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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.
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.
I always said you could send the internets down tubes. Always.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
My broadband-over-tin-cans-and-string works pretty well.
Just another grab for VC money to burn, and when it's gone, people will move on to another "pipe dream" ...
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"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.
How well does this work over plastic gas lines, like those installed underground for new construction?
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?
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?
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.
Well, if the summary is to be believed, it cost $800 per household to build out.
(i) $800 saved per customer x 1 gazillion customers = 800 gazillion dollars saved
(ii) 1 penny saved = 1 penny earned.
(iii) $1 saved = $1 earned
(iv) 800 gazillion dollars saved = 800 gazillion dollars in profit.
The thing about this is that most places that have a gas infrastructure in place -- dense cities -- probably already have extensive broadband infrastructure in place already. If, however, you want to do a lot of new connections, say addressing underserved poor neighborhoods, if this cost differential was real, and the system worked, it could make a big difference.
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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
Sending suitably high frequency EMR through a metal pipe is called a 'waveguide', and its pretty much the standard way to deal with microwave communication. In waveguide the sides do indeed absorb some energy, but with smooth sides and good conductors, the losses are quite small. You need to avoid certain gases, which interact with the microwaves, absorbing the signal. Water is probably the most notable, but with suitable choice of frequencies you can step around most gases (which is why we can send stuff through the air).
All the gas pipes in my city are made of plastic, making this whole idea quite improbable.
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.
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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The propane tank should work. Just fill it up with internets when it is being refueled. Sure, the ping times aren't quite as good as gas pipes, but overall bandwidth is great.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
But you know, the growth of this new technology could be explosive.
emt 377 emt 4
But you know, the growth of this new technology could be explosive.
But imagine servicing it... it could give a pro pain.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Meh, they'll have years to figure out to do that; this thing is vapourware of the highest order.
Expect Duke Nukem Forever to be the first thing I download ^^
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TCP/IP over Bongo Drums
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
They don't specify in the article directly, but they imply that they're not using the pipes as conductors in the traditional sense, but rather transmitting the signal within the pipes, using them as waveguides. Waveguides are an excellent transmission medium for very specific frequencies -- namely the resonant frequency and its harmonics -- but they're very expensive, and dents, dings, and improper couplings add VSWR, which could (and often does) attenuate the signal dramatically or even entirely. Bends in waveguide also cannot be more than 1/2 the wavelength, so right angles tend not to work well. The solution they've proposed is to use ultrawideband, which apparently just means using a large swath of spectrum rather than a single frequency, so that if the VSWR of one frequency is too high, another frequency should still get through.
Anyway, having wires running along the pipe would make no difference, since the signal is internally reflected, not transmitted through the metal. Essentially you have two small antennae -- one at each end (although obviously more than that for this proposed setup) -- and the antennae is traditionally 1/4 wavelength, placed at a specific location within the waveguide to prevent phase cancelling. Since the signal is internally reflected (like fiberoptic, for example), nothing on the ouside of the "pipe" matters. You could possibly install coupling from the point where the copper pipe ends to some external line, but I think the existance of the plastic pipe would screw things up nonetheless, and the tracer wire likely isn't shielded or twisted, meaning it's a shitty transmission medium.
I've never heard of waveguide made out of plastic, but the wikipedia article says it's doable for optical frequencies. Obviously fiberoptics are fiberglass, but I sort of doubt it would work well for RF. If I'm not mistaken, it's the optically reflective characteristic of glass which makes fiber work, not the fact that it's a dialectric. I think that plastic would just get hot and melt/burn -- not a good thing for a flammable gas line.
At any rate, I doubt the system would work at all, since the network of pipes is so complex. Some houses may get great reception at all frequencies (doubtful), while others might get no signal at any frequency (almost guaranteed). Also, any time someone adds to or modifies the network of pipes, they'll change the transmission characteristics of the entire system. It's difficult enough to keep an RF waveguide system operational when it's purpose-designed, let alone when it was never a design consideration. The proposed ultrawideband solution may help, but I doubt it would work well.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
But what happens when they get undercut by broadband through the sewer system? Plus that way Mr Hanky can get internet access too!
All misspellings and grammatical errors in the above post are intentional and part of my artistic expression.
They used to require a botnet now all you need is a lighter.