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Google Invests in Power-Line Broadband

Posted by Zonk on from the branching-out dept.

fsterman writes "ZDNet reports that Current Communications Group has received investment money from Google, Hearst, and Goldman Sachs for their internet over broadband ventures. The Wall Street Journal reports that the three companies invested roughly $100 million in the start-up. Current Communications and Cinergy Broadband said they will create one joint venture to bundle broadband and voice services for Cinergy's 1.5 million customers. Current also has plans to use the new investment money to expand its broadband over power line deployments in the U.S. and overseas."

14 of 328 comments (clear)

  1. Not Evil? by cayenne8 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I thought Google pledged to not do anything 'evil'.

    Hasn't this tech been show to be damaging to Ham radios? Something that is usually very helpful in times of emergency, when phones and sometimes power is even out?

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    1. Re:Not Evil? by yellowbkpk · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So when the power is out, the IP over PowerLines will go down too, thus enabling them to coordinate their efforts and HAM it up. ...unless it's only a brownout and you're still broadcasting interference on the other side of the street.

    2. Re:Not Evil? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      of course if the power is out i dont think you would have to worry about it interfering, right?

    3. Re:Not Evil? by sgant · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I see, so how is one going to practice this? Guess keep the equipment and the antennas up and invest 1000s of dollars into a hobby on the off chance that maybe you'll be able to help one day...but until that day it just sits there unused.

      Cool...guess you solved it!

      --

      "Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
    4. Re:Not Evil? by sgant · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The thing is, this isn't ancient technology. It's still alive today and many people are still doing it.

      It's also needs no infrastruture. Nothing can "go down" to where you can't get out to someone else. The net can go down. Cell phones can go buh bye when you go out of signal area (which happens to me even now just driving from Michigan to Illinois...where you would think it would have constant signal).

      But this has been going on and on. You personally don't care and why should you, you're not in the hobby so you just see it as ancient technology that should go the way of the horse&buggy.

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      "Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
    5. Re:Not Evil? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Well... if the power is blacked out, then there will be no broadband via powerlines to cause interference with ham radios.

      Um, there won't be any ham radios to not interfere with. Nobody is going to maintain a lot of expensive HF equipment, and the skills to use it, that can be used only during power blackouts!

      Google has forgotten the face of its (technological) father.

  2. BPL...not good by VAXcat · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's unfortunate that a company that wants to do no evil is investing in activity that will earn it the emnity of most every amateur radio operator in the country...

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    There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
    1. Re:BPL...not good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      The HAM crowd amazes me on this point. Manassas, VA adopted BPL last year and has shown demonstrations of folks using HAM all throughout the city. No interference whatsoever. AFAIK, of all of the commercial deployments, none have been shown to negatively interfere with amateur radio. The claims of interference seem like little more than FUD to me. Everybody wants something to complain about.

  3. Wireless by loomis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I find it interesting that in this day and age of moving towards transmitting signals without wires, no one was ever able to safely transmit power wirelessly ala Tesla's ideas. Without power lines, to latch on to, perhaps see more efforts focused on long-distance wireless internet?

    Loomis

    --
    "The television is the retina of the mind's eye" - Videodrome
  4. Re:Who needs Broadband over powerlines -- I do by GatorKing · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I live in Cincinnati and I subscribe to Current's BPL service. Notwithstanding Slashdotters' speculation, there has been no epidemic of bad TV recpetion. I'm not a Ham operator but am not aware of any outcry there either. Oh, and Current's broadband service is fast, cheap, and reliable. I pay at least $10/mo less than comparable cable modem service, and I have never once had a service outage. I'd recommend anyone give this (awesome) technology a try before badmouthing it.

  5. Re:Why? by LodCrappo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    was hoping that would be a clue as to how sarcastic/asinine/goofy I was trying to be :)

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    -Lod
  6. Re:Whew! by That's+Unpossible! · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think the thing that is more annoying to me is that I can easily filter out Google stories if I didn't want to read them, yet I have no way of filtering out the inevitable "Too many Google stories" comments that flood Google stories.

    SHUT UP ALREADY AND FILTER OUT THE GOOGLE TOPIC IF YOU ARE SICK OF IT!

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    Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
  7. Re:Why? by moultano · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Um, it's already happening . . . My mom is using their service. She likes it.

  8. Re:Why? by MightyMartian · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Good for her. If it causes problems for emergency bands and other legitimate operators, your mom's Internet connection seems of little importance. There are other ways to supply broadband.

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    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.