Google Invests in Power-Line Broadband

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."

Comments

Whew!

[lucabrasi999]

I was getting worried. It was already past noon local time and I hadn't seen a /. submission on Google.

Re:Whew!

[Rei]

You had me worried. The article had been up for two minutes, and we hadn't yet had a slashdot-metapost.

Re:Whew!

[That's Unpossible!]

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!

Why?

[Rei]

I thought that internet-over-power lines was pretty much a dead concept - not simply due to the fact that you had to largely redo your power infrastructure anyways so that it doesn't filter out your data, but because by the very nature of modulating a signal on a high power wire, you're building the world's largest radio transmitter network, and flooding everything with radio interference.

Re:Why?

[MightyMartian]

I can't see it ever happening. It would knock out emergency bands, and pretty much fsck up commercial radio. It was an idea that should have been abandoned years ago.

Re:Why?

[LodCrappo]

When will people quit whining about RF interference from powerline broadband? Who cares. RF is a dead technology that noone born in this century still finds cool. Radio is dead dead dead. I say fsck any and all wavelengths unless they're using em to bring me faster internet. All you hams should get a computer and learn to use email instead of tieing up valuable spectrum with your silly talking. If you really want to you can still use morse code over IP. Screw the radio, screw broadcast TV, screw emergency services. They should all be using broadband.

Re:Why?

[jarich]

First, there is a huge existing infrastructure. The existing power lines go everywhere.

Second, coupled with voice over IP, this puts Google (potentially) in the ISP business and the telecom business.

Lastly, this would catapult Google from the tenuous position of search engine king (just like Yahoo used to be) and into the dominant ISP, teleco, search engine, etc company.

In other words, AOL, Microsoft and Ma Bell all rolled into one!

Re:Why?

[Spectre]

RF is a dead technology that noone born in this century still finds cool.

Since when are we going to let a bunch of 4-year-olds decide what is cool?

Re:Why?

[scoove]

All you hams should get a computer and learn to use email instead of tieing up valuable spectrum with your silly talking.

Normally it isn't prudent to respond to humor masqueraded as flamebait, but I thought I'd add some perspective for those who might be curious about the reality of such criticisms. Here are a few thoughts:

Many of the carrier network CCIEs I work with are "hams" - licensed amateur radio operators. I'm only a lowly CCIP in process (actually with a CISSP and CISA, with a management/finance background, worked with Linux since Linus had it on two floppies (ala "pre distribution"), build a mean kernel and program in Python). I'm a general license ham and work with microwave communications over MPLS networks daily.

There is considerable innovation done in modulation schemes, such as PSK, which increasingly gets integrated in the commercial wireless broadband world. I've constructed IPv6 over mesh protocol networks in amateur frequencies, and the best thing about the extensive range of amateur bands is that there's certain to be one for your open source project. One of my projects that needs more attention is my Python software repeater that controls a Piexx.com Motorola VHF-L, VHF-H or UHF radio from Linux.

Amateur radio is very much open source radio, where broadband over powerline is closed source. If you're interested in open source and radiofrequency, amateur radio is where you go to get the open tools to experiment. Care to understand what really is happening in your 802.11? The theory is all contained in amateur radio. You'd be shocked how much you learn when you compile in AX.25 into your kernel, build the tools, and construct a whopping 56 kbps network on UHF (or even better, 1200 on some old Kantronics TNCs). You can keep up with Ethereal on a saturated network at those speeds, and suddenly basic IP and lower layer fundamentals click. Some of the best wireless security people I've met are hams. Just as a real kernel hacker is a better OS security person, a knowledgable ham is going to beat a "user" of 802.11 any day (anyone who claims to be a wireless security expert that simply knows how to click on an icon in NetStumbler is a joke).

The BPL initiatives are unfortunately highly destructive to a very wide band of RF - not just HF. Low VHF frequencies are seriously degraded as well. BPL is a property grab no different than abusive software patents. It is theft of a third of the public radiofrequency commons for no reason other than corporate profit.

The best analogy I can give a non-radio person on BPL is to imagine if Microsoft Longhorn would cause a 60% to 70% consumption in IP networks by having uncontrolled, sustained blasts of ICMP, TCP and UDP traffic. Microsoft's explanation that this just "had to happen because there is a demand for Longhorn" wouldn't pass with the rest of us who know there are better solutions. Forcing it if it doesn't fix is never a good approach.

BPL suffers problems due to RF theory, not implementation. Just as I had to work around 1-2 second latencies in international satellite voice network engineering (no "negative latency inducer" could bail me out), transmission and distribution power systems are designed to radiate energy based on the RF injected (hence the 60 Hz hum one often hears). They are big antennas, but fortunately most electronics has worked around the awareness that 60 Hz is noisy and blankets the environment. Now induce HF to VHF and you've destroyed RF (and we're not factoring for harmonics and other higher band interference which is certain to occur).

Incidentally, regarding this amusing comment:

If you really want to you can still use morse code over IP. . Screw the radio, screw broadcast TV, screw emergency services. They should all be using broadband.

Someone needs to learn the OSI model. He might be surprised to learn that his IP is riding over VHF, HF, or another frequency blasted by BPL. Our weather network in western Iowa uses mobile IP (IPv4oAX25) on lower VHF frequencies to monitor storms for the National Weather Service. Given BPL interference, you might be well served telling people they just have to die for their BPL since emergency service and amateur spectrum isn't important.

Not Evil?

[cayenne8]

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?

Re:Not Evil?

[sgant]

Don't go there...if you look at the history of Slashdot they're anti-Ham radio for the most part. Their reasoning is why stop progress for something that only 600,000 people in the country do. You know, the needs of the many outway the needs of the few.

Ham is very useful, but try telling that here. Expect to be flooded with people with these sentiments, and I hope I'm wrong about that.

There is so many other ways to get broadband to even the most remote people that over the powerlines doesn't even need to be. Got a phone line? You should be able to get broadband. If not, do you REALLY think that BB over powerlines will be in your area instead?

Oh well, it will be a major nail in the coffin that was the great and wonderful world of Ham radio. 100 years down the drain.

Great....

[Brad1138]

Now Godzilla will be taking my internet down as well.

Its about time....

[eldawg]

Even though the technology may still need some polishing, it is already being pursued in Europe.

Google? Powerlines?

[FrontalLobe]

Wait... Does this mean I can search the web from my toaster finally?

Wireless

[loomis]

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

Power line a poor choice for better avialabbily

[Eravnrekaree]

Power line technology has various problems, such as the fact that power lines were not designed to carry high frequency transmissions and tend to turn into giant antenna systems when they are used in such a manner, disrupting accessibility to radio services such as shortwave radio and amatuer radio. It also turns out to be a rather expensive technology to implement as well as being problematic, since transformers tend to absorb and block RF signals on the power lines, requiring expensive solutions to bypass them. It is to the point where it will be so expensive to implement that it would be better to just implement a fiber optic network, which would provide better bandwidth anyway.

I think a much better and more effective, as well as higher quality solution for both bandwidth broadband avialability and the choice, and for maximum capacity, is to construct a shared fiber optic networks which could be used to carry telephone, cable tv, and internet. These systems should be owned and operated by local governments (who could contract out maintanence and construction to independant contractors if they wish) who would charge an access fee to fund the operatation the networks, and which would be open to all information service providers to provide their information services over them, such as multiple cable tv, phone and internent providers, giving people perhaps dozens more choices, assuring competition and choice for the consumer. This also would seperate the operation of the physical infrastructure from the information services, so one entity isnt controlling both the information services and infrastructure, which allows that entity to have a monopoly over the information services provided over the physical infrastructure. Instead access to the physical infrastructure would be avialable to all information services, like phone, internet and cable, and all of the information services and consumers would pool their resources to build one communications system which tends to be more efficient than every information service having to have its own information service, and it would make it eisier for smaller companies to enter the market and provide additional choices for the consumer since they do not have to fund the construction of another communications system for their exclusive use.

Why BPL is bad for radio transmissions

[lugar]

For those who are looking for data on BPL and its effects on radio transmissions, this is a good place to start:

http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/aud-vid.html