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12Mbps Powerline Broadband Trial Unveiled
An anonymous reader writes "The tiny state of Tasmania in Australia has kicked off the country's first commercial powerline broadband trial. The service is capable of providing Internet connectivity of up to 12Mbps but during trials, it will be limited to 4Mbps. Costs will range from $12 (A$15) to $67 (A$80) per month for speeds between 256Kbps and 4Mbps. Powerline broadband has received wide support from leading vendors including Intel, Motorola and Cisco Systems -- all of whom support an organisation called the HomePlug Powerline Alliance."
...that our once thought unfounded fears of someone programming our toaster to eat our dog are not not-so-radical?
When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Rel
In other news, Los Angeles is working on an implementation of electricity over power lines. Still a few bugs to work out in their implementation though, apparently.
Tasmanian Devil reportedly not impressed. Already using 1GBit fiberoptic connection.
Taz administer broadband network!
NNNNyehhh, what's up doc?
Taz eat hacker rabbit!
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
http://www.tastel.com.au/bpl/price_broadband.html
I bet I can do that in a day or two just patching a game? Or am I reading it wrong?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I have Comcast cable internet and I'm pretty happy with my download speeds. The thing that I wish they would allow for is higher upload speeds.
So this new service offers 12Mbps download... but what are the upload speeds?
c'mon, guys. Is it asking too much to report the ACTUAL bandwidth used in the trial, instead of some arbitrarily-high number that the users involved will never actually see??
Broadband over powerlines makes a whole lot of sense. Currently if you want broadband you have to run cable from your local cable provider, phone line from your local phone company, optical fiber from . . . whoever might offer that service (not an option in most areas, including my own, so I'm not sure), or you'll have to set up a satellite dish and worry about weather effects.
But what's the one thing that all computers have in common? They use electricity! And even if you're generating your own, you're still likely hooked up to the grid so that you can sell your excess back.
I can definitely see broadband over power lines being a big hit in developing countries, since they won't have to worry about the added infrastructure for connecting their residents to the Internet. Add voice over IP and you end up with VOIPOPL: Three products for the price of one (give or take a bit of added overhead).
This was a big PR chance. I heard in some areas the ONLY way to get messages passed (especially "Is my brother OK" type Health & Welfare traffic) was by hams.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Homeplug is the consumer standard for in house data over powerlines.
HomePlug is also the standard that Motorola is using for their low voltage Canopy system. It operates on the 110/220 side of the transformer, not one the medium voltage lines.
Homeplug has actual hardware based filters to make sure it does not interfere with amateur radio operators. It does not merely change the modulation technique like most BPL providers have done to mitigate interference.
--fatboy
The tiny state of Tasmania Tasmania is about 68,000 sq km in area, which makes it bigger than West Virginia, Massachussetts, etc. Would you write "The tiny state of New Jersey"?
Will this deployment of Broadband over Powerline cause interference to radio services and be subject to interference from radio services ?
: 2099729486:pc=PC_2845
The American Radio Relay league has information on BPL in the USA at
http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/
The Australian Government has information on BPL at
http://www.acma.gov.au/ACMAINTER.2490560:STANDARD
Peter AI6PG
Sadly no. If I'm in California, and I'm talking to a flood victim in New Orleans, the BPL in Arizona will block us. The thing people forget about HAM radio is it is single transmitter, around the world. That can ONLY happen when everyone plays very nice. BPL does not place nice.
This fatal flaw will seriously limit the way that BPL can be deployed and will decrease the reliability of a BPL system in any area where it is possible that nearby radio transmitters could be operating. Under the FCC's rules, BPL is an unlicensed device that must accept any interference caused to it by authorized radio services. In the past, and through decades of experience, such interference is rare to other broadband services, such as DSL, cable or satellite. However, in all of the BPL areas tested for susceptibility so far, the unshielded wiring that is used by BPL apparently picks up nearby radio transmitters and overload or otherwise degraded the performance of the system. Although this has been seen at power levels as low as 5 watts from Amateur Radio transmitters, Amateur Radio transmitters can use as much as 1500 watts of power, greatly extending area over which BPL will be unable to tune out these over-the-air signals.
See the ARRL.org website for more info. http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/ 73 de W7COM
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
What do you get when you cross a Tasmanian Devil and a /.er? A deviled egg-head!
Thanks, folks, I'll be back tomorrow too.
Brodband over Powerlines has been offered in the Allentown/Bethlehem area of Pennsylvania USA, since 2004 by PPL electric utilities.
A couple of years ago I did some work for these guys. Their products were great, but ISTR that only about 6 homeplug devices could be used on a given circuit. OK, things will have moved on a bit in that time, but I wonder what the limit is now. Also, they would not work across a transformer. Correct me if I'm wrong, but where I live every neighbourhood has a step-down transformer to convert the high voltages used to transport electricity over the grid to something that won't fry any poor bugger that gets within a few feet of it.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
While you may not think that your neighbor yammering on his CB, or another neighbor listening to broadcast from Radio Swaziland,or listening talk radio on AM broadcast are very important, there are other communications that are also disrupted: HF radio is used by emergency response agencies all over the world. The inadequacy of communications (among other failures of emergency services) was well demonstrated by the recent Hurricane Katrina disaster. BPL will make this worse.
HF radio, unlike cellular telephones and other centralized radio systems, has the ability to comunicate over long distances without any intermediate infrastructure. The is vital for disaster communications where the infrastructure is overloaded or destroyed.
Worst hit would be the poorer nations of the world, where telephone service is often unavailable or unreliable, and much of the communication has depended on HF radio. While the interference at a distance will be less, it will still be strong, very easily strong enough to make a weak signal calling for help in Afria disappear in BPL noise generated in Australia or the US.
It goes both ways: HF radio can also interfere with BPL. I think that, in an area where BPL is interfering with Amateur Radio, that the Amateurs will not hesitate to use more powerful transmitters (if they can afford the electric bill for doing so). These will disrupt BPL, quite easily to the point of being unusable. And I doubt the BPL ISP will let you out of the contract because of such interference! So don't sign up. It's not worth the headache, and the guilt, and angry hams and other angry HF radio users.