennas need to be calibrated very, very precisely and that is impossible in rough weather conditions. People can *DIE* when they cannot communicate and while it may be nice to have broadband access everywhere, there are other solutions to provide that and these solutions may even do a lot less harm to people's live than a technology that effectively can kill worldwide shortwave communication.
As I said, it is NOT about ham radio.
...and they doubled the upstream from 384kbps to 768kbps. From what I hear, cable (RoadRunner) only has something like 128kbpos or 256kbps upstream. Can anyone confirm or deny?
What is the upstream of this 1Mbit powerline broadband?
Where did you learn about RF communications again?
They can reach the other side of the earth - because they can bounce back and forth between the ionosphere and earth. It's quite feasible to recieve a signal of a few watts from, say, Japan in the UK, especially around twilight.
-- Sig Sig Sputnik
Why are there /so/ many posts in this discussion from people that have no idea what they are talking about?
For gods sake, this is not 60Hz, and not induction. This is about powerlines acting as antennas and radiating signals from 3-50MHz.
Sheesh.
Yes, it is a problem. The frequencies used by BPL are capable of propagating half-way around the world, so that Ham in the middle of nowhere may well not be able to hear /anybody/ by the time BPL is widespread.
-- Sig Sig Sputnik
Ah but if you continue to "cool" water in the sense of removing internal energy from it by some thermodynamic process, you will break the activation energy barrier for crystal formation and lose your meta-stable state... (also if you were to give it a slight amount of energy that could effectively tip it to the other side of the potential) Running high frequency signals along unshielded copper lines spanning kilometers and hoping not to get interference with signals in it's communication bandwidth is at the very least deluded. Running a "research group" to investigate this is even worse. It true shows what kind of a world we live in where "authority" over-rides plain common sense and electrodynamics.
Yes, but...in a real emergency, there wouldn't be much RF interference, would there?
10Mb/sec down and up + static IP for $15/month
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
OK, the article says that it's got 1mbps symmetrical, which is huge. But, what kind of latency will we be talking about here? After all, that's what really matters in games. Any new subscribers/beta testers want to pipe up?
some other posters mentioned it already, but the longer wavelengths are readily reflected from the ionosphere... this atmospheric bounce is what allows hams to communicate across huge distances.
If the BPL interference gets propogated the same way we're in big trouble (disclaimer: I'm a HAM operator)
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Ham radio? What about solar activity? If solar storms create surges and spikes on the line, how is that dealt with? Same question with lightning... Cinci gets plenty of *that* in the spring and summer.
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
The logical next step for this technology is broadband over batteries. That way you can keep surfing away even after you unplug your laptop from the power line.
I wonder if, in emergency situations like those described above, we could convince the power companies to disable BPL temporarily. Of course, that doesn't solve the long-term issue, but it would at least help out in emergency situations.
yeah, though if I were your next door neighbor and this service really is that good, my next project would probably be a herf gun.
on a serious note, does that mean that the power company would have its own switching system? i don't know how things work ;)
"You get all the fun of sitting still, being quiet, writing down numbers, paying attention...science has it all."
Even if a "lab queen" was used, how did they manage to stay below the FCC part 15.107 / 207 limits for powerline conducted emissions? The lab queen still has to have the same circuit design as the device that will be marketed. Lab queens are only supposed to allow for relaxations due to manufacturing variability.
On what frequency are they operating? If they are below 30MHz, then are they taking a risk by staying below the part 15 powerline conducted limits? Even if they are above 30MHz, I would still think that they would have trouble testing a device to the 15.109 / 209 radiated limits.
Did they receive a waiver to allow this or are they just so far down in the mud that any unintentional radiator can stomp them out?
People die if you shoot them???? I can't just believe that! Do you have any independent research to prove that?
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
BPL has been running to thousands of homes in Virginia for a year now. Have there been the dire consequences that the Ham folks here are predicting? Can Argentina still use HF? Are the many military bases in the area left without their wireless equipment? Has northern Virginia become a big Ham black hole? Inquiring minds want to know.
If not, let's try to encourage competition and innovation and stop crying about the falling sky until we actually have some real world evidence that it's falling - and yes I know about the dozen papers and studies cited above - that's why I'm asking if ANY of them hold water given the fact that the tecnology now exists in the real world.
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal...
I didn't see the tape of the last killing (I don't watch much TV) but the police seemed to have a situation that would have been hard for any police force. The problem is that Cin. has had an awful lot of shootings with (in hindsight) very little cause; they just happened to be black people killed by police. Columbus (where I live) is somewhat similar in size, has a (somewhat) competent police force but has seen nowhere near the same problem with killing the wrong people. We are not on the border between North and South and probably have less of a history of direct racial issues, so that the ability of the police force is likely not the only contributor to the difference. Cincinnati police are getting better from what little I know; unfortunately they have a deep hole to crawl out of.
There a lots of nice things in Cincinnati, but lots of things that annoy when I go there. Hence, my post. The tax doesn't affect unless you go there, in which case you will pay a little for them. Not a big deal; I just don't like stupidity.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!"
----- And all that the Lorax left here in this mess was a small pile of rocks, with one word...UNLESS.
I wasn't thinking of that; it makes sense to some degree (more crime is likely to make life harder on the police who are likely to have less time to deal with individual threats). I've never lived in an area like that (I lived in Boston, and other than stupid high schoolers playing games with knives, and theft, we didn't see that much crime on campus; I lived in suburban NJ, so I didn't worry there), so I don't know how to deal with it.
So far, they are *not* Part 15 certified. They are operating under an experimental license, NOT part 15, because there is no way they can pass the current Part 15 requirements, especially with respect to being "intermittent" emitters. They are continuous. The BPL industry is trying to get a change in Part 15 to make them legal under Part 15 -- at this point they are not and are therefor licensed. They are broadband from 1500 KHz or so (upper end of AM BC) to about 80 MHz.
BTW -- just in case anyone is still reading this story, it is not just hams that are upset. Shortwave broadcasters are upset -- you can write off being able to hear them in a BPL neighborhood. Also all the military/embassy/commercial/ship-to-shore users in the hf spectrum.
Thanks for following up.
Thanks for following up.
Sorry for the repeat - just sending a more "on the record" reply so that I am notified of a response.
May I suggest you visit the web site of the Radio Society of Great Britain
http://www.rsgb.org/emc/pltnew.htm
and review their findings? After that, there's FEMA
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/36294
and NTIA
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/31543
reports to read.
And. the FCC is not doing any of the 'hard work' here. It's the Enron-inspired power companies vs. three-quarters of a million US hams, the vast majority of which have never even met a lobbyist much less hired them by the dozen.
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
Sorry, no. As Scotty says, 'ye canna change tha laws o' physics.'
1. AM. FM, PCM, all irrelevant: The modulation method is _irrelevant_ to the issue. What's relevant is *frequency* and its inverse, the *wavelength*.
2. Yes, the HF wavelengths used by commerical broadcasters modulating amplitude will travel further via groundwave than the VHF wavelengths used by broadcasters modulating frequency.
3. However, neither is relevant, because the HF ('shortwave', so named when longer waves were used) wavelenghts are valuable because they bound off the ionosphere, allowing 'bank shots' to points of the earth you will never reach by LOS or groundwave. The F and F2 layers are the friend of long-range radio, whether amateur, aviation, nautical or military, because you can bounce a 5w signal off the insider of the ionosphere and communicate all over the planet... until BPL jams those wavelengths.
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
I'm not sure about the amount of power. I gather that they are using "enough" to get to the Part 15 emmissions limit (which is pretty large, if you are a nearby shortwave receiver) and are seeking waivers to the Part 15 duty cycle limit. It's the duty cycle that makes this such a problem. A short burst of interference would have about the same impact as a static crash. BPL would be like living in a 24x7 severe thunderstorm. It would raise the HF noise floor in my neighborhood by 60dB to 70dB or so. No more Voice of America, no more BBC World Service. KFS would not hear any more ships in the Pacific Ocean.
Well, gee whiz, I was one of those isolated cases two months ago... delivering medical personnel to hospital, with ham 2-way radio my sole reliable link of communication as to who to get and when to get them, as those 'pocket radios' you mention overload when as few as 3% of all their users try to use them.
Cellular's the first thing to crash in an emergency, and landline phone is the second, as a former telephone switchman (United of Florida), I can assure you that phone systems do overload and crash when a very small fraction of all the landlines try to get dial tone.
Want to wait an hour for a dial tone? Well, go ahead.
Oh, yes, BTW, it's dial tone which connects you to 911. That, or the ham down your block who trains up, knows how to talk to the hospitals and fire stations, and how to get a message through when all else fails.
Our infrastructure is tremendously fragile, and folks who don't work in telecom are blissfully unaware of how quickly it will fail them.
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
Would you care to name a few?
Japan just completely rejected it. Funny, doesn't Japan lead the electronics industry?
Austria just put their trial on hold because of their interference problems.
Where else, eh?
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
BPL uses frequencies which bounce off the F and F2 layers of the ionosphere. Those are the same frequencies used for long-range radio, voice, morse, packet and other digital modes.
So, when I have a local emergency, can I count on getting every other BPL operator everywhere in the world to shut down so I can communicate? Including, say, Cuba and Iran, places which have no reason to love us?
Kindly recheck your assumptions.
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
1A). If there's an emergency, then BPL systems hundred, thousands of miles away can interfere with my ability to receive.
1B). BPL anywhere can interfere with my ability to receive media which have not been censored by routers, gateways and other government-monitored information systems. Shortwave radio allows any body to tell their story. Do you trust your media? Are they 'Fair And Balanced'? How do you know? Ans: Listen to lots of other media. BPL and its ability to block international shortwave will further reduce our already monocultural media.
2A). Yes, something may replace it; but it won't work as well nor will it be accessible as a hunk o' wire and tranceiver which can be homebuilt.
2B). Whatever replaces it will be Aschroft-Approved(TM).
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
Yes, local repeaters will work fine; but, then, these BPL proposals were designed not to interfere with them. Those use VHF and UHF bands.
The problem is with the HF bands we need to send signals a long distance, by bouncing off the inner ionosphere. BPL uses HF frequencies and will have the entire grid transmitting on those bands.
I would not say power companies are going out of their way to kill long-distance, uncontrolled free radio, no, no siree, Mr. Ashcroft.
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
You proved yourself to be a redneck, uneducated, and racist in the same post that you denounced the same. Bravo! I think I'll avoid Cleveland and try some Cincinnati chili....
emission (MHz) ... Quasi-peak ... Average .......... 66 to 56* ........ 56 to 46* ................... 56 .................. 46 .................... 60 .................. 50
0.15-0.5
0.5-5
5-30
* Decreases with the logarithm of the frequency.
I guess there is some duty cycle relaxation with the averaging or QP measurements, but even a real peak measurement below these limits passes. What rule specifically are you talking about?
And the Ham's next project would, rightfully, be enticing federal agents to visit you...
The system will blanket all frequencies in the range rather than a few spots. You can't find a clear spot with no interference; the interference is everywhere.
Power lines are pervasive and unmovable (see your computer manual's interference section: "Relocate the equipment...use a different circuit...turn the power off"...all impossible with BPL).
The conducted emissions limits assume normal indoor wiring, with close spaced cables or wires in conduit. These are very inefficient radiators for differential mode signals (which BPL uses). But overhead power lines will radiate differential mode signals very effectively; in fact they are likely to have considerable gain at the higher frequencies (where line spacing exceeds a quarter wavelength).
The Part 15 limits (and the VDE0871 limits which preceded them) were never intended to completely protect against interference. When the regulations were drafted, digital devices were rare and expensive. The regulations were drawn to protect high power broadcast signals in metropolitan areas, with signal strengths of 1mV/m and higher. The assumption that such equipment would be kept away from sensitive receivers of extremely weak signals (1uV/m or even less). That asumption is destroyed by BPL; interference will be unavoidable.
Did you make it up yourself? It sounds like something Twain, Churchill, or P.J. O'Rourke might have said.
In any case, I want to steal it as a sig for my personal email. If you're the author, how should I attribute it? As "Slashdot user #611928"?
Hey dbc, Any thoughts on my previous post? I still am trying to find out what duty cycle limits we are talking about here. Knowing this could help me determine worst case powerline emissions levels. I would like to have my company's products tested for conducted RF suceptibility testing before the comments deadline approaches on the BPL NPRM. This would allow me to determine if I need to submit comments (on my company's behalf, not my own) to the NPRM. However, I have no clue what these levels might be with this type of equipment because, at the moment, it is illegal. Any information would be helpful.
I'm sorry I am not up on the details. It is my understanding that Part 15 powerline devices that are "unintentional radiators" are only allowed to transmit intermittently. Think garage door opener. But I am not an expert on the exact %age of the time they are allowed to be key-down, I expect the exact limit varies with frequency and power level. Sorry I can't be more help.
Actually, the limits are the ones that I sent in the previous post.
Example:
You can have a CW signal at 25 MHz coupled on the power line as long as it is no stronger than 60dBuV. There is no "duty cylcle limit", but there is a relaxation when using a quasi-peak detector (or average detector with a 50dBuV limit).
It's not just protected "by law". It's protected by a treaty ratified by the US. That makes teh treaty, in combination with the US constitution, the "supreme law of the land". If BPL causes any interference to hams in other countris, such as those in Vancouver BC and Tijuana Mexico, then the interference must be eliminated. The FCC cannot ignore the treaty without repercussions. And countries that rely on short-wave broadcast to reach audiences (both foreign and domestic )*will* raise objections. The USA complained about jamming of Radio Free Europe, Radio Marti, etc. Other nations will remember that, and will be happy to respond to BPL in a like manner.
Heh. I thought I made it up...
At any rate, you can attribute it to the Satanicpuppy. My real name doesn't actually show UP on the internet.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Equifax, TransUnion, Lexis-Nexis, et. all. charge for many web-based searches, but you can still find out an alarming amount about someone by posing as a potential creditor and paying the fees.
We need porno. Pictures of bitches serving a white man, getting goo on their faces is important to this country. And other countries do not have a right to complain or we will attack them, except for Germany of course.