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BPL: The Internet's Fool's Gold
Joe Barr writes "One of the more fascinating tidbits of information I came across while researching this story on NewsForge about BPL, the fatally flawed wannabe-broadband-provider technology, was that at the very same time the FCC was downplaying the threat of the interference BPL creates, the FCC's very own test results were showing just the opposite."
There have already been many lawsuits. Expect even more.
rm -rf ~/.signature
BPL? I thought this stuff was all done and over with? Anybody able to clarify? (BTW, I RTFA)
I want 10Mbps down for $10 a month
Was Slashdot any better with its breathless stories about "The Myth of Radio Spectrum Interference", "The Illusion of Spectrum Scarcity", and so on?
That's the wrong BPL. This BPL is about Broadband access through powerlines. In theory a darn clever idea, but a lot of obstacles apparently. Anybody with the know-how able to enlighten?
Has anyone calculated the interference of BPL over quantum wires?
Where is the administration looking out for the public interest that I've become so accustomed to?!?
What's that you say? Someone from the White House told them to get broadband-over-power-lines through no matter what, even if it destroys HAM radio and other public-use frequencies through interference? Why on earth would anyone do that? There isn't any corruption or corporate favoritism in Washington, is there?!?
What do you mean lawyers outnumber engineers at the FCC by a near-infinite margin!?! How could that be so?!?
what did the FCC have to gain by pushing a crap technology, one that violates their own rules and interferes with their sphere of influence?
It wasnt clear to me in the article why the FCC was so high on the tech...
Moo.
Now, after actually reading the article, instead of being excited about "first post", I can see a major fight coming. Here in Utah we have Utah Power, which is actually PG&E from california and oregon. We already have a problem with their monopoly. They abuse their power and go out of their way to abuse the little guy. Now we are suggesting that we place internet into their hands. I see major fights coming. If the **AA files a complaint about file sharing, do you get your power cut as "punishment"?
Talking to geeks is like eating jello with a chainsaw, interesting, but painful.
Highway trafic has a negative effect on horses, you know.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Filters for your outlets... And I thought DSL was bad. -jh
Never underestimate the power of corrupt legislatures and utility companies to force adoption of bad technologies:
r .asp?ppa=8knpp%5EZltmlupoXUnj!6%3C%22bfek%5C!
http://powermarketers.netcontentinc.net/newsreade
A few BPL trials have been dropped because the technology just cannot compete. But the threat is still real. Once fixed wireless is available everywhere, BPL
technology's only hope of success is through open graft and bribery.
My hope would be that Texans would give their much-abused highway signs a break from using them for target practice and begin utilizing the numerous BPL devices that will be
available. But old habits die hard.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
RTFA. It explicitly states that power companies cannot become backbone providers because long-haul data gets killed by interference from transformers/repeaters. They can still drop leased lines to substations and last-mile it from there, but this in turn feeds those very same backbone providers the utilities seek to compete with . . .
Speaking of which - why arent the power companies themselves pushing for more active enforcement of the telecommunications act of 1996 regarding this issue? This seems like a perfect place to call it out - lines sold to utilities at forced wholesale prices could A) make them some money, B) hurt the telcos and C) make consumers happy.
Self-correction, I didn't RTFAT (last t=thoroughly) Check this: http://www.pserc.org/ecow/get/publicatio/2005publi c/olsen_bpl_paper_feb2005.pdf
all the stuff you gotta/would wanna know about BPL
Shocking. Simply shocking.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
I have no idea why two of the three "ads by Google" were for meeting/dating Eritrean. Somebody is buying some weird keywords.
I've never understood how BPL even made it to the trial stage. Any EE with two brain cells is going to recognize that putting broadband HF/VHF carriers on unshielded power lines is a recipe for interference to many licensed radio services. See that wire going down the road? It's a fscking antenna, you moron!
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
What happens if we combine BPL with power over ethernet? Or is that like crossing the streams...
And you know what? PG&E has been quietly pulling fibre through their understreet conduits for several years. I wonder why? I wonder if the ratepayers know about it?
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
It's a bad idea and has been dropped left and right. Here's a paper from Canada on BPL. And here's a counter proposal for those who feel that energy companies need to be in the network business: Broadband Over gas (apparently not a joke).
Just try driving your Lexus through that field you see the horse grazing in. If you don't completely destroy the suspension in the process, you'll probably still bend an axle on a chuchkhole the horse has no problems navigating.
:P
Oh, and consider the full area of a horse field compared to the itty bitty teeny little slice of processed asphalt bisecting it - you get the tiny piece, the horse gets the remainder.
Your analogy isn't exactly waterproof.
The major obstacle is that it would blow HAM operators and emergency frequencies out of the water. Emergency services would have to start using smoke signals. It's as bad an idea as I can possibly imagine.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Maybe we should just put in our own fiber.
i'd be surprised if a power company DIDN'T have fiber. they already have the right-of-ways and the personnel to lay it. that's the two most expensive parts of the bill.
here in quebec (north, you know, canada) Hydro Quebec have a full fledged fiber network. There's also Hydro One (aka, Hydro Ontario) that actually resells full transit to the public in at least one data center that i know of. and let me tell you, for anything over 5mbit/s they're about half the price of everyone else (80$/mbit/s with a 10mbits commit)
According to the section chief of the Ohio ARRL, problems are minimal.
(at the bottom of the article:) "Joe Phillips of Fairfield, the Ohio section chief for the American Radio Relay League, says that so far the Cinergy roll-out hasn't created the radio interference many ham radio operators had feared."
Actually I know that my power company already has a fiber network that links all the substations for monitoring.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
the FCC was downplaying the threat of the interference BPL creates, the FCC's very own test results were showing just the opposite."
Wonderful... There you have it, folks! Your government in action.
Seems like yet another reason to get the government out of technology. I've been seeing a LOT of reasons like this in the news lately. How many more reasons do we need until people get really fed up?
I'm going to go with geosynch satts, and those funky troposphere blimps.
The satts need dialup, right now. Someone fucking work on that. If your option is no-fucking-intarweb-at-all, 800ms pings don't look all that bad. Especially when you can pull 100k/s downloads, and even 10k/s uploads. Beggars can't be choosers.
The blimps look pretty decent. I'd like to couple that with a small (18" diameter) enclosed antenna. Probably not optical, because it's more prone to atmospheric disturbance (rain). I'm thinking 20ghz, or something really funky like 100ghz. Something that really cuts through the chop.
I'm no electrical engineer, but if it was my call to make, that's the shit I'd have them working on...
Maybe the public is more interested in having broadband then using HAM radios. Did you ever think of that? Oh that's right you are just looking for more reasons to bash Bush...
Creative Demolition
Hey, Bush's EPA, under ex-New Jersey governor Whitman, claimed the air around NYC did not exceed EPA safety thresholds for toxic chemicals. So people stayed around breathing it unprotected, including the heroes toiling in the WTC crater. But they were lying. After lies like that go unpunished, who can blame them for lying about something less explosive like RF interference?
--
make install -not war
A clarification -
Yes, BPL interferes with Ham frequencies. But the FCC allocated emergency ranges are in fact higher on the RF spectrum, and are *not*, repeat *not* in any danger from BPL interference. Sure, it's not a great thing that Ham could be wiped out, but could the advocates please be honest stop trying to pretend that it'll hindre all emergency service communication in the process?
All I have in my area is one monopolistic cable provider, anything for some competition. ... we can't be trusted to communicate, and should place our trust in the corporations to "help" (read: censor) with our e-mail.
Like many other cable providers, they block off vital TCP/IP ports. No incoming port 80 for my web server - no way do the corporations want us to turn into producers on the internet, the corporations only want us to be consumers of their own content. Blocked outgoing port 25, crippling my mail server - naturally, only corporations should be allowed to send e-mail
Let us start with the basics. 1. A signal is passed across a copper wire by first adding a voltage on it. 2. You then oscilate that electricity which produces a signal when you choose where 0 is on the sine wave. 3. You then decode the 0(s) and 1(s) on the far side. Now, if you were to place different signals on the same wire where the alternating current is already running you can increase the "up-swing" and "down-swing" of those oscillating waves by having any signal were the wave peak and wave trough meet. Can you imagine what would happen if you played with alternating current phases? What is worse for this plan? Even if you can dampen the harmonics on that wire. How many times does the electrical signal split? How many end-points are necessary to repeat signals out to all the people connected to the grid? What happens when someone wants to feed electricity or even a signal back? Telephone networks have enough problems with the number of devices it takes to make sure you get an IP signal .. and that telephone network was originally designed for communication.
Except that if there was a global emergency, I doubt your broadband would be on anyway, in which case, why are you HAM? It would be easy to kill BPL during an emergency. Emergency freqs are another story tho.
In other words, we are going to sacrifice our country's emergency communications system so that people can get internet access more easily? I don't think so!
Would you still say that if you weren't able to get the medical help you needed in a disaster because your area's backup emergency communications system (which most probably uses ham radio) was wiped out by BPL?
microcomputing? More work on hobby microcomputing was being done by hams than anyone else back in the 1970's. Anyone remember Wayne Green and '73? Which later spun off, directly or indirectly, Byte, Kilobaud and other fine publications. An amazing amount of technology has been pioneeered by the ham community. They are an asset that should not be thrown away carelessly. Given the chance, I am sure there will be many more innovations to come. Real ones, not the Microsoft kind.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
http://www.stormloader.com/saklad/bpl.html
A mission to Mars
14 privately owned satellites in orbit
Experiments and payload aboard the International Space Station (and Space Shuttles when they fly again)
A worldwide GPS based tracking system
An independent worldwide wireless data network
No? Are you even still reading this? If so then ask yourself this, does your "hobby" provide emergency communications during disasters? Does it? DOES IT? Was it THERE during the TSUNAMIS like amateur radio was?
What about after the hurricanes? After Charlie tore trough Port Charlotte and knocked down all local sheriff and fire radio towers ham radio operators were there cranking up new towers, equipping the sheriff and first responders with new radios so they could save lives. They even used that tracking system I mentioned on all of the vehicles involved in rescue operations so that way the first responders could coordinate their vehicles more efficiently...
But you've probably stopped reading. Like I could care. All I want to do is enlighten those who read your comment, give them a different point of view. Show them that Amateur Radio DOES matter, is an important part of our lives and will be around a long, long time. BPL or no.
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
why arent the power companies themselves pushing...
In this part of the world they are. Many have installed their own fiber on the power poles, for control & metering, and are selling the spare bandwidth. One thought they could do "fiber to transformer" then BPL. They soon found the error of their choice and now are struggling to fit demand into their backup wireless spectrum.
As for BoG, one mainly electricity utility here inherited some abandoned gas pipes thru the city. They've pulled a lot of fiber thru those...
and as Shannon has so clearly told us, the rate at which information may be tranferred is directly related to both bandwidth AND noise. Interference is noise.
The quote given indicates a naive understanding of radio and communications theory, at best. Sure, some receivers work better than some others. But it's also generally true that any specific receiver will work better in the absence of noise (i.e. interference.)
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I recall that article.
The basic premise was that if you ignore basic principles of the physics electromagnetic waves and basic communications theory you can eliminate interferance and bandwidth limitations.
Some of the techniques he proposes can, and are, moving us closer to the theoretical limits of utilization of the available bandwidth. But just as improving engine efficiencies will not get you to perpetual motion, improving recievers abilities to reject interferance cannot give you unlimited reuse of the same frequency without interferance. At some level of simultanious reuse of the same frequency the desired signal is indistinguishable from the interferance. Wishful thinking will not change that.
it takes a lot of time and skill and hardware to become a good HAM. If the only outlet someone has is during bona fide emergencies when the grid power is down, well..that just ain't gonna cut it. That's like telling someone who's level of expewrtise is they brought home a computer from the store and plugged it in, then they can become an instant systems administrator the first time they get a virus, *poof* they magically know everything and all the HOWTOs and whatnot. Uh huh, sure....
It's not possible or probable.
BPL is technically possible, just a bad idea in general. I live rural and would love broadband, but I don't want BPL. The best solution is to just run fiber everyplace, like back in our history we ran electrical wires, then telco wires to almost everyone. sure initially it might seem expensive, but we have the historical proof how it benefited all the "we the people" and improved the economy. It *paid off* doing that generally speaking. So, the quicker we do it, the quicker it will be done. It's just tech evolution. Fiber works, and economies of scale would drop the price, and certainly we could stand to create a few tens of thousands new tech jobs in this nation, jobs that *can't* be outsourced.
Later he agrees that competition would be good for the consumer, but that BPL is not being faster, more reliable, or cheaper than conventional broadband access. But, he leave out the part about it being faster and more reliable than no access at all. Although I'll admit that BPL probably costs more than having no access at all. Finally he begins to selectively quote and reference FCC documents. He talks of notching and quotes a member of the ARRL (association for amateur radio) of which the author is also a member. The FCC data that he claims show that the likelihood of interference is not very low, actually shows the opposite for a properly notched systems. The report showed low to no interference with a an above ground properly notched system simply recommend that the notch be increase by 100kHz in the 10 meter band.
And for underground powerline systems, there were no caveats at all - the underground systems were always below the limit.
Why claim that the data proves something that it doesn't?
http://www.arrl.org/~ehare/bpl/FCC_reports.pdf
It's funny, I've yet to see a policeman, a fireman, a paramedic, a doctor, a Red Cross volunteer or even a laborer who clears rubble and rebuilds infrastructure loudly announce to everyone how critical and valuable and he is and how "you'll be sorry!" when you guys take your ball and go home. I guess the people who do the real work in emergencies don't have the time to troll message boards puffing themselves up. They've got work to do.
I see a lot of people badmouthing BPL or Amateur Radio over one-another. I'm an amateur radio operator, and I'd oppose BPL even if it didn't interfere with the amateur service (as some implementations don't: they notch out the amateur bands since the ARRL has been so vocal).
It really is a silly idea. Let's run MF/HF/VHF signals over this really long, unshielded wire to deliver internet to people's houses. Of course we can't actually get it to the house because of those pesky transformers, so we still need to retrofit our grid and use something else (like wifi) for the last 100 yards. Then there's that pesky issue of power lines being really bad transmission lines at those high frequencies (they're definately not constant impedence), so we'll have to throw a lot of power into those lines (at RF) to get the signal where we want it. What? It radiates? Hum, oh well.
The obvious solution is to string real transmission lines (like coax, twisted pair, or, obviously, fiber) along those poles (protected in some kind of harder casing) and underground. But that's expensive? Duh, retrofitting something meant to deliver huge amounts of energy at one frequency (50 or 60Hz, depending on your side of the pond) to deliver data at high rates of speed isn't going to be cheap. At least don't be half-assed about it.
Also, just so people know. The amateur service doesn't really have all the bandspace people make it out to have. Some bands are surprisingly small: the voice section of 17m, for example, is from 18.110MHz to 18.168MHz - only 58kHz of bandwidth, or enough for 20 single-sideband voice conversations if everyone plays *really* nice and lines up perfectly. There are giant posters like this one that show the major service to which each frequency band is allocated to in the US (many of which are also assigned internationally by ITU, at least down in HF). The first 3 rows (3kHz-30MHz) are the bands likely to be given problems by BPL. The amateur service is teal-green colored on that poster. Look for yourself how little is actually given to the service on many bands. 80m (3.5MHz) is about the only one that you're likely to even spot quickly below 30MHz!
Sure, fuck ham. However they are a small population of spectrum users who would be affected (they just happen to be the group who complained publically). Police, coast guard, other emergency services, etc. all regiatered complaints to the FCC regarding BPL.
Appearently they do not care that you were easily mislead by debunked "cheap broadband" claims that anyone with a freshman level EE knowledge could see through. I'm sorry you were so gullible, fortunatly it seems the rest of the world isn't.
Finkployd
airsnort with a CB
BPL is being tested in a remote area in Arizona, where there are few HAMs and little of the spectrum is actually in use- when/if BPL is ever put into place in a city or heavily populated area, many more "non-existent" problems will result. BPL will cause destructive interference to many commodities using radio that we use today.
As someone who has been involved in the BPL to some degree, I can assure you that the BPL is a political scam that was never meant to be deployed on any significant scale.
In the past, FCC required local owners of cable and phone infrastructure (baby-Bells, Verizons of the world, etc) to share access to their wires in a non-discriminatory fashion to avoid "monopolistic" behaviour. Both local DSL and cable operators lobbied heavily and successfully to strike this "mandatory non-discriminatory sharing" provision from FCC rules. BPL was proclaimed a "third alternative broadband technology" that in theory should prevent monopoly or duopoly in residential broadband. The trick is that BPL is not competitive with cable or DSL and, thus, will unlikely be deployed at all. BPL push in FCC was a smoke-screen to enable baby-Bells to monopolize DSL and existing cable owners to monopolize cable broadband accordingly.
Did anyone catch the last sentence? I can't say this article is unbiased.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am both a newly licensed amateur radio operator and a member of the ARRL.
maybe on slashdot someone might thing the few ham radio guys are the majority, but i bet DSL to everyone with power will serve the public interest much more than upsetting a few hobbyists who like to see how far they can talk.
:)
Someone should get them trillian
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Well, if I had power and active broadband to be transmitting interfering how about I just fucking use that to communicate! Guess what dipshit, if there's a disaster, there's no fucking power and hence no BPL to interfere with your fucking radio! Jesus Christ, is there a fucking intelligence test to be a ham, or is it just a primitive AOL?
Yes, you are quite the intelligent one. So you believe in the event of an emergency all the Hams will spring to life and use their radio gear now that BPL is down. You honestly believe people are going to spend money on gear, set it up, and wait for a day when it might be usable. Do you want the first "test" of this gear to be during an emergency?
Finkployd
I would think that this can work in Europe, where most electricity is carried in underground cables.
When I first visited North America, the third world standard ungodly cable mess strung next to all the roads was quite unexpected to me.
I find it hard to fathom how the power companies could even have considered using BPL in overhead lines - plain schtoopidttt...
Oh well, what the hell...
Ok he won he got me. A troll is a troll.
But your wrong about that second paragraph. I never said or suggested anything of the sort nor have I personally been involved in any emergency amateur radio activities. I just know some people who do volunteer and have worked emergency communications before and I guess I'm a little too proud of them, a little too defensive of them.
As a side note I wasn't trying to belittle other hobbies-- I just think it's not a "hobby" is all, that was part of my point really, was that he wasn't looking at it as a hobby.
But you have to admit the mission to mars is pretty cool.
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
Mmm, broadband so good you can taste it! Seems to me this would work for downloads, but uploads would have to go through the sewers.
Write Only Memory: Another pointless blog.
let me guess: Joe Barr is a ham? Amateur radio operators (hams) are very well organized against BPL.
I lived in a rural area for a while, and internet service sucked. All we had was dial-up, and even that was horrible because the phone line was so crap. If you wanted high speed, your only option was satellite, which has its own problems, (High costs, metered use, latency). I had hoped that BPL would help get decent, resonable cost high speed internet out to where I lived. Can the technology work in places about 7 miles from the nearest town (with 5K people?)
... other than a 56k modem?
I challenge those who've been ranting about the technology to stop for a minute, put yourself in my shoes, and see how you like it. Or how you don't.
I live in a somewhat rural area in central Virginia near Charlottesville. I'm way, way beyond the 15,000 cable foot requirement for DSL so that's out. There is no cable TV within 5 miles or more. And the only company offering wide area Wifi is a no go; I tried but couldn't get any signal because there are hills all around (10 million tons of granite equates to many hundreds of db in attenuation). (I'm also technically within the National Radio Quiet Zone [google it if you never heard of it] which makes additional wide-area wifi towers problematic).
My electric provider (a rural co-op) has a trial of BPL going right now and they're promising to roll it out to more customers soon. Initial testing on the trial has apparently been good, though I don't know how much attention has been paid to local hams and the impact on them.
If you're gonna diss my only broadband option, at least gimme some home for an alternative (other than moving)!!!
-- This
I will never let BPL work anywhere I live. Every see those sneakers thrown across the wires. Imagine them filled with small HF transmitters. Fuck BPL.
It's funny, I've yet to see a policeman, a fireman, a paramedic, a doctor, a Red Cross volunteer or even a laborer who clears rubble and rebuilds infrastructure loudly announce to everyone how critical and valuable and he is
Thats funny, dumbfuck asswiper idiot. (hey, you started with the name calling shitwad, so its fair game, just like your momma.) After all, I don't see anyone trying to cover up technology that will prevent the police, the fire crews, the doctors, the red cross volunteers, or laborers from doing their job.
But oh, oh, oh, if BPL destroys radio and the radio operator points out why its important to keep this from happening, suddenly they're a "self-important ass".
Get a fucking life, quit defending useless stone age technology. Tell me how many megabits I can get on a power line again, and how it'll only be available in urban areas already serviced by DSL and cable because the step up/down transformers on long distance lines kill the BPL signal, and how FIOS and other fiber services will eat BPL for a pre-lunch snack on the way to offering real broadband without radio interference.
All new construction in N Texas is underground cables. It nice not having power-lines and telephones lines all over the place. I don't know if BPL will ever be financially viable, but RF interface won't be a problem in new additions.
Jesus Christ you're a bunch of fucking crybabies.
It's ironic, BPL is a shitty, dead end technology and it would die on its own (lack of) merits but you fucking hams had to open your pieholes and make it so much worse. Never have I met such a bunch of uptight, self important fuckwads with so much free time.
Yeah, get a life and quit getting mad at people on the Internet! Wait...oh, oops. ^_^
Joe Barr just got his ham radio license!
eat shiat and bark at the moon
policeman
You have obviously never seen a policeman protesting things like "copkiller" armor piercing bullets or anything else that affects the way their job works.
In fact, you have no clue at all what the hell you're talking about.
BPL is a total killer for any radio in it's path. A trip on Rt. 9 in Briarcliff Manor NY shows that you get "digital hash" on most ham bands and on CB. While CB is uncool on this board, it is in common use. Any shortwave listening is gone. Imagine these noise generators all over..... The internet is tissue paper in tough times. Ham radio requires a radio, a wire, and a power supply. On 9-11, the third thing to fall was the cellular network and you can bet next time it will have a "priority access" limit for public safety persons. YOU won't get to use it. BPL is like allowing me to use your fresh water lines to drain my sewage-it's only a little dirty water, and you probably won't taste it, and if you do, well, we have to share your pipes. K2FIX
If your hobby gets in the way of cheap broadband for the masses, collect stamps.
Move to fucking Korea or shut up. Claiming that BPL will bring "cheap broadband to the masses" is the sign that you're nothing but a drooling idiot.
Call me when BPL promises me gigabit ethernet for $200 per month. Until then, take your whining and shove it up your ass.
Or if you think you're smarter than you act, invent something that WILL bring me gigabit ethernet to my door for $200. I'd give up emergency rescue teams and ham radio noise for gigabit ethernet, and all these people could just set up stations online to chat with each other.
It's simply Capacity = Bandwidth x log2 (1+ Signal/Noise).
Your reference is to a paper dealing with multiple "simultaneous" transmitters sharing bandwidth, and is not relevent to the discussion at hand (interference from BPL to traditional radio technologies, such as AM/FM/CW communications). It might however be suited to a discussion of digital cellular technologies (CDMA/TDMA/OFDM).
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
My hobby doesn't have self-important asses who take every opportunity to tell me how special, important and wonderful they are either.
Hams don't have a choice. They have to promote themselves if they want to retain their allocations in the (increasingly-valuable) RF spectrum. They also have to remind people of their past contributions when a gang of non-technical pinheads at the FCC decides the HF spectrum is a disposable resource.
All of this horn-blowing is a reaction to BPL. Call it a survival instinct.
BPL operators started notching out some frequencies
Slower and slower we go...
BPL is a shitty, dead end technology and it would die on its own (lack of) merits
Yeah, well that brings us back to the Bush-administration-run FCC pushing this dead horse as far as it will go for some reason, despite its utter and complete failure in every other country that has tried it. And now we're on Bush bashing again, odd how it goes 'round in circles!
Also affected would be short wave broadcasting, military frequencies, airline long distant communications, commercial broadcast frequencies for international traffic, etc. In short just about every service that uses frequencies between 3 and 30 MHZ could have been interfered with in some part of the BPL service areas. Hams were just the most vocal and have a great number of highly trained electronic engineers of professional and hobbyist persuasions to provide technical input.
Too lazy to create a sig...
Haha! I hate to be the one to tell you this, but even if BPL is rolled out to 99% of the world, you will be in the 1% that won't ever get it.
ISDN, T-1, Satellite, dual-line dial-up. You have a lot of options for broadband, they just don't happen to be terribly cheap. If I was in your place, I would probably start up a broadband company, based on microwave transmitters/recievers.
But the real issue here is that having broadband is nice, but far from necessary. And HAMs aren't just kids playing around with several thousands of dollars worth of radio equipment, they serve an important role. It's BPL that is stomping all over other radio signals, not the other way around, and it should not be rolled out until/unless they can solve that problem.
"Dear Slashdot, I live on a coral island in the middle of the Pacific ocean, and the only way for me to get broadband is to drain all the water out of the ocean, but those damn environmentalists keep trying to stop me."
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Oh God forbid you drag your asses out of your parents' basements and go somewhere to practice your hobby. It's not like countless other people, from shooters to astronomers, can't always engage in their hobby as they choose from the comfort of their homes. Lots of us actually have to travel to another location, sometimes by car and often with a great deal of equipment ,for periods of time often ranging over an hour (that's one Star Trek episode) to engage in our hobbies. I'm sorry it's such a huge fucking inconvenience to engage those torpid flippers and move yourselves to and fro. I thought hams were so fucking important in an emergency. If just leaving the house is so traumatic what will you do "in a disaster"? Curl up into a little ball, blubber and cry and blame your failings on big, bad BPL? Whatever gets you through the day, I guess.
You don't? Step out of your little fucking ham world. Politics hinders a great many things in a great many fields. Police officers can't use technologies that save lives (tasers, for example) because of politics, doctors can't use life saving drugs because of politics, volunteers have to be careful to step around local governments to get their jobs done. The list goes on. You're not unique, and you're certainly not fucking special, except maybe in the short bus way.
Get a fucking life, quit defending useless stone age technology.
Who's defending BPL? It's ironic, I think it's a stillborn technology that deserves to die. But I'm glad it's hanging around. I love watching puffed up Chicken Littles dance around.
And then I hear him talk about why his department has so much trouble getting tasers that work so well and I feel for him.
If you are in the quiet zone BPL wouldn't be an option for you anyway. There's no way they'd allow that if additional wide area wifi towers are a problem.
ISDN and Satellite are the two technologies of choice for those who are ADSL/Cable/Wifi challenged.
I use ISDN as I'm a gamer, and the pings are king for me. A few neighbours here have sat, and they get some bitching download speeds. Have a hunt around and see what you can get. Admittedly, often these techs cost more than an ADSL or cable service does (at least in Australia), but for me no neighbours within 150 meters of me, the rural lifestyle and $buttloads of cash saved living out of the city more than cover the additional costs.
It's a single-wire waveguide- and power lines purportedly make nifty G-line runs at 802.11 frequencies...
While Corridor makes it sound like they came up with it, calling it E-Lines, the whole concept has been around for decades- and I'm surprised that someone didn't try this earlier because it DOES work as advertised.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Somebody has to wire coax or fibre to your pole transformer. BPL is just from the pole transformer to the house. Who's going to do that long cable run?
It can transmit as well as receive.
There have been many attempts and sales of devices in the past which purports to use the entire power grid as an antenna, whose signals is routed through our special little box to your TV set, yours for only $19.95 postpaid, etc.
Yeh, you get the signal you wanted, as well as more crap you didn't than you can shake your stick at. Its like getting a free restaurant meal, thoroughly mixed with a bucket of garbage.
So, you put wide spectral content signal back into the power grid, you are gonna radiate our all over. This has been known since the days of Tesla and Marconi. Nothing new here.
We already have enough problem with accidental corona discharges filling the RF spectrum with unwanted broadband hash. Just one dirty insulator will screw up the RF environment for miles around.
Technically, yes, power lines could transmit data, but they were not optimized for this. Its old-style 300-ohm TV twin-lead at its best. It was notorious for picking up stray signals.
I do not think BPL was ever designed to send signals... it's designed like a cat trap, whose purpose is to trap investor dollars. Dollars from people quick to part with their money but slow to pick up the technical acumen to verify their claims.
One more thing, don't knock amateur radio HAMS. They are the last breed of guys we have who have a personal interest in RF. Most people seem as ignorant of their stuff as they are about their computers, and have no earthly idea how it works - as they just complain and pay someone else to make it work. Most amateur radio operators know exactly how their stuff works - especially if you ever meet one who builds from scratch. Its really unusual these days to talk to anyone who knows this field from its most fundamental levels, and their advice should be taken very seriously. Personally, I fear the passing of these guys who build things from the ground up, as many of the incoming people build things with dollars, and have no idea how it works - and physics, not finance, makes the ultimate decision of whether something will work or not.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
been there, done that.
Shrub is too easy of a target.
Start with the basics? Maybe you need to learn a little bit about the basics. The kilohertz or megahertz frequencies that are introduced onto the 60Hz carrier are nothing more than noise on the system.
Beyond that...well, you're just spouting nonsense that a second year EE student would just laugh at. And as a practicing EE, I'm chuckling, too.
I'll take a stab at it, though. The high frequency oscillations on the wire have no effect on the 60Hz AC frequency. The peaks and troughs can't meet because there are several orders of magnitude difference between them. Adding a few volts of high frequency noise to the thousands of volts of 60Hz power on the transmission line means nothing. No harmonics to worry about - the transmission lines are long enough for them to dampen out. Want to send a signal back? No sweat, do what DSL does, use two different carriers at two different frequencies, well above 60Hz.
Telephone networks have problems getting you an IP signal because they were not originally designed to carry high frequency signals - just like the power lines, yet, son of a gun, it works. Apples and oranges - telephone lines aren't power lines.
As to the effect of BPL on amateur radio? That's something else entirely.
It is still used in some legacy industrial applications, such as Jacquard Looms and waterwheel-powered flour mills.
Developed at Bell Labs, it has the distinction of being the language used to program the first TOIP (Telegraph Over IP) app, which, as everyone knows, is when Samuel F.B. Morse sent the message "WTF has God wrought? OMFG ROFL!".
Note that BPL itself was preceded by APL (Ancient Programming Language), which was used during the heyday of the Roman Empire, about 2000 years ago.
That language is easily recognizable because it doesn't resemble any known "living" computer language (including the heiroglyphics of its character set).
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
I was in this situation when I lived in rural New Hampshire.
I got a T1 -- you can get these most anyplace a phone line can be ran nowadays.
Sure, it might not be as cheap as you'd like, but you do have options. And two-way satellite works reasonably well for general surfing and email, too.
There seems to be an awful lot of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt coming from the HAM radio crowd. It amazes me how some people hypocritically engage in the same type of behavior they would publicly vilify others for. Personally, I think I would prefer a slightly less biased report on the potential of broadband over power lines.
OK, first of all, I'm more of a software person than I am a hardware person. Nevertheless, I have a technical question:
All the power lines I've seen have always had at least two parallel cables, if not three. So, what is to stop them from making the broadband signal a differential signal? For those who aren't aware, with a differential circuit, you take a signal and transmit it on one wire and the negated version of the same signal on a parallel wire, and then you can subtract the voltages at the ends of the wires. When you do this, a nearly-magical thing happens: the two wires, being parallel, pick up virtually the same interference as each other. But since the interference is the same and the signals are opposites, when you subtract them, you double the signal and cancel out the interference. That phenomenon is called common mode noise rejection. (This kind of circuit is used in pro audio, which is why a microphone cable has 3 pins instead of just 2. And, it is also used in SCSI cabling and other computer stuff.)
Now, here's the part where I'm going out on a limb: it seems like this could work in reverse, too. If the two wires are carrying the same signal but at opposite voltages (one positive while the other is negative), it seems this would not only allow common mode noise rejection, but it would also cause the transmissions to be cancelled as well. To put it another way, one power line would be acting as a giant transmitting antenna for one signal, causing radio pollution, BUT the power line next to it would be transmitting the exact opposite of the radio pollution, mostly canceling it out.
So, my question is: are they already doing this? If not, is there a reason why it couldn't work? From my own feeble understanding of things, it seems that the benefits will be reduced the shorter the wavelengths and the further apart the wires (because both these things make it hard for the opposites to line up perfectly), but it still seems like it could make a major difference. If you're talking about transmitting at the low end of the spectrum the article mentioned, at 3 MHz, then since the speed of light is 3*10^8 m/s, the wavelength is still pretty long at 100 m. And, walking outside, it seems that residential power lines look like they're about 1 m apart in my area.
As a tech reporter in the DC area I started covering BPL (at that time called powerline communications or PLC) in 2002. I'm no longer a reporter (having stepped over to the dark side of "corporate communications"), but still follow the industry from afar.
Here are three articles:
CITI Powerline Communications II - August 2002
UPLC 2002
CITI Powerline III - April 2003
Amateur radio operators have been opposed to PLC/BPL since the very beginning, because it operates in their spectrum. The entire culture of ham radio revolves around the limits of performance--how far can you hear, how far can you transmit. As such, ham radio operators are extremely sensitive to interference--far more sensitive than most commercial deployments. What a municipal emergency system can easily tolerate, a ham radio operator would consider a disastrous travesty. This is why the cries of the ham radio lobby need to be taken with a grain of salt.
On the other hand, PLC/BPL does indeed create interference. No one questions that. The question is--is it sufficient to interfere with essential services? So far the answer appears to be no. While the ARRL and other ham labs and lobbies can demonstrate harmful interference to their operations, I have not seen an independently verifiable report that a BPL commercial trial has caused real harm to essential services such as municipal emergency, military, air traffic control, etc.
This sort of thing is what field trials are conducted to test. There have been dozens of commercial trials of BPL in the U.S. alone, in addition to numerous trials and some full commercial roll-outs in Europe and South America. I do not know of one report of actually reported harmful interference to essential or commercial services. Compare to the number of verifed emergency communication problems due to Nextel since 2001, for instance.
The remaining unanswered question is one of cumulative interference. Even supposing that individual field trials have not caused any harmful interference to essential services, can we be sure that wide-spread deployment would not? This is one of the questions that concerns the FCC and others, because it is a question that is not easily answered prior to wide-scale deployment. And the fact is neither the FCC nor other regulatory bodies are legally equipped to regulate industries based on measurements such as average interference level or overall noise floor. They are equipped and accustomed to regulating individual point sources only (such as an antenna or device). It is uncharted territory both legally and technically.
Finally, I've seen some ignorance about the technology and the potential industry in posts above.
Yes, BPL can travel over long distance wires but it requires amplification for longer distances. This limits its cost-effectiveness for rural deployments. BPL is probably not a rural magic bullet.
Yes, power companies have the tech to become telcos because most power companies have fiber pushed out pretty far into their network. It would very easy for them to coopt some of that capacity to push the BPL signal out to the medium voltage lines where it would travel to the home. However there are regulatory limits to what power co.s can do, so any BPL sales would have to be through a subsidiary/separate company, with all the state regulatory and network leasing paperwork that entails.
Transformers are non-issues because every BPL company has a cheap solution to either bypass it or shape the signal to pass through the transformer. The IP of how to do this is the foundation of the companies and therefore the industry. Transformers don't matter.
Finally, to address TFA itself. Who cares ab
This is politicking from the ham radio community. They are worried because internet over powerline would be far more valuable than ham radio. They worry that if trials are successful the FCC will abandon them for more internet access. This is akin to car companies wanting to ban dangerous unsafe cars for Japan in the 70s. The car's might be unsafe, but that's not why the car companies are against it.
c oalition/ Most cops and paramedics carry cellphones and/or pagers already to account for this. It's not like these folks are drones. They are smart folks and the world isn't going to end if there is some crackle on their radio for a couple of minutes. So the very small risk is well worth the possible benefit.
So some points:
1. It doesn't have to be better than dsl, cable, or fiber optic to help competition. Many people would be happy to upgrade from their 56k modems. Seen the ads for NetZero? It's crazy but some people are still paying $8 per month for dialup. If you are a slashdot reader you're like "damn dude pay the extra 15 bucks", but other people have lives. By providing a cheaper alternative it also puts pricing pressure on dsl and cable. It really is good for everyone who buys internet access.
2. If it's slow and crappy people won't by it. Like a, metricom's richocet. So the government doesn't need to strangle the baby here to save people from being suckered in. If this is such an obviously dumb idea why are entrepreneurs and companies funding development of it?
3. Ham is really cool, both my dad and grandfather use it. But we can survive a little interference with it, while we figure out how to make the two systems work together. In other words, Ham radio is not in fact of a vital communications link for the US. It's a neat hobby that is occasionally life saving (usually when some rural Ham operator has a heart attack). The point of pilot programs is to discover these issues and work them out.
4. With emergency services, they are starting out with different frequencies based on the city so that there will be no interference. There is a chance (but a very small one) that misconfigured or resonant wires will cause interference with their motorola radios. What the author didn't mention is that this happens a bit already. There are lots of locations where cops know their radios won't always work right now for the same way your cell phone doesn't work everywhere. For example police departments already have problems with interference with cell phones http://mrtmag.com/news/commentary/first_response_
What the FCC is doing is allowing these trials, by lowering the definition from no interference to "try really really hard" not to interfere. Now it's up to the companies make it work.
The FCC is being entirely reasonable here and we should note that similar arguments were made by first responders and broadcasters at the introduction of wifi. Without Powell's decision wifi would still be in the lab.
Maybe I'm missing something here. Since when is it universally acknowledged that BPL is a joke technology? I actually happen to be a BPL subscriber (Manassas, Va), switched from Comcast cable service recently. I know that the local ham radio club definitely has been having problems, but as far as I know, these problems are being addressed and now the system is online throughout the city, working. So, what's the problem?
David Reed doesn't know what he is talking about. Interference is very real and well defined, independent of the particular receiver, once you have decided on frequency and bandwidth allocations for different users.
Historically, because of technological limitations, receivers have gotten more bandwidth than they needed for their tasks, which allowed them to be more robust to interference, but the interference was still there.
With MIMO, it is the transmitter which changes, not the channel.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I was responsing to the AC and taking the position against BPL, so I'm not sure I understand who your post is directed at...
One more thing, don't knock amateur radio HAMS.
I don't, I'm KB3LYB
Most amateur radio operators know exactly how their stuff works - especially if you ever meet one who builds from scratch.
I do, which is pretty much what got me into the hobby in the first place. Talking on the radio is ok, I personally enjoy having the excuse to build stuff more though. I haven't designed anything myself yet, but I have built a lot of Ten Tec kits.
Finkployd
Oh God forbid you drag your asses out of your parents' basements and go somewhere to practice your hobby.
:)
:)
I'm sorry it's such a huge fucking inconvenience to engage those torpid flippers and move yourselves to and fro. I thought hams were so fucking important in an emergency. If just leaving the house is so traumatic what will you do "in a disaster"? Curl up into a little ball, blubber and cry and blame your failings on big, bad BPL? Whatever gets you through the day, I guess.
I had a great laugh over this post. Thanks, it really made my day
Oh and btw: I'm the commander of my local sheriff's office search and rescue team, and currently the only one on the team certified in high angle ropes rescue. I'll be sure to "get out of my mom's basement more"
Finkployd
Apparently nobody's explained to you the difference between a rural and an urban existance. You're obviously going to give up the conveniences of living in a city, but the trade off is that you don't live in a sardine-can apartment with noise/air pollution and excessive crime. Also, it's probably physically possible for you to exceed the speed limit due to a lack of bumper-to-bumper traffic.
But more to the point, BROADBAND OVER POWER LINES DOESN'T WORK. There. Read it once again if you didn't get it the first time. Let's pretend we don't care that it interferes with all forms of RF communication, because surfing pr0n at broadband speeds is obviously more important to you than, say, emergency response services. The more pressing issues are:
a) It's blocked by transformers. That means it won't go through substations or, more importantly, from the street to your house. See that cylinder on the phone pole out there? That's a transformer. Theoritically, you could put a WIFI from the pole to your house, but you just said you're in the NRQZ. (Which would seem to indicate that RF leakage from BPL would be a federal violation in the first place).
b) It receives interference. That's right. Antennas work both ways. What does that mean for you? Well, unfortunately it means that the broadband transmissions are highly prone to errors, and, in fact, an RF broadcast could disrupt your broadband completely if it's within 5 miles of the power line that carries your broadband.
So, what's a viable alternative? Write your representative and ask him to introduce legislation to subsidise fiber to rural locations, just like they did with electricity back in the day. Until then, maybe try satellite, or TCP via avian carrier. Alternatively, you could make a friend at UVA and use their broadband.
Good day, sir.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Power lines aren't efficient carriers of RF, they were never designed to be.
For the same reason that Verizon is installing their FIOS fiber system, and Comcast is pushing digital cable and installing fiber, the power companies will find that the analog technology upon which BPL is based is limited in its capability for growth.
Yes, BPL's an interferer, but I suspect that if the maintenance and noise problems don't kill it, its lack of growth potential will. You're competing against two carriers who are installing all the fiber they can. Sooner or later you're going to be uncompetitive. BPL's been tried in the UK and Europe and has been shown not to be competitive there.
On the other hand, PLC/BPL does indeed create interference. No one questions that. The question is--is it sufficient to interfere with essential services? So far the answer appears to be no
Maybe when your in the meat wagon, and they call in to the doctor, and cant understand the medication quanity they will shoot into your heart, you could be the FIRST to say BPL is crap, and it does interfere.
Alas, I've lately been overly slack in my meta-mods and moderation and thus have no mod points to award.
Nevertheless, well done!
Trusted by cats.
Of course they are. Every power company does. OPGW (optical ground wire - a 00 cable with fiber in the middle used for the static wire on transmission circuits) is about the same price as solid static wires, so it's essentially free to install fiber on all transmission circuits. Since the life of a transmission circuit is generally less than 10 years before it needs to be reconductored, ubiquitous fiber on the power grid can be accomplished in under a decade. Distribution fiber is a whole different ball of wax...
BPL FAQ for those wanting a primer on the technology, the issues, and the locations where it's operating.
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
Well, actually, that is what they do. A quick google search brings a story about their response during the Nisqually Earthquake in the Pacific Northwest. Living here in the San Fernando Valley, I remember their actions after the Northridge Quake as well. Many HAM operators have annual events at which they practice setting up & operating emergency field stations. Yes, that is exactly what they do.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
FUD= Fear-Uncertainty-Doubt There is NO doubt or uncertainty that BPL trashes HF comms of all kinds. This has been proven over and over and over. To make this comprehensible by the /. crowd, telling people that an enterprise wide rollout of Windows 3.11 would cause support issues is not FUD.
How is holding regular tests of emergency communications the same as never testing or using equipment until an actual emergency situation?
Finkployd
If you look at http://www.ieeeusa.org/volunteers/committees/ccip/ docs/Gigabit-WP.pdf
you will see that BPL operates at legacy speeds. The US needs networks that operate at gigabit speeds to the end user.
Now someone help get the fist out!
Don't get me wrong, I understand the fears caused by BPL. I live in a rural area which dosen't even have cable TV. Our local electric co-op is offering BPL to us folk beyond the range of cable and DSL. They are offering if for $29 per month, so it is actually less expensive than the DSL offered in town and the cable offered elseware. Satellite is an option, but almost twice as expensive as BPL. For me BPL is a savior.
-Elliott
ps: I'm not really a hick, and I only say folk as a joke!
maydaycomputers @ GMail dot com
..never underestimate the bandwidth of an LP gas truck loaded with DVD-ROMs....
Ping times wouldn't be very satisfactory, though...
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
Digital cable just refers to the modulation scheme, the modulated carriers traveling through a fiber optic or coax cable are still analog signals, just the carrier frequencies are vastly different. What is the limiting factor is the bandwidth available at the low frequencies that can propagate down a power line without tremendous loss.
out of interest how much did you pay for the T1 and what were the details of the setup? (ie full or fractional pure data or voice and data etc)
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interference
:)
Total cancellation would happen but so would constructive interference. Also, you're not talking about rigid wires but about catenaries. Noise may vary more given the distance between the catenaries than might be acceptable for differential signalling. However, what little I recall of wave theory is coasting to a halt at this point
Too many abbreviations, acronyms, or whatever in that sentence. (btw, i anal)
"Dear Slashdot, I live on a coral island in the middle of the Pacific ocean, and the only way for me to get broadband is to drain all the water out of the ocean, but those damn environmentalists keep trying to stop me."
Actually, I do live on a coral island in the middle of the Pacific, and it's the first time I've ever lived somewhere with broadband. I pay $90/mo, and obviously ping times aren't great, so playing games is somewhat out of the question, but it's just fine for most other things.
As it turns out, you don't really need to drain the ocean, just lay a transpacific fiber, as you're wont to do in order to connect, say, continents. Islands, as it turns out, are good spots to split the trunks to various locations, with the added benefit of providing broadband access for the residents.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I should have responded to your parent, the AC, not you.
Although I am not a HAM, I have many friends who are. I tinker with mostly the sciency stuff, they tinker with RF, and they have thoroughly impressed me with their intimate knowledge of how RF propagation really works. They have studied antenna theory and design relentlessly and have lots of freely shared empirical data backing up what they say. These guys have outdone every corporate lab I have ever been in, as the HAMS are internally driven to pursue this, whereas a lot of the corporate suit-guys are just pushing paper for a paycheck. Every corporate group I have been in seemed to have a couple of HAMS who knew how the thing is supposed to work, with a couple dozen more supervisory personnel hanging off his back.
When amateur radio operators report back that something is causing broadband interference, its not just a hobby thats getting trashed - its the entire RF environment that everyone uses thats getting trashed. An ambulance driver having trouble communicating on his radio is not in a position to pinpoint why his radio has degraded performance - he just knows he's having trouble contacting the hospital to let them know what's coming. We depend on people like the Amateur Radio operators to watch over the airwaves and bring anomalies out.
Sorry if I overreacted... if anyone even gets close to knocking a radio amateur, I start getting hot under the collar. In my mind, a radio amateur in a kindred tinkerer - one who knows how his stuff works.
People who speak from power get my obedience, but only people who speak from wisdom and knowledge get my respect.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
And, when I was a volunteer with Civil Air Patrol and sheriff's SAR groups in Oregon, yes, we did indeed spend our very own hard earned cash (probably around $1500 over 10 years), to purchase radio equipment that would be used for The Common Good.
Did we have organized procedures and methods, based on years of experience, science and analysis? Yes. Did we practice? Yes. Were we used when the local tri-county Motorola trunked radio system went down several years ago in Portland? Yes.
Believe it or not, there are quite a few people who do spend a not insignificant portion of their time to DEVELOP, PRACTICE and VOLUNTEER when disasters come up. I've been doing it for about 10 years now.
Shit....I hope I never get lost in your jurisdiction, even assuming you're not lying - which I doubt because you've got too much talk to be much action and everyone's a hero on the internet anyway - you're still pretty stone fucking stupid.
I should have my head examined butting into an AC flame war but,
- Talon
"cop killer" bullets = armor piercing, whether that be teflon-coated, carbide core, or some kind of sabot or flechette.
"Black Talon" = a type of jacketed hollow point bullet with additional claws to increase vascular damage.
http://www.firearmstactical.com/briefs2.htm#Black
Go get your license, dude - sounds like it would be great to have you join us!
73!
It's easy enough to check on...
/.?
So why do you say that? What have I said that has led you to believe I "got too much talk" and that I'm "stone fucking stupid"? Are you interested in actually interacting with people in this discusison or do you just get your rocks off acting like an anonymous dick on
Finkployd
Thanks.
Accidentally posted that as an AC.
Anyway, thanks.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana