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."

Comments

Sounds like a good thing

[mattkinabrewmindspri]

because according to this report, this is sorely needed.

Lower Prices?

[J_Meller]

Interesting article. The power companies may be just the competition the marketplace needs to bring down some of the prices associated with having too few (inferior) competitors. Imagine the power company offering a vonage like service as well. They could probably rope a bunch of people on the bill convienence alone.

Re:and before you all start whining...

[Iriel]

When it comes to underground wires, I can say this much from experience:

1. If they didn't install it underground to start, it's not going to get there any time soon (at least not in the US). I know there are probably exceptions to this rule, but there aren't that many in the vast majority of the country. If lines were put above your head, they're going to stay there.

2. When you have lines that are underground, they get damaged less often, which is a good thing. When they do, though, you can be without Utility['$foo'] for quite some time. I have a friend who lived in a brand new neighborhood with underground cable lines for TV and internet surrounded by people still working with the same old structures. And when something went wrong, it could take up to a month until they could watch TV or check their email in their own home.

So without a fast enough maitenence crew to service them, underground lines can be quite a hazard.

Re:10 years ago

[eggstasy]

If by that you mean that getting broadband internet over powerlines is terribly difficult or expensive, I am happy to inform you that my own ISP here in Portugal has been offering powerline internet for ages at very attractive rates.
http://www.oni220.pt/oni220.htm

I'm told other european countries are also deploying it. The upstream is massive compared to similar ADSL offerings, instead of 8:1 it's a 2:1 ratio! Great for eMule :)

Powerline internet is a very attractive option in countries where the telephone lines are owned by a giant monopolist telecom.

Re:Hams

[thc69]

querist wrote: If those power lines go down there will be no interference, but what if they are still up and there is a major emergency?

Er...if BPL is up in said emergency, and ham fails, then why not just use the BPL connection?

Also, consider that once BPL comes around, it probably won't be long before the same company sells digital phone over the same lines. Therefore, there will be internet and phone communications as long as BPL signal is up, and if lines or the signal are down, then ham can cut in.

Then, Gorkon wrote: The BIG reason power companies want BPL is so that THEY can use it for reading your meter. They want to make your electric meter to be adressable and able to be read over the internet. They also want to have teh transformers and what not be able to report their status over it as well. BPL is about cutting some costs for electrical companies and it's just a bonus that they can add ISP to thier hat as well.

Sounds great. I'd rather have them read my meter over the internet than have them snooping around in my yard. That's better privacy. Also, while meter readers will be out of a job, it will create IT jobs -- and IT labor demand benefits me, as well as many other slashdotters.

And if I could get some competition for cable internet, which is the ONLY broadband available in my rural location...that sounds like a win-win-win situation! Damn the ham, full speed ahead!

It's NOT a noise floor problem...

[Svartalf]

A weak signal right on top of an antenna will swamp a powerful one at a distance if the power levels are equal at the reciever. I can cripple a Ham or CB setup by simply leaving a little 9v powered transmitter (in the case of CB, a walkie-talkie dead-keyed on the channel of most offense...) nearby. You won't be able to hear ANYTHING on the reciever wherever you do this to- it was a common fix for some idiot running a Linear being a problem on the CB band- they could get out, but they couldn't recieve over the little walkie-talkie on their fav channel. They'd think there was something wrong with their rig and quit doing it typically.

What the real big problem is that the BPL systems are largely interfering with a piece of spectrum that has really good propagation characteristics. It's used by everyone for emergency communications worldwide in the case of a disaster; not just Hams have a problem with this- FEMA and other orgs like them does too.

What pisses me off about all of this is that there's no real need for this BS- BPL can be done, done well, and it won't interfere with any critical services when it's done.

Corridor Systems has developed signal launchers and repeater systems to allow them to transform each line on a pole into a 10+ Mbit segment using 802.11 technology. This is accomplished by turning each of the lines on a power pole into a G-line waveguide (yes, you CAN do that sort of thing) that propagates the microwaves from an 802.11 system along the surface of the wires...