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Broadband Over Power Lines vs. Radio Relayers
amaiman writes "Recently, broadband Internet access has been increasing around the country. These broadband signals, while providing Internet access to remote communities that would normally not be able to receive broadband, are causing enormous interference to the radio spectrum. This article details some of the problems, and a video available on the American Radio Relay League's (ARRL) site shows exactly how much interference the broadband power lines can cause. Detailed information is also available on the ARRL site."
But I thought that hams where saying that BPL would destroy radio communication for 100's of miles around? This video only shows the effect when they are very near the powerlines.
They also play word games by saying it is on the agenda at the FCC. On the agenda doesn't mean that they will approve it, it simply means they are looking at it.
Lastly, it doesn't help hams when hams say they will just pump out a 1kw signal to drownout the BPL signal, that action will simply result in the group with the most votes winning, and that isn't the hams.
It isn't just the pro bpl side playing games.
Good point. And it further reinforces my argument that the FCC needs to get their act together and stop pandering to people who play these silly games.
Just like, oh I think it was Clear Channel that tried to get XM to stop broadcasting local news because it interfered with the local market. Translation: When you cannot compete fairly, get the government involved and shut down your competitors.
bash: rtfm: command not found
This article is 4 months old. In March the power company Cinergy in Cincinnati started offering broadband over powerlines. I havn't heard much about that since then, I really would like to hear something about that. Is it still around? Is anyone using it? Are there any complaints?
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Here in Cedar Rapids IA, we already have it, i can go and see the units themselves mounted on the powerlines, and pick them up with kismet and netstumbler along glass road. Im a ham too, so i dont really care for this, they can find a better way to get broadband to everyone.
On a previous project we used point to point optical /.ers?
units, I remember the output was only a few hundred milliwatts but we were p2ping 5Km or more in fair
visibility. Surely optical wavelenghs are not restricted and civillian versions of this sort of
optical tranciever are available? Someone has to line them up at installation, but its as easy as doing a microwave dish. I think a network of point to point laser trancievers would be ideal for remote raural coms in the out back and beyond. With this kind of power efficiency repeaters would easily run from solar cells. What think the
actually, it's not a recent thing, broadband has been increasing for almost a decade now. perhaps the poster meant "broadband internet over powerlines", although it would be an incredible oversight to have left that out in the first sentence of the article.
"while providing..., and causing
good job "editors". i fear i will never be able to justify getting a slashdot account as long as this sloppiness continues.
BPL has been tried in Germany by almost all major power companies, but they have basically given up on it. Reason: It does not work, plain and simple.
There are a few companies around that sell so called PLC-to-Ethernet adaptors you can plug into your power outlet to bridge floors or so, but they're not working either.
Testing has shown that the signal attenuation between two of these PLC adaptors is actually higher than the free space attenuation - so these adaptors would work just as good or even better if they were not connected to a power line at all :-)
I think BPL is basically a dead horse, and slashdot should stop beating it.
Thanks, Slashdot, for this article. One the cat is out of the bag, he won't go back in...so it's important that BPL gets ripped out when it fails (which it will...oh yes we have WAYS of making it fail. For instance, all BPL ISPs will be filtered at my firewall. And I am a licensed amateur, and will file an endless stream of takedown complaints to the FCC, as hams ARE the primary users of the bands in question). So, doing whatever it takes to delay any implementation, on a local level, is appropriate. It would be a good idea for municipalities to ban it.
I'm disappointed that the FCC even cares about HAM radio operators. FEMA, NTIA, and the Department of Homeland Security have all filed with the FCC proposals 03-104 and 04-37 in favor of BPL if reasonable precautions are taken. These are the govenment agencies HAMs have been saying will be crippled if BPL is deployed. Nowhere in their replies do they spew the doomsday scenarios that HAMs are putting forward to scare people regarding BPL. HAMs love to overstate how critical they are to the communications infrastructure in emergency situations. Nothing I've read yet in reference to emergency situations can replace the following benefits in my mind: BPL can be used by power companies to provide -Intelligent Demand Side Management -Load Switching/Balancing -Fault Locations -Peak Shaving -Power Quality Monitoring -Real-Time Pricing For consumers it can provide -Video on Demand -Content -Alarm Monitoring -Smart Appliances -Broadband -InternetTelephony DS2, a BPL chipset maker has 200mbps chipsets that are working in the field now with a company working with ConEd called Ambient. My point is, even if the HAMs were completely deprived of their use of the HF spectrum (which by every government agency's accounts they won't be), I strongly believe that the benefits of a smarter power grid combined with a third major competitor for broadband outweigh the loss. I am very biased however as I'm heavily invested in Ambient, so take that into account when you read my reply. But look at the FCC replies for yourself to make up your mind before you believe either me or HAM users. Go to http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/comsrch_v2.cgi type in 04-37 or 03-104 in proceeding and educate yourself more about the issue.
shield the cable (and obviously earth the shield)
that way nothing gets in, nothing gets out - everybody wins (exceept those who pay for the cable)
The fatal problem is the wire, if the power company connects those BPL devices with COAX CABLE
or Optical Fiber, their bandwidth increases and interference GOES AWAY. The reason this solution has not been adopted is 100% political, like the rest of this mess.
The facts:
The problem with BPL *is the wire part*
* The wire severely limits broadband throughput.
* The wire acts like an antenna, disrupting other services.
* The wire reduces the range between repeaters, killing economy of service.
* The wire acts like an open door, letting interference into BPL.
Q: Why not do it without the wire?
A: Because the only justification the power companies have for joining the internet services market is that they have those wires going everywhere.
So that same wire that opens the door for the power companies to get into internet, hangs around their necks like an albatross with respect to their competitors (if and when) there is a major rollout.
It's no secret that some major political forces have a vested interest in seeing the power companies wrapped up in this issue, but as you can see, to date, the power companies have not been so interested.
They are wondering - who is going to pay for this when the present day options (WiFi, DSL, cable) do it cheaper?
Investment in BPL is a bet that the money is out there
somewhere (like the NYSERDA public funds in this example) to pay for an inferior service with inherent problems, and that the politicians and lawyers will be able to create an atmosphere where there will be profit in it.
They will succeed over the figurative "dead bodies" of many existing HF frequency user services, Sumner and group only being the first along the way. Then there are the state regulators PUC's, and then the competition from the
incumbents. Even without "the wire", that'd be tough.
These new BPL chips are supercomputers like the world has never seen. But they get hooked to this rusty wire and that reduces them to a pair of Campbell's soup cans.
Even DSL phone lines are interference cancelling, there are always 2 twisted wires, not true of power lines - that's the whole problem.
The day companies like Ambient (ABTG) announce a better way of connecting those BPL devices is the day everyone can breath freely and enjoy the third broadband path.
Until then, expect more of this:
bigcharts.marketwatch.com/javachart/ja..
Even if you get to market late, you need to have the goods.
The BPL broadband existed in a lab somewhere, and carefully manicured small scale tests. In practice the broadband flies off the power wire like uzi fire, going everywhere except the intended destination. Notches eating up the broadband.
To succeed, BPL needs immediate deployment, at least 1000 warehouses of BPL equipment to bolt on those powerlines and grab some market share. This needs to happen now, not next month or next year and needs to happen some place where there is a mass number of customers to grab from the incumbents, not some place like Wyoming where all that gear gets used up going to one ranch.
But BPL will be forever chasing interference problems.
The problems are caused by that bare single wire, flapping in the breeze. Until they replace it, BPL deployment comes to a GRINDING halt - and no critical mass.
So the hams sniffed BPL out and now cause some manner of inconvenience, so sad. Start rolling that stuff out the way it is now, in mass, and they can deal with the military,
local goverments, and lawyers - their agenda won't include fussing around on the chat boards, believe it.
Attempts at sweeping this under the rug (read this NOTCHING) just won't do it.
Provideing a highspeed network to a rural area is a hard problem. There are few customers to offset the operating expenses.
A local start-up was working on a highspeed network for rural areas. It used HF in a licenced band so interferance would not have been an issue. Because the system used HF one tower could cover quite a large area. The speeds were not lightning fast but were faster then modems. I believe the project goal was just a little faster then sattelite.
Unfortunately the project was killed for two reasons. The first was patents. There are some (arguably obvious) patents that cover highspeed networks over HF. The patents owners were not interested in developing the technology themselves, rather they wanted to charge exhorbitant fees to licence the patents. Given enough money this issue could have been resolved, but when coupled with the second problem project was canceled. The second problem was lack of a market.
From the start the system was designed to serve sparsely populated rural areas. This system could not compete with DSL, cable or 802.11 based systems. The bandwidth was slower, and more the system was more expensive. The setup costs were high as a client station needed a good HF transciever and antenna. The service fees were high as the base stations were designed to only handle a few customers. The system had to be heavily optimized for rural areas in order to achieve the large distances required. The optimizations were such that it could not even be scaled back to compete in the quasi-rural suburban environments. The system was expensive. While an end customer might be willing to pay $1000 to setup a station, plus $100/month for highspeed no provider was willing to take the risk when a base tower could easily cost $100k just to install.
I suspect that highspeed of power lines is going to face similar challenges and suffer the same fate. The setup costs are deffinately lower, but the system is still faced with some of the same technical problems. Long distances cause more noise, which lowers bandwidth, which reduce the number of customers on a given segment. With fewer customers there is less chance of a profit.
Believe it or not but some of the best antenna and radio designs of the past 50 years have been by amature radio operators. They are also responsible for an inovative rocket payload system so that they could piggy back their sattelites behind larger commercial loads. This should be a surprise to no one. These amatures have been driven by the same motivations that has made open source software some of the best in the world: they love what they do. Amatures need dedicated radio bands so they can work in and test their desgins without interference from or to others. These dedicated bands need to all over the spectrum as each band has its own advantages and challenges. Of course not every amature radio operator is a designer. But like open source software developers, RF designers need users to provide feedback. Amature operators provide imporant feedback such as signal strength and quality, and distance between stations.
It is also nice to have public radio bands that are not controled by commercial interests, in much the same way that it is nice to have public parks. Free of commercial interests amature radio bands are free (as in beer) to use. More importantly amature radio bands can be used in new and innovative ways that commercial interests are not interested in supporting.
Unfortunately these public radio bands are not as easily accessible as public parks. Licences and tests aren't the problem. RF is fragile and proveing that you will use it responsibly is important. A big problem is, ironically, the ARRL.
The ARRL has fought so hard to protect their radio bands that they risk loseing everything. The ARRL has lost its relavence to the general public. Amature operators around the world have been extremely reluctant to change. The old amatures have always welcomed new amatures, but they haven't gone out of there way to find new amatures. There has always been a huge source of new amatures in the hacker community. The ARRL needs to do more encourage these hackers to become radio amatures.
The current structure and activities of the ARRL does not encourage new participation. Young radio hackers are not interested in DX competitions and making 10 second contacts to fill out a QSL card. Young hackers are not interested in making contact with some grumpy old guy half way around the world just to hear what ailments he has. (This is a far too common occurance.)
Young hackers are interested in making world wide, community based, digital networks. They are interesetd in freedom of speech and privacy issues. They want to use encryption. Many of the old amatures are affraid that the young hackers want to move in and change everything. This is only partly true. The hackers do want to change a few things, but they are also more then willing to work with the community. Look at groups such as Seattle Wireless. These guys are essentially rogue freebanders. The ARRL needs to modernize themselves and the FCC to turn these freebanders into licenced amatures.
If the ARRL and similar groups don't do more to encourage new participation there won't be amature radio in few decades time, because there won't be many amature radio operators left alive. The recent easing of licence and band restrictions will help, but much more needs to be done.
I'm disappointed that the FCC even cares about HAM radio operators. FEMA, NTIA, and the Department of Homeland Security have all filed with the FCC proposals 03-104 and 04-37 in favor of BPL if reasonable precautions are taken.
I'm a amateur radio operator, and I'm in favor if BPL if reasonable precautions are taken. In other words, hold the BPL companies to the same part 15 rules that all other unlicensed users of licensed portions have to follow (Short version: unlicensed devices operating under part 15 of the FCC rules cannot cause interfearance to licensed services, and must cease operation if interfearance occurs until the cause of the interfearance can be fixed.).
The problem is that I never see this happening. Lets say that I find my local utility is generating interfearance that renders significant portions of the bands allocated to amateur radio unusable. I call the power company and report the problem. When the line workers show up, we manage to agree that the interfearing signal is from their BPL system. (In reality, I imagine that it would take a lot of work to convince the power company that it is their problem). Most likely, the only soluction to the problem will be for the power company to either reduce the power of the BPL signal on the offending portion of the power lines, or to use a filter to notch out the offending frequencies. Either option would degrade BPL service to some of their customers. I seriously doubt that either the power companies will voluntariy degrade service to solve interfearance problems or the FCC will force the power companies to degrade their BPL service in order to solve interfearance problems.
The other issue is that the frequencies which BPL providers will use can quite easily propagate around the world. Lets say that a BPL signal is found to interfear with some licensed service. (amateur, fixed, maritime, land mobile, military, etc.) How do you determine the source of the interfearance when it could be any of a large number of BPL providers accross the country?
I have nothing agaist the use of BPL withing existing part 15 rules. I simply doubt that it will be possible to solve any interfearance problems that occur.
KC8DEI
Come test your mettle in the world of Alter Aeon!
A bit ironic that you need a broadband connection to see the video from ARRL - isn't it. I think the ARRL and older hams are just angry about the Internet drawing people from amateur radio and are not getting the picture of how the Internet can be used to encourage more people into the hobby. ie. Repeater relays via the net, IP packet over radio, etc. Hey give up your morse code paddles and step into 2004. (It's also time to ditch the code requirement). Nathan Smith, KC8MTQ nathanmsmith.com
Because the only justification the power companies have for joining the internet services market is that they have those wires going everywhere.
How can anybody reasonable claim this to be true?
What the power companies have that should be invaluable in joining the internet services market is a right-of-way for cables. They should be able to run a strand or fifty of coax on the same poles they run AC power across. It means additional wires on the pole, but the poles are in place, wires are already routed, etc.
Why do they need to route it on the same wires?
resigned
Amen.
Add in the fact that in order to receive distant stations over BPL noise would probably require good sized antennas on high structures (towers) and that most neighborhood's pseudo-environmental "I'm on the homeowner's board" soccer moms gasp in horror at the thought that someone's hobby might include a large metal tower in their yard, because of some stupid perception that they're "ugly" (even though her 1 MPG SUV does more harm to the environment than anyone's tower ever did) and the FACT that over 95% of all new home construction in the U.S over the last five years had coventant contracts attached to those homes stating they can never have antenna structures attached to them....
Ham Radio's already one of the hardest hobbies to enjoy in this country. And yet we still keep doing community service.
Perhaps the answer is for all hams to stage a walkout weekend. Perhaps the weekend of the NY Marathon? (I bet you didn't know a large piece of the communications of that world-renowned event is provided by Ham operators, did you?)
Of course, we're all much too good to do that. We'll just die a slow painful death in our hobby trying to enjoy it until the day they ruin all of our spectrum and tear down all of our antennas. And the world will be a worse place for it.
But all city-dwellers will have broadband over powerlines so they can receive e-mail and porn 24/7. (I say city-dwellers because an informal but direct survey of all of the rural power companies in my state shows that they have neither the networking expertise or the desire to support BPL... and BPL's biggest proponents say it's going to bring broadband to the farmers. Most farmers I know are busy on their damn farms from sun up to sundown. They have a dial-up connection for weather, crop prices, and a few notes to their families on e-mail and wouldn't spend $40-$60/month on broadband no matter how it got to them.
+++OK ATH