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Broadband Over Gas Lines — a Pipe Dream?
prostoalex writes, "USA Today says we might see some progress in broadband over gas pipes, as startup Nethercomm (warning: Flash site) is working on the technology to deliver broadband Internet over this medium using ultrawideband radio. According to the article: 'Broadband in Gas would require installation of an ultrawideband transmitter that's linked to an Internet backbone... at a gas company's network hub. A receiver would be placed at a customer's gas meter. Build-out costs are about $200 per household, Nethercomm says. By contrast, broadband over power lines costs about $600 per household, while phone and cable TV networks each cost well over $1,000 per home to build.'" The article ends on a downbeat note. The upcoming trials that Nethercomm touts are difficult to confirm: "We're intrigued by the technology, but we never got that far in our discussions," says a gas company spokeswoman. And the ultrawideband chip company that had been working with Nethercomm, Freescale Semiconductor, has turned its attention to other projects.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
discuss
I do, however, have some concerns. What if one of my big down loads clogs up the pipe? Will the gas build-up, resulting in a dangerous explosion? I don't want to explode the internets.
Come ON! That's no way to move data. It's not futureproof by any stretch of the imagination and not scalable. I MIGHT see it working in a historic district or something where you can't get facilities in place but that's a real stretch. Gas companies want a piece of the broadband pie and that's it. They'd be better off just setting up wiMax towers. At least then they could tap the mobile market. Twisted pair, coax and fiber are mediums designed to move data (I mean signal, excuse me) in one way or another. This ultra wide band nonsense is no solution for an exponentially expanding demand for high bandwidth services. Just think... one giant collision domain! I see the theory but come on, this is just too far fetched.
an Ethernet bridge to nowhere.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
How about broadband over cable or broadband over phone lines and be done with it already. Jesus, what is the obsession with running broadband over every goddamn media we can think of? Broadband over power lines, broadband over gas lines, broadband over cow farts and yodeling. Sheesh. The problem has been solved, move on.
I always said you could send the internets down tubes. Always.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Does it tell you what the data is based on the rate of gas flow? What if there's an unexpected surge? I'd love to use this with my bank account:
"Transferring one cent from PayPal account...
Current balance: $1,854,459,234.48"
"HOLY #$%*)#(!!! Withdraw, withdraw!"
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Just at first glance, I wouldn't think that using electronic devices in the gas lines would be a very good idea. I know that the meters and such are probably mostly electronic by now, but still, I'd want to see this tested pretty good before I'd be willing to use it.
DISCLAIMER: This post was not checked for speling and grammar- if you complain- you're a whiner
These pipes, or tubes, would they be big enough to send Internets down them?
You mean Ted Stevens was right??
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Just another grab for VC money to burn, and when it's gone, people will move on to another "pipe dream" ...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Also watch out when downloading porn.
That hottie might just be the last thing you click on.
liqbase
"We're intrigued by the technology, but we never got that far in our discussions," says a gas company spokeswoman.
"...because everyone kept making jokes about explosive growth at the meetings", she said with a sigh.
Please help metamoderate.
for those soon to be empty pipes.
Dog is my co-pilot.
So if I get this service, assuming it becomes available, Who would I call if the pilot goes out on my modem?
AND, will my gas oven cook like a microwave?
How well does this work over plastic gas lines, like those installed underground for new construction?
So, sending radio through a narrow metal pipe. Doesn't the pipe just absorb the signal? Any rf engineers care to comment? I think I'll lump this in with antigravity and perpetual motion devices until I hear a convincing argument otherwise.
All the newer gas pipes around me come out of the ground as a flexible plastic rather than a metal pipe line. And I live in New Orleans, where we're getting a lot of new gas lines! Is this supposed to be carried by the metal in the pipes or is there going to be some kind of translator in the streets that takes care of it? This is, of course a moot point, since we're supposed to get muni wi-fi, but don't other cities have plastic pipes too?
Suck a lemon?
Like BPL, just another crack-pipe dream, waiting for WiMax to come along and kick its ass down the street like the punk that it is.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Now, I may not know enough about this technology, but my understanding of UWB (Ultra Wide Band) is that it does not reach very far, and is better suited for WPAN's... Heres is the definition straight form googles mouth.
Ultra-wideband (also UWB, and ultra-wide-band, ultra-wide band, etc.) usually refers to a radio communications technique based on transmitting very-short-duration pulses, often of duration of only nanoseconds or less, whereby the occupied bandwidth goes to very large values. Ultra-wide-band may also be used to refer to anything with a very large bandwidth (e.g.: a type of sampling rate in the Speex speech codec). This article discusses the meaning in radio communications. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrawideband
anyone care to explain this better to me?
(warning: Flash site)
Yeah, a spark in a gas line could cause an explosion.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
It's about time. Those poor Alaskans deserve to have an Internet connection.
How bout Gas over the internet?
On second thought all the reflections from the mismatched characteristic impedances would probably kill your signal first.
I could transmit huge bandwidth via gas pipes ... as long as they were straight. Any round pipe could be used as a circularly polarized waveguide. Of course, getting the microwaves to go around corners is a little trickier. Reading between the lines of TFA, they seem to be thinking that if you blast enough power you can get a signal through. That's true as far as it goes but I presume the customers wouldn't be given kilowatt amplifiers so the effect would be in one direction only.
I'm skeptical but I've been around long enough that if I think something can't be done, someone will eventually do it and I'll have egg all over my face. I've got my doubts though.
While you're at it, what about broadband over phone lines?? Tsss.... That's just stupid.
The main chip developer is now working on other projects .... the gas company involved was unable to finish testing ... but the build out is cheaper then other solutions ... so why is the chip developer now working on other projects and the gas company involved still not testing ... sounds like more pie in the sky to me
last time I checked, my telephone service came in over my TELEPHONE line. Sure, my internet comes over my cable TV line, and my power comes over (god forbid) my power lines.
The internet is fast becoming something ubiquitous, and the infrastructure will follow. I see no real need for internet over gas lines, as eventually there will be more fibre and OC3 lines running to a variety of neighbourhoods. True, it is probably a neat idea for the short term, but long term there will likely be more fiber and more wireless access points. It will eventually reach a level that is the same (or actually greater) than that of the phone system, and the infrastructure will not be over gas lines.
So, good short-term idea, but it is really just a pipe dream, like broadband over power in the long run.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
BIG? What a waste of an acronym. They could have Broadband Over Gas, Broadband Under Gas, or Broadband Around Gas. Any of those would be better.
Of course, a company run by real geeks would have released Broadband Following Gas.
My guess? The technology works, but they just don't have the spark they need to get out of the ground.
Just because I doubt myself does not mean I find your position compelling.
It's just another way for THE MAN to bolster our dependence on gas!
/me feels safe with his tin foil hat on.
But, seriously, this is a terrible idea.
Anyone else think the comments just weren't rendering right before they turned off ABP and saw ads?
... vaporware.
BOWP - Broadband over water pipe
BOS - Broadband over sewer
BOU - Broadband over ultrasonics
BOLP - Broadband over laser pointers
BOTCs - Broadband over tin cans and string
This broadband over gas pipes was kind of a running joke on eham.net. One wouldn't think they would actually try this.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
I need to send this file!
"BOGL"
It's perfect.
You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right.
``Build-out costs are about $200 per household, Nethercomm says. By contrast, broadband over power lines costs about $600 per household, while phone and cable TV networks each cost well over $1,000 per home to build.''
Using radio gives a build-out cost of $0 per household.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Hey, its a new high tech way for "passing gas" hah!
This is kinda off topic, but with regards to the title: Is "pipe-dream" a crack reference?!
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BroadbandReports has a more critical review of the USA Today story.
And today's Slashdot featured news that Freescale's "other projects" turning its attention might just be giant leveraged buyout attack, not any intrinsic business.
But apart from corporate media war fog, why not blow fibers through these pipes, directly to homes? That seems like a cheap, reliable way to deliver lots and lots of broadband with tech that can join multiple compatible WANs into sites. Without digging or deploying new, specialized "gas radio" equipment in a separate development/deployment/maintenance niche with smaller scale economy.
Your home could become a NAP for multiple carriers not only competing for your business, but getting distributed routing among their backbones around outages. If your block's "telco" WAN is down, they could still get to the Net bridged through you to your "gasco" WAN. Much like solar homes which "run the meters backwards" to supply power to the grid when they've got surplus. You'd sell surplus connectivity to your neighbors, billing the WAN you covered for.
--
make install -not war
... broadband via student loan officer.
Dear Will, the plums were poisoned. -- Cheese Club
Maybe it's just me, but somehow I don't see combining high frequencies with cumbustable gas very safe. I know they're only talking about radio waves, but since they have warning stickers at gas stations about pumping gasoline and using your cell phone at the same time... myabe I'm just paranoid...
I can't imagine this will work too well in Seattle where most of the gas pipe has already been replaced with yellow polypipe. Maybe they can send the signal over the ground/locator wire/foil that's buried with this tough plastic pipe.
"The great thing about multitasking is that several things can go wrong at once." -me
being carried by tubes, I guess..
For some reason this reminds me of a natural gas powered TV I saw MANY years ago at the Minnesota State Fair. It used some sort of humumgous early generation fuel cell to power a 7" b&w TV (or it was fake and actually used mains power).
Here's why: even with spread-spectrum, high bit/hertz counts, it's not going to get close to what's already available, today, with fibre. And the cost/drop is lower than is quoted for fibre distribution to the home-- when it's done with symmetrical IDFs along the way.
If you put fibre in 20 years ago, you can still use the latest gear to get the fastest available connection, whereas each wireless technology has had about a six-year life, thus rendering capital asset deployments poorly in the case of wireless. Add in security goofyness, incompatible standards, and broadband over gas pipes looks like a pretty poor value proposition both in terms of capital cost as well as product life.
Next?
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
to the word flamewar.
Vaporware for that matter, too.
If only this technology had been introduced in 2000 -- Enron could have announced a deal for Broadband Over Gas, immediately booked anticipated profits of $47 billion, and been saved from bankruptcy. Or maybe not.
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So would the Wi-Fi equivalent for Broadband Over Gas have to do with encouraging great flatulence? "Yeah I know it stinks, but I'm getting downloads of 15 mbs!!"
My neighbor works for Atmos energy, and lays gas lines for a living. Quite a bit of line put down these days is some sort of PVC, especially leading from the main lines to the houses. So the claim that it would bring connectivity right up to the meter at the house would only apply to old gas installations (15+ years old).
Dan
Better known as 318230.
many gas lines these days are plastic
Sewers only exist in towns. Houses and cottages in rural areas rely on septic beds or tanks. They will also frequently have large propane tanks sitting nearby to provide gas. DSL doesn't work due to it's distance constraints (5km max). Does anyone know the range of broadband over power lines?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
With the "mad skillz" that the cable techs have when troubleshooting cable modem issues, do you really trust the same contractors to do work with your gas meter?
Not me!
Wow. Slashdot mocked Ted Stevens to no end, but the fact is he knew more than us, not less. He knew about this technology, and knew it would replace DSL and Cable soon.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
The "other project" is a buyout, by a private equity firm for $16 billion.
The government can't save you.
In the past, Slashdotting a site into a pile of smouldering ashes was merely a joke, but if this plan goes through, it could be for real (and you could take out half a neightborhood along with it). Overloading a broadband gas pipeline is no laughing matter.
We have a dutch spoof on the local cable compagny "Casema" called.. "Gasema" that indeed.. does internet over gass. A few highlights for those not speaking dutch! - It works the best with a fourpitter ( that is four gas pits..to cook on ) - Bandwidth depends on how many are cooking at the moment - It offers cheap global internet connections by a small gas chamber for camping cookers..yes again high speeds! Untill you are out of gass! ..and this spoof is already..7 years old..
Internet through gass is one huge spoof.. it just isn't possible..what "medium" must the data use?
Codefile Defected to another Hexadimal Range refresh your CHAOSTACK.NLM file with a new copy
It blames the california blackouts on a natural gas shortage. Given that it can't get basic facts right, I question any other conclusion in the article.
paintball
In Wellington, we've had water over gas pipes for ages now. Seems to work really well. Not.
Broadband is likely to follow soon (with major flooding of even more of Wellingtons underground infrastructure).
(For those who don't know, a high pressure water main burst recently cutting a hole in the neighboring gas main and flooding most of the central cities gas network. It took about 2 weeks to drain all the water out of the gas system leaving much of central Wellington without a gas supply).
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Am I the only one who remembers in Dilbert when a competitor is offering broadband over the power grid, and the boss assigns Wally to develop broadband over the sewer system?
GREAT! I've allways dreamed of downloading my porn through my oven! :D
For the ultra rich: Internet over Butler Brigade!
An army of electrically grounded, white-gloved, tuxedoed servants passing usb-sticks or portable hard drives containg "packets" delivers the internets to your door!
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
It looks like it still needs smoothed out a bit. Surfing around at the -1 level is not as fun as I thought it would be.
Don't they have tracer wires running alongside the plastic pies? Maybe that could help somehow?
In the beginning God created a truck. AOLers dumped things like "me too" on this truck, but the truck became full of stupid, so on the second day God created tubes. Only the telcos and the cablecos liked the tubes, and they used them to hurt the consumers, so on the third day God created the Web. Congressmen never noticed. On the fourth day God decided to create pipes just to screw with people. And behold, He saw that it was funny.
Since in Costa Rica (and in any other earthquake rich country) gas only comes in the bottle, no pipes to fill with bits ...
"So, guys. Any ideas to increase profit for the gas company?"
"Price increase that we say is due to 'Supply Restrictions?'"
"Try selling different 'qualities' of gas?"
"Oh, hey, I got it. Let's sell internet over gas lines! Ha ha..."
"Wait, Johnson! That's brilliant! Get on that!"
Google: "All your data are belong to us."
See? I **KNEW** the internet was made of pipes!
Ted Stephens was right! It is a series of ...
Oh darn. Too late.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Formerly known as Motorola
I'm sure in a lab demo, they are using a precision aligned waveguide to "simulate" the gas distribution network. The minor problem of the creaky unpredicable reality of the natural gas pipes will "be figured out in a future round of financing"
It kind of brings new meaning to "packet sniffing".
Broadband? Um, probably not. These three celled batteries are rated for years and I don't think you could get many bits over that little bit of electricity.
Broadband over gas? Pshaw! Next you'll be telling me they're working on broadband over the air or something. :-P
i think we should wait until we get the 80,000,000 homes with fiber to the door as promised by the telcos for the federal subsidies we gave them... but i'm an optimist.
Three words: radio frequency interference. It is hard to believe actual engineers are working on this. There is no way this scheme won't cause RFI. (Yes, I am an amateur radio operator.)
Reminds me of the gas over broadband prank that somethingawful.com did. Pretty hilarious.
http://www.somethingawful.com/index.php?a=296
You've got *KABOOOM*
I've been joking for years that everyone with a pipe into the house will try to deliver broadband to you.
The problem with the water pipe one though is someone is liable to start a bittorrent session while you're in the in the shower and you'll get scalded.
At least it's not a big truck.
All kidding aside, I can see many problems, and practically no advantages over normal wireless connections.
Whatever happened to microwave antennas on houses? Wireless cable never did so well, but combine it with telephone service and internet access, and you've really got something there.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Wasn't there a US company, Williams Energy, Inc. that was planning to do something like this - run internet cabling through its gas pipes in the US. They weren't planning to be last mile providers, tho.
You were a moderator with 5 points. You should have read the moderator guidelines before you did any moderating
That's an interesting idea there, if it was extrapolated. I just recently got broadband (wireless motorola canopy, good stuff, love it), but for *years* was stuck on dialup so a lot of stuff I wanted to do with the net was about umpossible or a severe PITA. Like I wanted to casually try a lot of distros, download some free to copy movies, etc, plus just surf faster, get to read a lot of news and opinion pieces and papers, etc, plus try to keep up with my OS updates, which is a pain on dialup. Now just suppose for a fee, you could checkbox off a menu and add in your custom surfing and download links you want, all of it, who cares, google vids, indy music, large images, etc as long as they are legal, and the company charges you by the megabyte delivered on disk,or by "full" DVD, etc, like netflix does movies sort of, it gets mailed to you. "Enhanced" dialup. You get that disk (and get to keep it) and use their mailer that comes with it to send in your next "internet menu" request, or just do a form on their page with your slow dialup connection. One stop shopping in other words for the content that is just too much of a pain on dialup-which millions of people are still stuck with, and it might not change too much for years either. Some places due to low population and large distances from big switches are just not attractive to broadband delivery companies..
Sort of the takeout food or pizza delivery deal, just with data-the customer picks what he wants, the company with the fat pipes custom burns the disks with all the data and webpages and vids and whatnot indicated, etc, for some reasonable fee.
Some games, ya know, kinda leak bandwidth. I'm wondering if there's any danger in the leaks. Sincerely, Concerned Customer
This of course opens the door for Voice Over Gas, with the din of conversations echoing underground in the pipes of every city in the country. Now we'll all be able to dump that land line. Drawback is that long distance calls become a bit problematic.
...comes into his own.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
I had read sometime back about Broadband being delivered over power lines. What are the practical difficulties in transmitting power wirelessly?
So for once I'll actually benefit from seeding a torrent? Perhaps if we all just upload all the time we'll have infinite natural gas.
They used to require a botnet now all you need is a lighter.
"The minor problem of the creaky unpredicable reality of the natural gas pipes will "be figured out in a future round of financing"
Much like the creaky unpredicable reality of telecoms were figured out in order to bring us 56K.
Funny, but if all these "pie in the sky" ideas actually work? Then slashdot will have to stop complaining about inaccessable broadband (whaaa! I live in the sticks.), or monopolies keep them down (I only have cable, or dsl).
for Pipeless Gas Broadband.
I laughed, or rather snickered, but Insightful?
There is no possible way it only costs $200 to deploy a gas-line broadband method. Because you're placing energy on a metal surface that is in direct contact with an explosive substance, this creates a Div1/Zone0 environment, which is to say that flammable material is present on a continuous basis. This requires all kinds of certifications for the equipment, not the least of which is an "Intrinsically Safe" designation. Not only is the engineering design far more complex (the designer has to guarantee that, under a sudden short or sudden open, there cannot possibly be enough energy released to ignite the atmosphere, and methane has a LOW activation energy), but the certifications are ASSpensive.
I just don't see this happening once they actually start paying attention to the rules... or maybe congress will give them the go ahead to ignore the rules and start leveling cities..
Gas companies could lay fibre when they lay pipes. That actually seems practical to me.
i cant believe someone moderated this insightful... lol
I thought some companies were looking at running fiber through their gas lines. This makes a lot more sense than RF -- existing technology, higher speeds, works in plastic pipes, etc.
Plus, the employment opportunities for ferrets would be fantastic.
FIXME: Add a sig here
This idea is dead-on-arrival.
Allow me to explain. I sell instrumentation, valves, etc for pipelines. And we have a lot of pipelines in Oklahoma so I am well versed in their operating procedures and their systems.
This idea of sending a waveguide down the pipeline is crazy. There is so much instrumentation on the pipes that there WILL be interference. Pressure transmitters, Water monitors, H2S monitors, temp transmitters, control valves, and a whole host of other equipment. In fact, I can think of several products that USE waveguides - such as the flow meters they use to "count" their product.
If you think the pipeline companies are going to take a chance that it will "just work", you are kidding yourself. They will not sacrifice ANYTHING that might affect the safety of that pipeline. And those instruments I just laid out are critical to them running the pipeline safely and efficiently.
And I am not even delving into the DOT (dept of transportation) issues. The DOT regulates transmission pipelines (the big pipes). I can only imagine the red-tape you will encounter if you want to change how those operate. You don't have a chance in hell of pushing that through the DOT.
In other words, pipeline companies don't just go out and try new things. They test, test, test, certify, study, and re-test before they even think of making a change. And really, that's a good thing for all of you, lest you deal with a pipeline explosion in your neighborhood.
VOLP - Voice Over Liquid Propane?
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?