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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...
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.
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.
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.
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
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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
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.
...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.
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)
Come up with a better way to get to the house and maintain the speed of fiber while holding on to the reliability and simplicitity of copper.