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Unique Broadband Over Powerline Project Planned For Mosques
Lucas123 writes "Broadband over powerline (BPL) provider Velchip is heading up a project that will offer 60 million very unique network users an unlimited high speed Internet connection of 224Mbps at a cost of only around RM5 ($1.58) per user per month. That's the cheapest, fastest internet connection in the world. The network is slated for use in the $14 billion 'Smart Mosque' project, which will be rolled out over three years in Indonesia and will link together 400,000 mosques. To add some perspective, in the US Verizon FiOS currently offers up to 30 Mbps downloads and 5 Mbps uploads starting at $42.99 a month. BPL modems use existing electrical power lines to deliver high speed Internet access and data transmission."
I think you'll need Allah's help for that.
That's the cheapest, fastest internet connection in the world.
No. It's not the fastet, because it doesn't exist.
To add some perspective, in the states Verizon FiOS currently offers up to 30 Mbps downloads and 5 Mbps uploads starting at $42.99 a month.
Yes, they do. Right now. Who knows what Verizon will be offering when (if) these guys get this network going. Awesome. The US still has better internet access than much of the third world.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Well, this can't work since "Smart Mosque" is essentially an oxymoron. I mean, Islam is the most backwards religion out there (of the big 3/4). This would probably only be used to further spread propaganda or post Bin-Laden tapes to youtube.
Well it's not clear from the article if it's 224Mbps for all 60 million users. Also, the premises could have 224Mbps locally, but the end to end a fraction of that.
This is Indonesia we're talking about. Utterly incompetent nation - they couldn't organize an orgy in a whorehouse, let alone a world-leading broadband network.
Broadband over power lines is an extraordinarily bad idea.
It might just about work in a country where there is no radio or TV broadcasting or mobile telephony to interfere with, and no panic about the effects of stray RF waves on the human body.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Bundle a service that every Muslim/Mosque will use, with a high risk terrorism threat such as the power grid, Powergrid = safe then :) We should do that here, and we should all become a part of the global sharia-net.... All images have been disabled by default as its against the law to publish images of humans or Muhammad.... Text based internet... maybe someone will post Muhammad ascii pron to the site so i guess we cant have text or images on any sharia-net websites.... damn
Why would you need high speed internet at a mosque of all places? Who goes to a church, synagogue, temple, Scientology brainwashing center, etc. to access the Web?
Where is the whatcouldpossiblygowrong tag?
The 'prophet' of Islam was a mass murderer, multiple rapist, bigamist with 12 wives (slaves), and a PAEDOPHILE, who 'married' a SIX YEAR OLD GIRL when he was FIFTY FOUR and RAPED her when she was NINE.
What sort of people worship such an individual and call him 'the perfect man'?
Ha! My Captcha word is "heretic"!
Of course who cares about radio - thats so yesterday.
I'd be /really/ surprised if this gets the go-ahead in any developed country. The RF emissions from unshielded cable with 224mbps of square waves travelling down them, all over a country, would be incredible.
It'll never pass Ofcom (UK) or FCC (US?) tests.
Someone's going to mention those home broadband things you can get that send stuff down the power cables at home, which haven't been outlawed, but I don't think it'll be long before they are.
Why would a mosque need internet access? Isn't it suppose to be a place of worship, not an internet cafe?
how come we have to pay so much more for something that's not even close to what Indonesia (hello? Indonesia - with it's 13,000 islands! has way better speed?) is about to launch? i'm getting real tired of all those cynical capitalists...i'm moving to Indonesia!
Locksmith
I currently have 15Mbps down AND up via FIOS. There are places that support 50Mbps down.
It doesn't change the gist of your story, but you should have the facts correct.
Any power engineer worth his salt knows the power lines can be modeled as an RLC network... creating losses. These have been optimized for low frequencies (50-60 Hz). Once you get above 1 kHz, your signal won't propogate more than 500 feet. 1MHz and you're lucky to get 50 feet. BPL doesn't actually use the copper line as a waveguide, but creates a rude radio transmitter in the GHz range, which can cause all kinds of trouble. The reason they're trying this abroad is that it's already been rejected outright in the US.
Is less than 200 mbit. Separation of religion and state is probably worth even less.
Great to know.
Why do they cound 400.000 mosques as 60 million users? If I have 10 people in my appartment do my Internet connection become much cheaper then? To me the price seems to be 1500 times more than what they say for each 224 mbps connection, which are 2370 $. Sure the dollar are falling but it's still expensive as hell, and it's neither of cheapest or fastest there is.
Just marketing bullshit.
Who cares if there are 1500 possible mosques visitors in each mosque?
internet in mosques? why are they doing this? i have never felt the need to surf internet in a mosque. i do my prayers and come out.
but if the mosque has a study center or something attached to it, you could have internet access there.
Why?! Why give them more reason means to look for getting pissed at non-Muslims?!
We've already pampered them within society... So much that we turn a blind eye to their barbaric ways and now we want them to give them even more means to get angry on us yet again?
But I have a tough time understanding that there could be 60 million "very" unique network users. I'd suppose that they'd just be unique.
I live in the deplyment area in Virginia. Here is the U.S. map: http://www.bpl.coop/deploymentmap.php It is funded partly by the old Rural Electrificatio Agency of the 1930's! Its successor agency actually, in the Ag Dept. The problem of interfering with radio, especially ham readio, was supposedly fixed by "notching of" certain frequencies.
:) I'll try to find the link.
But... deployment here is three years behind schedule. Customers of two substations have it, but I don't know how well it is working. The company claims some equipment problem.
Rural users are really looking forward to this, if it works, or any alternative to satellite. The electrical co-op (non-profit utility, like a credit union compared to a bank, established in the 1930's) said the price would be $25/month. Satellite is $40 with terrible contracts and equipment costs. Not to mention gamers cannot live with the 0.7+ second lag.
There is no alternative in rural areas, where our cell service is marginal. Dialup with images off has been fun! More important than images off is selectively blocking Flash.
Deployment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_line_communication#Deployments But see the next section, "Concluded Deployments" with a long list of place where BPL has been dismantled.
As for the tech. aspects, note you can run internet over a fence wire.
I think the government could have just as easily chosen a library...they chose the Masque in order to strategically bring the public regularly into Masques. I suspect Indonesia (the people) might be practicing Islam with a "hands-off" approach and the government agenda is to "realign" the publics faith in favor of a more "hands-on" approach. The hands-off approach I'm talking about is similar to how Islam is practiced in a country like Turkey. Considering that the Turkish people interpret Ramadan "fasting" simply as not getting drunk for a while and cutting back on the smokes. Not to mention Turkey's unique Islamic practice of Topless nude beaches and the general public's CULT worship of metallica; It dosn't stop there...laws against wearing islamic clothing in public buildings to the point of such devotion that the Turkish public is currently impeaching their president for allowing headscarves in Turkish Universities. I think Indonesia is headed towards Turkish Islam and the government isn't ready for that kind of "hands off". Somtimes I wonder if Turkish people generally regard themselves as Islam as more of a "suicide bombing public insurance program".
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
I just wanted to ask a question. What does God need with a internet connection?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Since this will be installed in mosques, I assume the primary function of these internet connections will be super-fast porn downloads.
BPL is a nonfunctioning technology that is perfect for the delivery of information
to a culture that thrives on having no information.
I mean, how much bandwidth do you need to move the Koran around?
Perfect!
Terrorists dont need the internet.
The 10 Gb Ethernet standard has been out there for several years now. IEEE-USA has had a position statement for at least two or three years advocating implementation of gigabit speed, bidirectional, broadband technology in the US. Other countries are implementing this technology for reasons of competitiveness and because it is feasible with current technology. Note that the communications chips in newer PC's are gigabit capable.
We need to do this to avoid becoming a third world telecommunications country, which is what we are on track for becoming. Companies like Verizon are offering dumbed down broadband, possibly for two reasons:
1. There is a "law" enunciated by Roxanne Googin, editor of a telecom newsletter, to the effect that broadband will either be a profitable monopoly (that the provider squeezes for all they can) or a "worthless commodity" (because the marginal cost and therefore the market price) approaches zero.
2. The providers want to couple broadband with entertainment. Gigabit, bidirectional broadband threatens the business models of the entertainment industry.
IEEE-USA has advocated separating content from carriage. This would make broadband providers common carriers. The user would negotiate content separately with content providers.
Trying to do it with BPL is a bad idea. BPL has three problems: interference, interference, and interference. Power engineers aren't accustomed to considering wavelength issues, because the wavelength at 60 Hz is thousands of miles. But at broadband frequencies the wavelength is a few feet. Any rusty attachment on a guy wire can become a source of intermodulation products that can then be radiated by the guy wire.
The great thing about Amateur Radio is that it allows people to connect in far-flung places. In an area as large as the Malay Archipelago, I have to believe that good, clear radio contact would take precedence over a technology that has been tried and abandoned in several different areas. No one thinks about the HAM radio guys, until a disaster strikes. Then they are the first ones on the air, delivering status reports and relaying information about what is needed where.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-03-19-powerline_x.htm
If they use HF and low-VHF frequencies, it isn't just an issue for Indonesia. They could cause interference all over the world. I wish someone would put a stake in the heart of BPL and chop off its head. A power line is a very large antenna, not a properly shielded transmission line. Mumbo-jumbo about new technology is not going to repeal the laws of electromagnetic theory.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Hardly a fair comparison. Japan vs. the US is a much better comparison. In some parts, they are offering 1Gbps. In most places, the average is 60 Mbs for about $35/mo.
Republicans have never been big on competition. Just ask their friends who helped to write the 1996 Telecommunications Act. That whole "Republican Revolution" was really a revolution for their *Republican* investor friends.
Bear Stearns will quietly tell you that Bush just wanted to bail his friends out. That's the free market for ya.
Until the market gets *really* free from the incumbents, we aren't going to see very high speeds on our internet connections. Here's a great link on the subject of how Bush and his friends let it happen:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/28/AR2007082801990_pf.html
Yes, Republicans like free markets, as long as its free for *Republican* investors to pillage, rape and burn.
So the next time you wonder why you're still using DSL at 1.5 Mbs, just ask Bush. At least he knows what a checkout scanner in s supermarket looks like. (Or does he?) Or you can go here: www.speedmatters.org
Enjoy.
The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival.
I find it hard to believe these guys can violate the laws of Physics, and in a big way. Power lines and power transformers are optimized for passing 50 to 60 Hz. Not 50 to 60 MegaHertz! Your typical wire in the air is going to lose about 99.9% of a 50MHz signal every city block, plus it will pick up tons of noise. I'd be surprised if they can emulate a single 10mbps twisted pair.
Is anyone aware of a shielded power line (coax, twisted pair or other) that would work also as a RF(or higher) transmission line? In the US almost without exception house wiring is either 10, 12 or 16 gauge parallel solid coper cable. Ideally it would seem that a single power/wave-guide line would allow for pretty much unlimited adaptability in refitting, oh say your toaster oven to a recipe management terminal, or whatever.
-- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
Yeeeeah now we can order our IED rf/cdma/gsm kits at high speed.. Yeah baby.. High speed suicide bombings now.. Allah has never been prouder hah
i sure hope they don't fritz their brains by exposing themselves to that much HARSHLY modulated unshielded RF energy...
I'm sure that the 224 Mbps is great and all...... but that just isn't for American internet users yet... I am we gotta test this stuff in 3rd world countries first just to make sure it's not a bad thing. Plus, we Americans LOVE paying for overpriced and undervalued things.... that 10 Mbps is just right for us I say!
WWPD - What Would Picard Do?
Yeah, the right way to serve Indonesia's public is to offer free subsidies to people who go to church more.
What about linking up the schools instead?
--
make install -not war
I couldn't resist posting after seeing this "news"... looks like everyone gets to be a troll today! As much as I hate religion, I really hate religions that trick their followers into blowing themselves up.... to blow up other people who dont believe in their religion. I especially dont like it when they provoke those stupid christians who really dont want to blow people up, into blowing up stupid people who blow up people who arent christians. Even better... lets link the mosques and the churches together, and lets get them to blow up the fucking internet too. After all, we are all being horrible people for being afraid of fanatics, instead we should learn "tolerance" and just find a nice place to live and work till we die the normal way, (cancer) where none of these idiots live (in space?) and watch them blow the whole fucking world up without making rude comments about it. Because we wouldnt want to make these religious fucktards angry...... they might read our posts and blow us up!
Praise godallahsus.
Dj fuQ [url="http://djfuq.org"]djfuq urges you to listen to the beats[/url] [url="http://djfuq.org"]http://djfuq.org[
Using the numbers from the summary (because RTFA would be too much work), FiOS appears to come out cheaper per user, though possibly with a bandwidth hit. From the article, the cost is $1.58/mo per user for 60 million users spread across 400,000 mosques.
60,000,000*1.58/400,000=$237/mo per mosque
FiOS is $42.99/mo per site (mosques in this case).
237/42.99=5.51 times more expensive than FiOS, though they supposedly get (224/30=) 7.46 times the bandwidth based on download speeds. However, according to the all-knowing Wikipedia , such speeds at each mosque are unrealistic, leading me to believe that this is likely a shared pipe at the local head ends, tipping the scales substantially in the favor of FiOS. I will leave that math as an exercise for the reader.
Oh, was that my outside voice?
out of my current Internet connection. I don't get these broadband p!ssing contests. Such and such a country leads/trails the world in broadband connection speeds blah blah.
As the parent said, a fast connection to your ISP is relatively meaningless. I currently have TimeWarner RoadRunner cable. I can't complain about it *too* much. Overall it provides a pretty decent internet experience.
But, I know that the maximum download speed I ever got was somewhere around 6000 kbps (downloading a tv show from Amazon.com's Unbox service, and it surprised the hell out of me cause I had no idea the cable connection could even theoretically support that high of a speed), but most of the time, I don't get anywhere *close* to that. My maximum upload speed is somewhere between about 300-500 kbps (I haven't figured out exactly what it is yet).
However, in practice, most sites on the Internet are not able to push bits to me fast enough over the Internet to come anywhere close to making use of the speed I currently have. Getting another 100 mbps isn't going to help me *at all*, most of the time. A *good* server can usually send data to me at a rate of 200-400kbps. Bittorrent sometimes gives me 300-500kbps downloads, but more often than not, it's like 60kbps. When I'm uploading/seeding with Bittorrent, I rarely see Bittorrent's upload bandwidth top out higher than about 15 kbps (does TimeWarner throttle Bittorrent, or is there some other factor to blame here? I think I *should* be able to upload data to other computers at about 250-300 kbps, but never actually see that).
Anyhow, I won't care about a faster connection to my ISP until that connection is almost constantly saturated. I'd also rather see R&D/Investment go towards giving users a bit more upload capacity. The mindset that residential users shouldn't be hosting servers is kind of stupid, I think. Sure, most won't, but I'm pretty sure I don't have to argue the point too much on Slashdot that those who want to should be able to.
60 million very unique users? We must have different definitions of the word "unique".
5 Malaysian Ringgit per user per month (as you rightly say = US$1.58) may not sound like much to us, but is equivalent Rp14,500 (Indonesian Rupiah) per user per month - quite significant when the average household income is only Rp84,000/month for those who are actually in regular employment.
And most mosques in Indonesia are spread amongst the poorest communities, where the average household income will be much lower and contributions to their local mosque lower still.
That US$1.58 becomes quite a significant proportion of the poor rural mosque's monthly income.
400,000
That's a lot of mosques. There's only ~1200 mosques in the US. Verizon is already helping to spy on them, now it's Indonesia's turn.
Haven't those little feisty tasmanians already done this?
http://www.zdnet.com.au/tag/broadband-power_line-tasmania.htm
anywhere they have buried power lines. Not common at all in the US but many places do it.
Now they can all get high speed pr0n in their mosques. That is, if they don't have their eyes gouged out (what's the sharia punishment for watching pr0n?) for that.
I live in Indonesia - and there are mosques everywhere. In some places it won't be too hard to stick a WiFi router on every mosque, to give the entire city internet access. I think that it's a pretty good idea - if only they could broadcast their calls to pray (which start before sunrise) over WiFi too, instead of over the speakers!
I don't think that was intended to be marketing deception.
The article probably combine the number of mosque and member of the 2 largest Islamic organization in Indonesia: Nadhlatul Ulama (the progressive moderate Islamic organization. mentioned in TFA) and Muhammadiyah (the not so progressive moderate Islamic organization). Both have member base of around 60 millions people (NU: 40m and M: 20m). They probably control 400,000 mosques in total.
If you delay pleasure infinitely, the pleasure will be infinite. (YM)
And it still costs a month's wages in DurkaDurkaStan.
Don't trust anyone under thirty.
Sorry to say this, but your connection appears to suck. I tend to get 6 mbps maxed out for most http and ftp downloads (I'm talking software updates from official servers here), throughput of less than an mbps being the exception. :)
BitTorrent happily eats up most of the bandwidth thrown at it (in excess of 150 mbps on two 100 mbps lines, given a few good peers). That way, even multi-cd distributions just fly through the series of tubes
As an Indonesian I can assure you that this is 100% pure undiluted Indonesian-made bovine manure. Currently the best available consumer level unlimited internet is offered by the government owned phone company. For $75/month you get an advertised 384kbps down and 64kbps up. More likely, on a good day you'll get 30KByte/s and 5KByte/s. That's shamefully slow, and it only started a couple of years ago. A 224Mbps line for every user bwahahahhahahahah, I'd be surprised if there's that much bandwidth for the whole country right now. Our government workers clocks in at 10am and clocks out at 2pm. This is including a 2 hour lunch. These folks can't keep the traffic light running correctly for more than a couple of days, let alone roll a nation-wide cutting edge broadband. If you still don't believe me. The same Information minister who is most likely the source of this idiotic bragging, a week ago decided to roll out free internet on mosques. And to keep this intention purely educational wanted to block porn at the ISP level. (Block porn, now *THAT* always work). And his idea to implement this is to block all forums requiring the users to be 18 years or older. Because apparently all forum with age check contains nothing but pictures of naked women (and men). Please folk, this ain't no Japan or Scandinavia.
Google the TCP Optimizer, it will stop connection road blocks. Your connection sucks out load..
hxxp://nthegreat.co.nr
Having that kind of bandwidth over a medium as ubiquitous as power lines sounds great, right up until you realize you have to firewall it. Who wants to firewall their PC's power supply? Perhaps we haven't gotten the technology that far yet, but if we're talking IP over power lines, it's certainly moving in that direction. And that's not a place I want to have to go.
Miren al Pepino! Los vegetales invidian a su amigo, como él quieren bailar. Pepino Bailarín!
It will be interesting as to whether they actually get these speeds at these prices. In Ecuador, where I am living now, 1Mbit is just about unheard of. I'm paying $45 a month for 256k and thats with pressure from the government to drop internet prices; it used to be $73 a month. As far as I can understand the maximum transmission on ADSL would be 12Mbit but our ISP's know they can make more money out of us. On top of that, it's been taking me almost seven minutes sometimes to get a response from a DNS, but once the connections been made the speed goes back to normal. I think this is an example of the companies not having the technical knowledge to run their own systems properly.
Pretty much. But, like I said, it doesn't seem to be the connection to the ISP - it seems to be the Internet at large. I do, from time to time, get downloads of 1mbps+. But, to give an example, last night I downloaded OpenOffice.org latest build using Bittorrent - it started out very slow, and eventually built up to a whopping 140 kbps I think.
Downloading Ubuntu updates (and I've tried various mirrors) will often be slow, but generally around 300-600kbps. It's just incredibly variable though. Sometimes I will get 2000, or 3000 kbps downloads. Very frustrating.