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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."
Cincinatti is famous for something other than WKRP.
And why did you staple the trout to the RAM?
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
Am I missing something?
Indeed, a fairly high bandwidth pipe utilizing existing infrastructure. What's not "special"? The only line going into someones house that's more pervasive than the phone line are power lines. And no mention of dsl's distance woes. Big news indeed. If it comes here, I'm all over this.
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! ;)
How about symmetrical data rates?
How about less than either cable or DSL pricing?
How about available anywhere you have power (which computers usually need to operate)?
As soon as it's available in my AO, I'll be jumping ship from my current provider.
How about RTFA?
Who will guard the guards?
another area's ham radio operators get it up the arse
73 de F8EJF
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...
I thought the PlayStation was the "fat nerd's PlayStation"?
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
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.
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!!
What??!! How can you say that?! Don't you know that it interferes with amateur radio? Don't you also realize that ham radio is The One True Geek Passtime? You're not allowed to support something that would cause interference to amateur radio operators. Report to Room 12 for re-education.
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'
It's 60 Hertz in the US of A.
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
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!
It interferes with more than amateur radio operators... meh
Think of a giant unshielded antenna that spans hundreds or thousands of miles. yee-haw
Dumb-ass power companies trying to make a buck.
In a major catastrophe, isn't it fairly likely that power lines will be down anyway (thereby eliminating HAM interference)?
A modern day witchhunt.
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.
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.
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.
Hellz yea! Man what I wouldn't give to get out form under the iron boot of my damn ISP. Yea, I get 3 mbs down, but only like .2 up, and I NEEEEEED that upload bandwidth!!!
I think it'll be good just for the extra competition to drive down the prices.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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!
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 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?
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.
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.
That's shortsighted. Do you really think HAMs in that area will keep training with and spending money on equipement if they can't operate it reliably EXCEPT when power is down? There is a limit to everyone's altruism...
you may also climb off your asspole and note that the use of quote marks around anachronistic was intentional.
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
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
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
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?
The only line going into someones house that's more pervasive than the phone line are power lines
Not true: Telephone service goes to 92.1% of U.S. households. Plumbing goes to
>99% of U.S. households.
Not that I'm proposing IP-over-water-pipes or anything...
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
jumping ship from your current provider, to ...a current provider
m y k a r m a i s m o r e p o s i t i v e t h a n y o u r s.
In a major catastrophe, isn't it fairly likely that power lines will be down anyway (thereby eliminating HAM interference)?
This has already been discussed ad-infinitem, but apparently all the moderators haven't been listening, so here it goes again.
There are several major problems with that.
1) It may be likely that transmitter does not have power, but it is equally likely that he will need to contact people who do.
2) The major reason that ham radio is usefull in emergencies is because there is an active community of people that find ham radio a enjoyable recreation. Get rid of that and you will have less ham operators.
3) There are all sorts of emergencies where people still have power, but HAM is needed. Doesn't anyone remember 9/11? The powerlines were fine, but the phone, cell, and internet were all completly saturated.
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.
Obviously you know absolutely nothing of how large scale emergencies are handled, with respect to communication.
ARES, Amature Radio Emergency Services, steps up with the communications infrastructure is gone, due a disaster, natural or man-made.
Basically, a bunch of well-trained hams setup radio stations and manage the creation of an ad-hoc radio communications infrastructure when the main one goes down.
The World Trade Center had communcations by end of day, or end of the next day due to ARES going into motion and getting base-stations setup, probably all running on generators, so that those on-site trying to find survivors could communicate with each other and the outside world.
Now, with BPL, while you're trying to get this setup (becase the land-lines are gone, and the cell system is a laughingstock that's overran by people trying to call home), you've got the powerlines all radiating a ton of crap out in the airwaves. This is probably people trying to use their internet connection, even though the power's out, and they've got their generator running (those of us in certain more rural areas pretty much are required to own one to stay funcitonal).
All that background noise just makes it that much harder to communciate.
Hate to see that DoS attack.
I love it when people post like this. BPL radiates hundreds of watts on spectrum used for worldwide communication. Hams use this same spectrum for that very communication. It doesn't matter if you're in a third world country or New York, any BPL system will junk the entire world's spectrum.
But that's not what's fun about this post. It has been shown that as little as 1 watt on an amateur frequency will knock out or severely degrade BPL in a 4 block radius. Hams can, and many do, transmit as many as 1500 watts. No 1mbps in my neighborhood.
On Apple Input Peripherals: They're okay, I guess, but I was really hoping for a one-key keyboard and a 109-button mouse
Obviously you've missed the part about amatuer radio being a sanctioned FCC emergency service. It's there when others fail.
kc8apf
> 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
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
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?