Slashdot Mirror
Gigabit Transfer Rates Over Power Lines?
nomrniceguy writes "Penn State engineers, Pouyan Amirshahi and Mohsen Kavehrad, estimated in a research paper released Wednesday that their system could deliver data at close to one gigabit per second over medium-voltage electrical lines in ideal conditions, with speeds of hundreds of megabits per second available to home users.
Their system would uses repeaters placed every one kilometer, (0.62 miles) and requires power lines to have been modified to reduce interference with the data signals. The engineers said their estimates were based on computer models, and that the data speeds available in a real-world version would depend on how many repeaters a power company used."
When they have a real world proof of concept, then I'll care...
Any idea about what kind of modulation they are planning ? QAM ?
- People who believe other people have no right to live, got no right to live ...
But does it run Linux?
uhuh. And this will likely be available only in the largest metro areas first, then 5 years later in the suburbs of said metro area.. so I'm looking at a good 15 years till this gets out to the woods where I live. Oh well, I guess I should just be happy that I have cable modem available.
Don't Tread on Me
by the time they finish all the testing and modifying the existing power line, gigabit wifi will be readily available.
This Sig is removed due to factual inaccuracy
To rig up all the shielding and the repeaters every kilometer. Sounds really expensive
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." - C.S. Lewis
The engineers said their estimates were based on computer models, and that the data speeds available in a real-world version would depend on how many repeaters a power company used.
Even if this system can be as good as these Engineers seem to think, it never will be, as the power company will only place repeaters at locations that can cover the most area, leave people on the outskirts with minimum service at the same price, just as current broadband companies do.
I do however doubt that we'll see this any time soon, as the article stated they would also have to alter/replace many existing lines in order to implement it. One of the key reasons this was ever considered in the first place was that it could use lines that already existed.
Go ahead and call me unreliable; reliable is just a synonym for predictable.
Let me guess; the modification is to glue a fibre-optic cable onto it.
It could possibly serve some extremely remote areas where there simply are no other options, though still someone has to pay for it, and I expect even a DS3 would be cheaper.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
so what I'm reading here is that if this were actually implemented ITRW, it would be a massively expensive project that would ultimately give end users bandwith that might be keen competition for AOLs 56k dialup service - of course in the tradition of networking sales lingo this would be advertised as "gigabit powerline connection speed"
- "that's not a fuse, that's my firewall!"
ôó
Instead of spending all the money to rig up all the power lines to support this technology, and potentially causing substantial problems with interference to radio communication (particularly amateur), why not just spend the money on a stronger fiber infrastructure, which presumably can support a great deal more bandwidth than this, and doesn't have the problems with causing or recieving such interference. Why not keep our data and power networks separate, and optimize both for their specific purpose?
Penn State engineers, Pouyan Amirshahi and Mohsen Kavehrad, estimated in a research paper released Wednesday that their system could deliver data at close to one gigabit per second over medium-voltage electrical lines in ideal conditions
Though Amirshahi did mention that in order to provide anything faster then modem speeds to actual home users would require lowering the mean temperature of the earth to near absolute zero.
I'm pretty skeptical that this is practical but to be fair there's not yet information available to judge.
Their work was presented yesterday at the IEEE 2005 Consumer Communications and Networking Conference, session N5. If nothing else, the paper will be available when the conference proceedings are published.
...but one can only hope that as we gradually update our (america's) power infrastructure, things like this will be added. However, one wonders how many regional power outages we will need before we do this... but until we do begin a massive overhaul of the grid, something like this will only be an added benefit of such an overhaul.
webpage
I'd like my sine wave nice and clean, thank you. I'd also like less EM in the air.
http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/
As a person employed in this industry I've done a bit of research on this topic. Basically one of the major challeges next to powerline interference is the cost of putting a bypass on the transformers. The signal being sent tends to be blocked by the coils.
There have been a number of solutions implemented such as using a bypass for the signal or Wireless to send the signal across the coils but they tend to be expensive. If you have a large number of transformers and have to retrofit each of them with a bypass then you could end up with a huge cost. Especially in places like Canada where we tend to have less customers per transformer than a place like Europe.
If a cheap solution can be devised though the benefits of such a solution could be huge. Having automated meter reading and providing internet service to customers can be a boon in cost savings and additional revenue streams (but of course retrofiting the meters also costs alot as some of the cheapest solutions I've seen on the market cost 1000 dollars per meter).
I hope some innovative person comes up with a solution to this problem someday in a cost effective manner. The coverage that a power company has for a customer base easily rivals that of the telecom industry and with more choice comes cheaper ISP rates due to the added competition.
If you guys won't RTFA fine, but at least read the summary. This scheme includes modifications of the lines to eliminate the interference problems.
Now debate the costs of replacing the lines, debate the speed, debate whether it's ethical to send nude shots of your gf over the same lines the power Grandma's toaster. But for the love of god quite repeating the same damn statement about RFI again and again!
A) It needs to be frequently repeated in the real world.
B) Sending data over unshielded high voltage lines is messy.
C) It uses very low frequencies where even the slightest signal leaks can interfere with radio's hundreds and thousands of miles away.
Most BPL trials in the US have been a disastaster. It is a "marketing technology"
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
This system would shoot AM radio in the head.
It would destroy any chance of using Ham radio near it.
It would be a disaster.
I know that you can hook up an AM radio transmitter to a rail road track and broadcast the whole lenght of the thing. This is very illegal because it bleeds on any one else using the same frequencies.
Just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should. We have a clear case of people trying to create something new just because they can. They don't seem to care if they tinkle on any other form of RF communication.
Coax or Fiber makes much more sense. But because power companies are run by very rich and powerful people, they will try to get on the bandwagon of providing bandwidth to the home.
If we are going to use RF frequencies in the open air, without the benifit of shielding then we should persue P2P wireless and a bittorrent type of system. Each person would have a node and the node would both transmit and recieve. People would know where you are based upon location, and then the data would be funneled to you with low-power transmitters that would work P2P.
there would be no need for a central hub. There might also be no way for any utility to charge you for this.
That is exactly why this kind of a system doesn't get built.
And at a neighboor hood you could have it all funnel into a local broadband internet for a bunch of houses. The antennas would be directional and beam directly between each other.
Let's all hope that this idea of using the unshielded powerlines to transmit data is shot down by the FCC.
There's already a trial in Australia for IP over powerlines at 200Mb/s. Article at http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/index.php?id=1826952 087&fp=2&fpid=1
Read reviews of shopping cart software
This would defintely be more expensive in the long run compared to fiber. Also there are too many unknowns. Close to one gigabit per second? How close? What about the "ideal" conditions? Are we talking about weather conditions, wire conditions, ??? Requires that power lines be modified? I'm sure the electric companies are just itching for a reason to replace all of those lines.
Fiber is already here. It's faster, immune to all interference, and constantly getting cheaper. Wait, did I mention that fiber's faster?
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Months? How about years? I first head about this in 1997. If you have to modify all the power lines, what's the point? The idea is to be able to use the existing system. It looks more and more like a pipe dream.
It does. Unfortunately when i plugged in my box, the Tux on my wallpaper looked scorched for some reason. I still can't understand why... :-?
Isn't the real value of the power companies the right-of-way they possess for all of these power lines ?
Why would they install repeaters every 1 km ? I just can't believe that it would be that much cheaper to do that instead of just running fiber next to the power lines instead.
Then you'll get > 1GBs without even breathing hard, you'll only need a repeater about every 20km or so, and there will not be any RFI/EMI problems.
Power lines make _terrible_ communication channels.
Absolute statements are never true
Nicolai Tesla demonstrated electrical power could be sent wirelessly, so why bother with all the equipment? Hell, just piggyback broadband on wireless power transmission! No wires, no repeaters every km, no grid to break down -- just one huge global RF field for porn and p2p for all! I want to instantaneously download everything into my iMac from a bolt of lightning from the sky... yeah, now THAT'S the internet I want...
Too bad we'd all have to walk around with tinfoil caps.
I do not see the cost effectivness of broadband over power lines.
It is not there; neither in rural or metropolitan markets. I work for a broadband company that is a subsidiary of a large power utility. Our nickname for BPL is "BTBW" (broadband over twisted barbed wire). The point being, you can put a signal across most anything -- as long as you do not care about speed nor interference! Your power lines are already carrying low-speed data in many cases for in-line transmission management. The problem with radiofrequency physics is that of how antennas work. Ask your local amateur radio friend about long-wire antennas and you'll soon discover that power lines are essentially the same thing. Wonder why your AM radio acts funny when you drive under a high voltage line? Imagine if that line wasn't just emitting 60 Hz, but everything MF to low-VHF?
Shortwave radio would cease to exist. Amateur radio HF would be gone. All the communication going on right now for the tsunami assistance efforts would be shot - causing many people to die. AM radio would be useless at night and anywhere outside of the city during the day. But hey, some power company CEO might be happy.
BPL causes so much interference that it is useless in urban areas. In rural areas, it still interfers , but now has the disadvantage of being more expensive than simply running fiber out to the residence (at $17.5K/mile for rural fiber deployments).
Really, because the cost of rural fiber is less, a power company would be smarter to use existing facilities and deploy fiber along the same poles. Now you have much greater capacities than BPL will ever provide, are using existing right-of-ways to reduce costs significantly, etc.
Innovations like fiber over ground - where the fiber optic is carried on the top ground cable of the transmission system; ground wires are necessary to take lightning strikes away from the transmission line, but do not affect the fiber inside - make this easy for us. And we can go 40-50 miles depending upo the fiber mode used without repeaters, not 600-900 feet or less per BPL. Best of all, it is cheaper than BPL and does not interfer with the entire radiofrequency spectrum.
So ask yourself when you hear a power utility talking about BPL why they would do it. Some seem to think the investors might be fooled by the idea of converting an old power line into a broadband carrying line with little effort (I have a sky hook to sell these people). The reality is that until we change the laws of physics, an antenna will act like an antenna, and that is what a power line is. BPL will be horribly expensive and cause other RF services to cease to exist.
Run, don't walk, from power utilities that talk up BPL.
No. BPL sends a radio signal not over the transmission wire, but inside the electro magnetic field surrounding a high voltage line, similar to how a light bounces inside of a FiberOptic Cable.
The problem is that some of this radio signal can leak out. I assume the problem would mostly be at the "Telephone Poles" that hold up the the line, as those electrical transformers they have up there could break up the nice cylindrical EMF, but I really don't know what causes the signal to leak out.
But you are right, interferance is the big concern, and it has the ham radio association up in arms as the fequency used can interfere with shortwave (ie, intercontinental radio transmissions) and many emergancy broadcast type signals. How much interference is released appears to be very debatable. Looking at the AARL's Website doesn't really have proof that interference will be a problem, just mentions that they've show interference in lab conditions and through using calculations of signal leakage etc that it will be a huge probablem. AARL has some good information about BPL with links to howstuff works and other sources as well.
...get interrupted by an unlucky squirrel.
There's a sicknening reality to this. I used to bitch about having mediocre power from Omaha Public Power District (OPPD). They were pretty slow getting to the problem and I had encounters where they'd get there, only to sit around for three hours waiting for a "safety foreman" to show before they could restore power. In retrospect, I was just impatient like most power customers.
Then I moved to MidAmerican Energy territory. Oh my god. Serious, total suck time. Treynor Iowa (east of Omaha) has gone down at least a half dozen times this year for, um, squirrels, bunnies, sunny days, a cloud, etc. They joke about outlawing rodents because apparently their appearance causes half the county to suddenly not have power. My little town lost power three times this fall - for hours at a time - for nothing anyone could ever figure out. MidAmerican doesn't tell usually (you have to find a lineman to share the secrets, apparently). Someone told me that Warren Buffet (fat cat second richest guy in the world or something that lives in Omaha who tries to convince people he's a nice little guy, but if you knew him and his "family" you'd know better) and his company, which own Midamerican Energy, have been doing the Gorden Gecko on their maintenance. You know the Wall Street Movie where the guy slaughters the company to sell it off in pieces. Since the linemen say the same thing (one truck on call to cover two counties on weekends), I kind of wonder.
The funniest one was this last September. I was working in my shed and needed more light. (I live on a farm a couple miles down the road from my little town). I grabbed my dual-500 watt halogen and plugged it in. On... OFF! Crap. Thought I popped the breaker. Reset it. Nope. Whole damn panel was down. Went to the pole outside my shed and reset. Nothing. Went to the main pole that feeds my outbuildings. Reset. Nothing.
Turns out my plugging in a light TOOK AN ENTIRE COUNTY DOWN! We were down throughout Monday night football. Didn't get up until 10:30. What did MidAmerican Energy say? Nothing. They don't even call you back when you select the callback option. So apparently using 1000 watts is enough to shut an entire county down. Holy freaking cow.
I've asked one of their engineers why their power is, um, so, um, not reliable. His answer? "You live in the country. What did you expect?"
I pray my Internet never, ever depends upon these complete fools.
Who needs this data transmission over power lines? No one in North America!
There are millions of meters of 'dark fiber' in the ground already. This is the ultra high bandwidth fiber optic cable that was put in place quietly by the utilities during the boom years of the 1990s. It was all this unused fiber-optic capacity that gave rise to all the talk about video-on-demand and other high bandwidth predictions at the time.
Maybe somewhere, someday, somebody could make use of this technology. But for the present, it's just an academic exercise.
The problem with getting bandwidth into use in North America isn't technological, nor is it the lack of installed cable. It's political. Everybody involved is just too damned greedy and the end result is that nothing much happens. It's like crabs pulling each other back to the bottom of the bucket.
My system could deliver data at close to one gigabit per second over barbed wire in ideal conditions, with speeds of hundreds of megabits per second available to home users. My system requires barbed wire to have been modified to reduce interference with the data signals.
Clue: All signals are waves. (Fourier)
Clue #2: All electrical signals are electromagnetic waves. (Ampere)
Clue #3: Electromagnetic waves are not contained in fields, they are the fields and the fact that that energy has formed a field means that it is no longer in the wire. (Faraday)
Clue #4: To keep these waves from forming fields of radiation, we can place an opposing (balanced) wave near it, twisting it occasionally (twisted pair), or we can place it in a faraday cage (coax).
Clue #5: Neither of these methods are used with power lines.
How much interference is released appears to be very debatable.
Clue #6: How much interference is released can be calculated, or observed through experimentation.
Clue #7: "Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." (Feynman)
for high voltage over Ethernet.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
It's not the technology....
It's politics.
The government through an act in congress mandates that ALL homes have phone and electricity lines pulled to them no matter (just about) where they are.
There is no requirement for either cable or fiber. As long as this situation remains the same, I can pretty much bet that anybody that can't get cable will NEVER get broadband! The little copper wire for phone, big electric wire and satelite is all the options they will ever have.
Unless a national fiber inititive is done through congress where the same requiements for electricity and phone are applied to network fiber cable, a large part of the U.S. will probably be bandwidth starved.
There is of course the hope of some exotic wireless technology..maybe
Here is some food for thought on BPL:
1. BPL signals will pollute ANY chunk of spectrum it uses. This is already evident in the 2-80 MHz bands that it's currently being tested in. The same thing would happen even if they shifted it to work in the 2-5 GHz band, the interference issue would still exist.
2. BPL CAN be interfered with, transmissions from any RF source be it CB, HAM or Public service can disrupt BPL service. How irate would you get if your BPL service was constantly disrupted by my LEGAL transmissions.
3. Placing RF coupling capacitors at the transformer to allow BPL signals into your home. NO THANKS. Now your otherwise "clean" AC power is now going to be filled with all kinds of other noise as well, arcing insulators / transformers, your neighbors arc welder etc come to mind. And let's not forget about lightening strikes and large static discharges.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
In any communication channel, the data rate (as measured in bits per second) is proportional to bandwidth, and it kind of makes sense to confuse the two (it was originally a hacker joke). The problem is that they are really separate things. For example, plain old telephone has a bandwidth of a few kHz, but the data rate can be more than a few kbps if there is good signal to noise ratio. To be precise:
See also: Throughput vs Bandwidth and links on that page.Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.