Slashdot Mirror
Web Access Over Power Lines
anaesthetica writes "The CSMonitor is reporting that power companies may now be able to break into the internet provider market, giving consumers a third option, outside of telephone and cable companies. From the article, "Broadband over Power Lines (BPL), with investments from big-name companies including Google and IBM, is beginning to move beyond small trial projects to deploying systems for large communities." Earthlink may offer BPL as soon as next year. Apparently, a major source of opposition to BPL is operators of ham radios."
Apparently, a major source of opposition to BPL is operators of ham radios.
And anyone else who uses any kind of radio. BPL still has massive radio interference problems, fullstop. Every trial so far has resulted in cancellation of services because the interference ruins too many other things.
Once again it'll be announced, it'll be trialled, it'll fail. I said it almost every other time someone else comes up with this too good to be true notion.
This was mooted 14 years ago. I can't see any big changes. Bypassing the local transformers will still cost a shit-load of money.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
Provided they take down the exisiting powerlines and replace them with high tension co-ax. It's not just Ham radios that this will irritate, its everyone. The FCC and its international counterparts have restrictions on EM waves not just because they interfere with communications, but because they interfere with everything from aeroplane and medical electronics to cell division.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
The opposition, even with the offer of notching the offending frequencies, is that the notches that have been demonstrated don't do enough.
You could say it lessens the interference by 50% or so, and that's not enough because ANY increase in the "noise floor" (the background signal that exists on a frequency which a signal must overcome in order to be heard) makes it more difficult for ham radio operators to use the frequency spectrum that they are licensed to use.
One solution would be for ham radio operators to just increase the power they use. Unfortunately, most hams operate (on HF anyway) at their full power capacity. Also many hams enjoy the challenge of low-power communications of 5W or less (worldwide communications are possible on under 5W).
The principle of the thing is that why should a commercial venture be able to do the things that, so far, no one has been allowed to do: emit RF across such an immense spectrum of frequencies, including those for which others have what the FCC calls "primary" usage granted to them.
The ARRL has said that they do support a Motorola solution because it does not add any interference to the ham radio frequencies. So not all BPL is bad. Ham radio operators are opposed to those that are bad.
is a graph of the licensed frequencies that some hams think that the unlicensed BPL technology will pollute (blacked out).
Hams are fond of shortwave because it allows people to communicate around the globe (not only line-of-sight).
As an Amateur Radio Operator I think I may be able to answer this question.
Firstly, there are a fairly large number of licensed operators. Not everyone is active in the hobby, but it is the number of licensed operators that the ARRL (American Radio Relay League -- Amateur Radio's main 'club', so to speak) uses when confronting the FCC and other regulatory bodies (including Congress) about issues that are a concern to Amateur Radio.
Secondly, as previously reported on Slashdot (no, I cannot find the article at the moment) the BPL companies' attempts to "notch out" the part of the BPL signal that interferes with Amateur Radio transmissions have not been very effective.
Thirdly, while BPL is certainly a good idea in theory, and I for one would welcome our new BPL overlords if they can dispose with the interference on the Amateur Radio bands, there are still technical details to work out before it can be used harmoniously in conjunction with existing services, including Amateur Radio.
Remember, Amateur Radio serves a critical role during emergencies to provide communication when other means are not available. If those power lines go down there will be no interference, but what if they are still up and there is a major emergency? Also, many Amateur bands are close to other public service bands. Yes, I know that the police are using cell phones now, but unless there is something that allows the cell towers to give priority to the police phones over my phone they police may be unable to communicate in an emergency.
I know our local ambulance service uses radio. So does our fire service. BPL will interfere with them as well, though not to the same extent because they are shorter range.
A little interference is not such a big deal with shorter range communications like the local fire and ambulance, but when you are trying to push a signal across the country, that small amount of interference is a major issue.
I'm sure I'm going to get flamed for this, but such is life. These are the main issues to the best of my understanding. Again, I would love to see BPL work. I live out in the boonies and I can't even get cable, never mind DSL.
Yes, the Amateur Radio community is in opposition to BPL, due to the high degree of RFI (radio frequency interference) that BPL puts out. The problem that not as many people are talking about is that this will also affect many fire/rescue/police radio frequencies, which occupy the same radio spectrum as the BPL systems interfere with. This could potentially cause severe problems in emergency situations. So no, it's not just a bunch of us HAMs whining about BPL "ruining our hobby". We also interact with emergency personnel in emergency situations, severe weather, natural disasters, and yes, even terrorist attacks.
It's a [______] thing...you wouldn't understand.
Contrary to popular belief, we don't live in a military junta, and the law is honored. Spectrum has been allocated to the amateurs and it is the responsibility of the BPL providers to avoid stomping on it. The amateurs also have credibility, having provided the only available reliable communication during events such as the Florida hurricanes, eastern blackouts, and September 11th.
The real problem w/ BPL is that using it for long haul requires a costly investment by the utilities that has not been discussed. Don't know what causes it, but putting a massive inductance (e.g. transformer winding) on a high-speed data line tends to filter the data out (!!!).
So, one needs to put gear at all the subs, trannys and protection devices to provide bypassing for the data signals. The end result is that the communication data ends up using the existing fiber backbone until the last hop to the customer premise if the utility wants to avoid making a massive investment in duplicating telco and cable infrastructure. This makes BPL relatively less competitive except for servicing customers outside of existing xDSL and cable service areas.
Southen-Electric are already providing broadband over powerlines in some locations here in the South of England, and have been doing so for some time. The broadband side of the company are known as BlinkBroadband.
This sounds strikingly similar to what X10 has been doing for a long time. Using a special outlet plug-in, you can control various fixtures (lights, fans, etc) via a remote control, as well as using a timer and motion-detectors. A friend of mine has been using X10 motion sensors in his house for a while now, so that his kitchen light comes on whenever anyone enters, and turns off 2-3 minutes afterward.
I'm not up to par on the technology used in the X10 devices, but it can't be all that dissimilar to sending any kind of digital "internet" signal over the power lines as well. Actually I'm surprised it took this long to surface (granted I haven't been scouring the net looking for this information either.)
And they said zombies weren't real!
RWE, a very big electricity company in Germany used to sell powerline internet access in towns Essen and Muelheim an der Ruhr in july 2001. It only lasted until september 2002.
According to RWE it was shut down because some frequencies used by powerline were reserved for security services. The real reason was though that almost nobody used it - RWE had only some 200 paying customers - because internet access via ADSL was much cheaper and in both Muelheim (I used to live there back then) and Essen widely availiable.
Conservatism: The fear that somewhere, somehow, someone you think is your inferior is being treated as your equal.
The article was light on the details of why the hams are opposed to this, except for the issue of whether or not it will interfere with their signals. If the BPL companies are offering to NOT interfere with the signal, why is there still opposition?
Because the current definition of "not interfering with" is based on fairly loose standards, because BPL noise could ruin the opportunity to use other parts of the RF spectrum in the future, but mainly because power-cabling is unshielded and currently so inefficient at broadband frequencies that they will initially have to use alot of signal, and radiation will be a given, regardless of what's promised.
Think of this as background noise (eg like your neighbour's air conditioner). It may be quiet, but its noise still prevents you from hearing the birds clearly, the breeze in the trees, the buzz of the bees, etc. BPL radiation will reduce our ability to detect faint RF signals. When the extraterrestrials finally get around to thanking us for the LP on Voyager, we won't be able to hear them.
On another note, not to be a dick, but how can a bunch of hams form a "major" opposition against the power companies, IBM, Google etc?
Well, that's the problem. Maybe we need a "sierra club" or "greenpeace" to act as watchdogs on our RF spectrum...
I do believe that BPL is probably inevitable, though... so, sometime in the future, when most of the power grid is adapted for this, and all new AC-powered devices have BPL filters built-in, then the BPL radiation should be less.
main(O){10<putchar((O--,102-((O&4)*16| (31&60>>5*(O&3)))))&&main(2+ O);}
LN2 is cool!
unless there is something that allows the cell towers to give priority to the police phones over my phone they police may be unable to communicate in an emergency.
In fact, that very point was recently demonstrated in London. From this article:
In the immediate aftermath, a statement from the U.K.'s largest network operator, Vodafone, said that an excessive number of calls had caused outages. The operator consequently set aside capacity for phone calls to emergency services.
"Following the major incident in London today, Vodafone London switches are at capacity (which is very rare), so we're having to go into 'access overload' procedures, which means freeing up a proportion of capacity across London to ensure the police and emergency services can communicate," the company said.
Ever heard of WIMAX? BPL is an not needed, not cost effective, and a poorly engineered solution to the problem. And the hams are right...
As a licensed amateur radio operator I was beside myself when the FCC gave BPL deployment the green light. It proved to me that none of the commissioners have ANY technical competence at all, and that any decision right or wrong is made entirely for political reasons.
Current BPL technology is a kludge at best, it is the equivalent of duct tape and bailing wire. The interference that is created doesn't just effect the ham bands, it effects every service that is found between 1.8-80 MHz. The "interference mitigation" card is pure bull shit. For non hams how would you feel if I developed a Internet delivery method that disrupted your cell phone service? And every time you attempted to use your cell phone you disrupted your neighbors Internet access.
BPL is a bad idea, the laws of physics will never make it viable or economical, how many of you would get pissed off if I was constantly disrupting your Internet service for minutes or hours with my HF transceiver when I drive through town, I know I would.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick