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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."
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!!
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.
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!
You should read my post in the responses to the last time this was brought up. Regardless of what's using the spectrum that BPL interferes with, the fact that BPL does not in any way require or benefit from skywave propagation/ionospheric propagation and stomps all over the -only- frequency range that is pysically capable of bouncing off the atmosphere is a complete and utter waste. Not to mention that amateur radio provides long distance communications not only to third world countries, but more importantly in the event of a natural disaster. Ham radio operators are constantly pushing the limits of communications technology, what do you think the designers that work at the big communications companies do when they go home? Where do you think the communications buffs who join the big communications firms come from? Anyway, its a waste, and it tramples a service to the world that is without a doubt one of the most important ones when it comes to saving your life the next time you're stuck in a collapsed building like at the WTC towers.