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BPL: The Internet's Fool's Gold

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the hand-meet-other-hand dept.

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."

7 of 300 comments (clear)

  1. FCC favors business over public interest ?!? by javaxman · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Say it's not so! I'm shocked !
    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?!?

  2. So help me out.... by cephyn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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...

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    Moo.
  3. Laugh Test by Detritus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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!

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    Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
    1. Re:Laugh Test by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 4, Interesting
      In the UK though, we bury our power cables, so the cables aren't nearly as leaky.

      However, even in the UK, there's a problem- the street lights are run off the mains too. So you have a whole row of transmitters all neatly lined up. Gah. Presumably it's possible to put a filter on each and every one at ground level, but it's fairly expensive I guess.

      I talked to some of the guys that worked for Nortel on it, they were very enthusiastic, and seemed to think it would work.

      One problem they got around was the streetlights again. At UK lighting up time, all the streetlights turn on, something like: blink, blinkety-blink, blink blink blink, on. Now each blink throws a whole mess of noise on the mains. And you have a whole street full of them. Essentially, the internet connection would go down for a minute or two everyday at lighting up time :-)

      I think they changed their filtering or shortened the packet size or something, and the problem mostly went away... But it was funny.

      Still, I don't see powerline internet really taking off, never did.

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      -WolfWithoutAClause

      "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"
  4. As far as "last mile" technology goes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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...

  5. Re:Thank Slashdot as well by tarball · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As an electrical engineer who majored in microprocessor based design and minored in RF design, I would say -

    1) Reed's ideas aren't even decent vaporware yet.
    2) Reed's ideas are going to have problems with the fact that antennas aren't broadbanded enough. And when they are, they are directional (often the wrong ones), and still not very broadbanded. And don't think fractal antennas will work, because they don't work well at all.
    3) Most important - his ideas have nothing to do with the HF section of the spectrum.

    tom
    K0TAR

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    I hate sigs, and refuse to have one.
  6. What if BPL is the ONLY choice? Insensitive clods! by Bloody+Peasant · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... 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)!!!

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