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Gigabyte Modems over Electric Lines
Ryan Wilshere writes "C|Net has an article on so called 'Power Modems'. They claim they can do Gigabyte transfers over regular electrical line. Dallas-based start-up Media Fusion has won a U.S. patent on a process it says can send data, video and voice over electric wires at speeds thousands of times faster than current high-speed Internet access technologies."
They keep on trying. We keep on hoping.
even if they can, i'm willing to bet its just more great technology the average consumer will never see.
"by doing just a little each day, I can gradually let the task overwhelm me."
Who wouldn't?
Since I'm watching AT&T take over my area, buying up TCI and implementing Cablemodems on fiber. Will this save the one thing thats keeping access low? The mom and pop shops?
I'll be able to afford that... Can't someone work on lowering the prices (and availability) of existing high speed technologies?
Now if there was only a way to get this kind of speed with no wires at all!
I dream of an inexpensive, wireless gigabit/sec connection!
.. says can send data, video and voice over electric wires at speeds thousands of times faster than current high-speed Internet access technologies...
I think this right here is just media hype. Ive seen cable modem, and dsl which both keep getting worse and worse. I would have to see some benchmarks and actually see this project completed and tested before I would believe that this works. Every technology has its flaws, and right now its too early to see what this products flaws will be. I know that Canada has a high speed network going on. Why doesnt the US or other countries for that matter follow what the Candians are doing?
Read my plan to save the Bengals
...it could finally mean that there will be cool internet appliances all over the house.
/. whilst listening to geeks in space in full stereo, and all on our fridge doors.
As long as the people involved in the implementation of this don't ruin it by adding silly usage charges, then we will finally be able to read
So, who's for a game of quake? I'll see you by the microwave.
Find funky gifts
Didn't they try and scrap this idea in Britian a while back? I think it was unworkable there.
... they gave up on the idea because it was apparently not cost-effective. Plus there were rumours of it causing problems with radio interference. I'd like to hope that there is a way round these problems, because the infrastructure is already there. All you need is a little black box of tricks and you're on your way.
So I am suposed to believe that I will be able to surf the Internet using my power outlet? Yea, right. I will believe that when they prove that Windows 98 is not a stable operating system.
Faster pornography here we come!
wasn't there a post about this not very long ago?
Dallas-based start-up Media Fusion has won a U.S. patent on a process it says can send data, video and voice over electric wires at speeds thousands of times faster than current high-speed Internet access technologies."
:)
In other words it appears Media Fusion has patented an electronic signal on a metalic fibre called a wire. They must be so proud of their Intellectual Property
The UPS that will keep the internet connection live in the event of loss of electricity...
:) -Dan
This repeats a story from last week I think. The British trial was abandoned for turning street lights into antennas. This idea relies on magnetic effects. But no clues yet as to how good it really is.
--
Infuriate left and right
It sounds wonderful until you start thinking about it. Communications all boils down to signal-to-noise ratio. The 60 Hz (50 Hz in Europe) power wave is no problem, but what about all the switching noise, corona discharge, insulation arcing, etc? Then you have to get past [around] transformers.
Also, over long transmission lines signal tends to get spread out (smeared) as the velocity-of-propagation varies. AFAIK, Power lines were not designed with any consideration of Vp.
Patents do NOT impress me.
-- Robert
Just so that we don't all have to read the entire patent, can someone provide a concise and clear summary of how this "Internet over powerlines" stuff works?
I suppose if the power goes out, I won't be able to get to the net.
:)
Actually, in all seriousness, 2.5GB (is it Gb or GB they're bragging about? I can't see the pictures.) per second is great, but someone has to provide the bandwidth for all of the users. I guess this could work as a backbone-type technology, or maybe like a cable free-for-all.
One nice thing could be, since it would(should) use the existing electrical infrastructure, a company could bring high speed net access to rural customers just by making the equipment available on its power grid. Maybe I do like the thought...
Just wait 'til the day someone figures out a way to trip a breaker or blow a fuse in your house when you get fragged in Quake
I wonder how they have dealt with the issue of some devices attached to the power lines can act as antennas and broadcast the signal to anyone with a radio receiver on the correct frequency. As if we don't have enough electromagnetic noise as it is.
Then again, even if they have solved the broadcast problem, how do they deal with the random interference that shows up on power lines? After all, take a look at ADSL. AM radio signals can interfere with ADSL.
If they pull it off (and I'm not holding my breath on that score) and if it is not too expensive for deployment on a large scale (not holding my breath there either), it could prove interesting, though.
If it works in theory, try something else in practice.
Monty
Haven't we seen this before? Usually it turns out to be nothing new - either the old trick of using the earth wire for communciations (Which "baby monitors" already do and have done for years) or just electric companies selling pylon space for fibre. This is already done in the UK by Energis.
You can't provide long-distance communications over electric cabling because Live and Neutral are filtered at the substations and would remove any meaningful signal and the earth wire is local to each house. You could *possibly* set up local loops this way but you don't gain anything - it's the long-haul services and hardware that cost.
I know many of you are saying how this has been tested, and it failed. In the related story over the weekend, posters were talking about the transformer issues and things of that nature.
Did anyone read the linked story from the weekend?
This is not about sending an electric signal over power lines. This is about manipulating the magnetic field which forms naturaly around a wire when you send an A/C current through it.
This is new. This is exciting.
New company, same claim - they all seem to work "in the laboratory", but get out in the muck of the real world...
Anyhow, it could be neat - if everyone connected like that we'd have a pretty extensive topology for the web from day 1. All we'd need then is a S**tload of intelligent routers (that can stand 50KV) on the electrical poles.
If this turns out to be substratable we may end up with only one wire going into the home - carying power, phone, cable, internet, etc. Heh, it's nice to dream isn't it?
This may all be vaporware - but even the threat of competition is good. More high speed access options should mean lower prices on ALL high speed access options. That is a good thing!
Here in the UK their are health and saftey rules preventing power and data cables being put in the same coduit. I wonder if this would pose a problem for this kind of technology.
This has been reported before, but the news is that they just got a patent on it, and they're in negotiations to roll it out. Kinda funny that they're going for rural areas first, turnabout is fair play. The guys in the boondocks can laugh at us city slickers poking along with ADSL/cable...I predict that at least fifty posts will be some variation of "too good to be true." As if we haven't seen a thousand or so revolutionary quantum-leap technologies in the past fifty years.
I dont know Im still kinda hesitant about plugging the same wall jack that has fried a grand total of 2, yes count them 2, APC UPS's in as many years into a pci card or usb port or whatever they intend. All though, DoS attacks could take on new meaning.
If Media Fusion's technology does work, it could radically shake the telecommunications market. Telephone and cable companies have invested billions of dollars to ready their networks for high-speed data transmissions.
That's a slight understatement. If the technology *does* work, look to see major U.S. Telecommunications companies go screaming to the FCC, demanding the regulation and taxation of the service in the same manner that their lines are. If that doesn't work, I'm not sure what they're going to do, because a technology like this could threaten to put them out of business.
How practical is it? Does anyone have more detailed information (perhaps information of a more technical nature) about how they're doing it? Is this just a vaporware announcement intended to scare the telcos?
While the details of actual implementation are vague, if it works, this may present yet another solution to the 'last mile' problem, which I personally see as the last major bottleneck before the true dawning of the (drumroll please) information age. Between this type of easy access to high speed broadband with existing infrastructure, and the high speed wireless stuff we read about a couple weeks ago, we might just get things *properly* wired sometime soon
Anthony
"I think any time you expose vulnerabilities it's a good thing." -Attorney General Janet Reno
OK, I love the hype about connecting to the "internet" at blazing fast speeds ... especially since eventually all of these connections must go into telecommunications circuits that tie into a tier 1 isp and to the Internet backbone, utilizing private and public interexchanges, and the rest of the resources that we all share right now.
Access technology is worthless without the backbone to back it up, and right now the MAEs and other interexchanges, along w/ private peers and international cables, are our bottleneck points. You can't jam a gigabit pipe into a T1 and expect any performance.
good. fast. cheap. (pick any two, you can't have all three)
Are we going to open up a discussion thread everytime somebody mutters "Power Lines" and "Modem" in the same sentence? This is twice in the last couple of weeks, and no new information has come to light beyond a process patent.
I mean, really.
A valid point was also raised about cost for this sort of service. When living in Canada, I paid CND40 for 24/7 CableModem service. Currently, in Ireland, I pay about IRP100 per month for heavy useage over a standard modem. This is because Eircom (formerly Telecom Eireann) was only recently privatised, and there is still little enough local competition. I believe there are a grand total of 20 cable modems in Dublin, all currently being tested (In Terenure, if any Dubs are reading.) At any rate (pun!), isn't there a threat regarding cost in the States? I'm not certain, but I thought the power grid was government property, and I can imagine how much they would enjoy the added revenue provided by fixed-cost high speed internet service. And I don't see an independent startup laying power lines in order to compete, personally.
This seems like little more than a pipe dream (pun!), particularly for those already enjoying the wonder of Cable Modems and DSL links. If anything, this new tech -- if it ever becomes new tech -- will up your prices and knock your smaller providers out of the market.
-l
However, this is not a new idea. The transmission of electronic data over an electrical power line was first put forward in the mid 1940's, according to Wireless World. The idea was vetoed, at the time, because it was believed that this would allow a dictator absolute power over information. It was deemed essential that wireless methods of communication were predominant.
In this age of paranoia, suspicion and Government surveilance, I find it fascinating that cable-based communication is actually MORE popular than when the risks were merely speculative.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
A quick troll through the rather vague Media Fusion web site suggests that the signal is one-way, at least insofar as they've managed to solve the "bypassing the transformer" problem. I can't see any indication that the user can send (large amounts of) data. Maybe just a cheap version of Cable TV rather than a cheap Internet?
Don't knock Canadians.. I will assume from your email address that you are British, so I would also care to remind you that Britian is FAR behind Canada in many aspects of "high-speed technology". I remember when i was still in jr. high (around 10 years ago) they were building fiber optic telelphone lines that spanned a huge chunk of our nation.. As I recall, that never happened in England until years later, if it has yet at all. :) Excuse any rudeness in this note as I'm sure you can understand: I feel angered by some cheap pot-shot at my country by an misinformed, ignorant troglodyte. Canadians excell at MANY other things that just hockey, bub, and taking some cheap potshot at one of the World's quieter and more humble nations isn't cool.
Let's really solve this puppy: Wireless power, and Inyternet over the power grid!
We'll all have gigabit Internet connections for the two months before the civilized world drops dead from brain tumors. What a way to go.
-Omar
One of the power companies here in the UK tried this (albeit at a lower data rate IIRC) and all was going well until it was discovered that street lighting was for some wierd reason producing odd radio interferance which effectively jammed the frequencies used by the ambulance service... Its never been seen since. With any luck, ntl will roll out digital cable TV (and its associated bidirectional cable modem service) soon!
The patent is pretty general, as most patents are, and doesn't go into depth as to how it actually works..
it mentions a MASER but doesn't really explain it does anyone know what a MASER is?
I dont want to see another article on this unless it says "taking signups in your area now"
Go read the article, I'm trolling in the least. It's fucking ubelievable.
-
We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
So, if the mainstream populous starts using powerlines for transfering data, what's the government going to be left with to transfer information from our households? ;-)
(hmm.. I'm sure they'd just piggy-back in on another layer that we wouldn't even think to use)
Apparently there is a company in the UK looking at providing access to the 'net in homes via the gas and water supplies. Something about using the conductivity of the pipes...
[Happosai]
If you read the patent, which someone linked nicely last time, the gist I get is that they are using the existing magnetic field of the power line to act as a waveguide. This is a different approach than what I think the other attempts that have been made.
:)
Unfortunately EM is one class I slept through and still got an A(I think it was the curve that helped me out).
However, there are some serious problems:
1) Even if everything works all snazzy, they still have discontinuities at substations/transformers which would require extra equpiment at each one. This might be okay because that would likely be a good place for routers anyway and a handfull of clip-ons to a powerline for ~100 mile 300 Ghz waveguide connection is VERY economical.
2) For microwave frequencies, they are obviously not sending the signal through the wire. It has to be either a) in between the stranded outer and solid inner wires b)around the wire(seems real lossy to me) c) in between the magnetic field and the wire(or in the magnetic field between wires). This last one jives with their patent, but I can see all kinds of headaches. These fields are going to spatially move with line transposing that is sometimes done and they will temporally move(wrt the microwave frequencies). This may require line sync/bursting and perhaps more "repeaters" along the line.
3) The last biggest hurdle that I see is survival in what is almost the harshest of environments. Control-house equipment(not on the line) is designed to survive 8kV, 500A/M, 35V/M, +85 to -40C, sometimes condensing humidity. All of these devices will need industrial-temp parts, conformally coated, magnetically shielded, to survive long. However, because of their sensitive nature, you may be shielding away the very signal you are trying to use.
I'll applaud them if they make it work, but I won't invest any of my money
Browsing through their Q&A section, I see "will use proprietary hardware and software", ya I really see them having Linux support for this proprietary shit anytime soon.
They're also pretty vague about who's funding them and which companies are helping them etc etc... I think they're hiding too many things.
I'll believe it when my linux box is hooked up to it.
Patent Number 5,982,276 Magnetic field based power transmission line communication method and system
They are not exactly transmitting the data by injecting it into the line - that method is limited by bandwidth, SNR and regulations to a few megabits per second. They are using a MASER to transmit a microwave RF signal that uses the magnetic field AROUND the powerline as a waveguide. This will not work all the way down to your socket but powerlines hanging from pylons could be used by utilities to compete with fiber.
----
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
IBM's patent search engine turns up patent number 5,982,276 that refers to "Magnetic field based power transmission line communication method and system".
One should read the patent copy that's there at IBM's site before commenting upon this subject- it's interesting (and required for comments) reading for this subject.
I'll thouroughly examine the patent copy and post an analysis of the same later today...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I looked at the patent ffrom the IBM patent server. As a physicist, I can say that most of the contents are mumbo-jumbo.
It is important to remember that for a patent to be valid, it must be detailed enough for one 'skilled in the art' (patent office terminology) to build the device based on the patent (i.e. it must be enabling). A patent (the word, of course, means open) is supposed to open up a technology... you can't simultaneously have something under wraps and patented. You either have a trade secret or a patent, not both!
I would consider myself to be reasonably skilled in the arts associated with this type of work (PhD in Physics, Caltech, 1983) but the patent is certainly not enabling.
Worse, I suspect that it isn't based on any real physics. The discussion of exciting atomic states in the magnetic fields surrounding a wire reads a lot like the kind of language one sees in perpetual-motion patents to try to cover up the complete lack of any real possibility of success.
If I were making investment advice, I would certainly not recommend buying into this one.
OK, my EE speciality is not in power, but I've read some about it. One of the big problems with data over power lines is the sheer length of them. Case in point is the Pacific Intertie that runs between Washington and Southern California. The power types decided that even 60Hz was too inefficient to use because the long line would radiate too much power away. (They convert the power to high voltage DC for the Intertie and use great big inverters at the destination. DC doesn't have losses.)
Since this is supposed to be a highspeed connection, the only way to keep it going over long distances is to have a zillion little repeaters. I'm not sure of the distances involved, but I'd be surprised if you could get more than a few kilometers under ideal conditions. Probably need them every 100 meters in big cities. Wouldn't that be fun to build and maintain....
And such are coherent, single frequency oscillators that exhibit a lot of unique characteristics.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
It turns out they have a retired gulf war vet as head of government relations. So if the telcoms come screaming, this vet, who happens to carry the title "Rear Admiral" may be of some use. He also worked in BOTH THE REAGAN AND BUSH ADMINISTRATIONS people. If it comes down to a gov't showdown, and Bush Jr. is in charge, my bets are all on the Admiral.
Offtopic but true: Rear Admiral Grace Cooper invented the compiler. If this Admiral is half the person she was, we may see some innovation coming.
-Ben
The article about this last weekend contained this link to a patent:
Patent!
Looked different, I'll give it that.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
All of this, and believe me, we are not the only country in this situation, is why there is so much interest in adapting existing conections into the home to avail of faster interenet access.
The whole thing reads like a system that operates off of near-field interactions. It sounds like they're trying to turn the surface of the transmission wires into a waveguide in the same manner one would turn an insulated wire into a G-line. Someone that's not entirely versed in what near-field EM acts like might come up with some of the stuff that shows in the patent copy.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Come on, give me a break! Programmers will believe *ANYTHING* if it looks like it will increase their download rate! A fundamental ramification of Maxwell's equations, transmission line signal attenuation, means that this "Power Line Internet" will be only a few feet long before the 300-GHz signal disappears into oblivion! Sheesh!
www.backwoodsengineer.com
You can read it online here
Think of how microwaves propagate down a waveguide- literally like water through a pipe!. What it appears that they're doing is turning one of the wires being used for an AC transmission line into something resembling a type of open waveguide, a G-line. I don't know if they can actually do this, but it's an interesting premise- one that I'd like to see actually attempted.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
In the US the power grid is generally owned by the private power companies. If they could run intenet bandwidth, they would be happy to. Like most coddled monopolies, they won't have a clue what the value of their product is. Unless they can provide the bandwidth service for $US20+ISP fees, they're out of the game.
Not a chance it will ever work over the entire power grid. There are tremendous problems associated with moving several Gb/s of data more than a few feet (non-optically), even over highly controlled transmission line structures like PCB traces or even (to a lesser extent) coaxial cable. Look up "Heaviside's Condition" in any text on electromagnetics/transmission lines which is "necessary" condition you must at least approach to guarantee reasonable signal quality. There are many more gotchas after that. Trust me, I do this for a living... Doug macintyr@ultranet.com
>Wireless power
Ahhh, looks like Tesla's idea STILL has supporters.... excellent!
Tell me how!
DC is 0 Hz AC... Test it out in your equations - DC has the same losses as 0 Hz AC - and that means there are losses.
To make it elementary, Ohms Law (P=IV, V=IR) applies to DC and AC... Although you must convert the AC to a similar DC power by using a power factor conversion (root(2) for sine wave). If you are looking for a P (power, or power loss), then you'll notice you get a power loss for both AC and DC.
Edison's DC was only very inefficient because of it's low voltage (which is why you could touch an edison power line without dying IIRC, a main advertisement of Edison when he killed (demonstated) dogs by frying them with high-voltage AC... Unbelievably, I don't think he ever got charged for cruelty to animals.). P=sqr(I)R.
AC was chosen for power lines because it is easy to change to lower, less deadly voltages when it gets to where it belongs with just a "cheap" transformer, which doesn't have anywhere near the power loss of old DC to DC converters (often in simple cases very hig wattage tapped resistors [rheostats], a system designed to be very lossy).
I was looking at home automation stuff a little while back and read a book about it that talked about different ways that had been implemented. One of the problems of going over the power lines for home automation is that it has to go back out of your house to the transceiver, thus making it less secure. The same think I would guess is true with net access. So anyone could put a tap in your transceiver and watch your activities. Similar to cable modem's security problems, though this would only be your closest neighbors instead of the entire neighborhood.
There also appears to be a problem with propagation control. Will this be pure broadcast? That might work more easily, but it will eat the bandwidth very quickly. I'll guess that even if they can use the magnetic fields of high tension lines as waveguides, they have a long way to go before they invent the MASER router.
I'm a little fuzzy on this stuff, it's been a while...
But what he is working on has more to do with the magnetic portion of the EM spectrum than the E part of it. If you read the article in the Dallas News, it basically states that the technology is based on the fact that a lightening strike can be 'heard' across the entire Power Grid of the United States Electrical companies (which are all connected to each other for power loading reasons)
If you are still a doubter, do some research on Tesla who had the same basic concepts outlined back in the 1920's. He was one smart cookie, but no one understood what he was trying to do. It's not about normal data transmission and it's not about quantum communications either..
Just because Britian failed doesn't mean someone else won't succeed.
I read the article and was digusted. I can't remember the last time I saw such obvious pseudoscience marketing. They ought to throw in a tesla coil for good measure.
Ryan KE6FFQ
I am a hardline communist, your "Competition" idea is interesting but flawed. If you think it will work, you are very naïve my friend. Leave it to the state to take care of your internet needs.
THe speed of this is awesome, but what about the other factors? Wouldn't security over the power lines be extremely lacking? It's not like the telephone network where most everyone has their own dedicated wire up to the junction box. I'd like to know how easy it would be to listen in on network traffic running over the power lines.
That is funny.
Actually, depending on packet size, UPS can have a very large bandwidth.
Of course it was around the the conductor - all electronic signals are transmitted as changes in the magnetic/electric fields around a conductor - thats basic physics.....
Um, no.
Signals in most circuits are trasmitted as a flow of current _within_ wires, driven by an electric field gradient _within_ the wires (called "voltage"). Electric fields outside the wires try to move current between the wire and anything nearby, but this is an unwanted side effect, stopped by something called "insulation". However, the electric fields also result in capacitive coupling between nearby wires, which causes something called "capacitive cross-talk". This is minimized by keeping wires far apart and minimizing the amount of parallel surface area of conducting regions.
As a side effect of the current flow, a magnetic field is set up both around and within the wires. The current flowing within the wire and the magnetic fields around the wire are intimately connected; you can't have one without the other, and they interact very strongly with each other. You can't "transmit information in magnetic fields around the wire" without interacting with currents in the wire too - the magnetic field is _caused_ by local currents in the wire. In most systems, magnetic fields are an unwanted side effect. As there is mutual inductance between any two wires in a circuit, the magnetic fields caused by current in one wire will set up currents in other wires. This is called "inductive cross-talk". It is severe only for wires that are very close to each other, or that have a particularly vulnerable geometry.
For an excellent book on the basic physics involved, I recommend "Fundamentals of Physics, Fifth Edition", by Halliday, Resnick, and Walker. Another good reference is "Physics for Scientists and Engineers, Extended Version" by Tipler.
This is bogus.
Electromagnetic fields do not interact with each other. They couple with charged particles, which couple back to the field. A "magnetic field" wouldn't be acting as the waveguide - the wire would. Over a single wire with no interference, this would work quite well. However, the actual power grid does not meet this specification.
This will not work all the way down to your socket but powerlines hanging from pylons could be used by utilities to compete with fiber.
The problems with this include, but are not limited to:
Power networks were not designed with eliminating reflections in mind, and were not designed for noise rejection. Cable - which is shielded coaxial cable - _is_ designed for both of these, and so has much higher ultimate bandwidth limits. It too behaves like a waveguide at high enough frequencies, and it's shielded. Optical fiber can beat both hands-down - it's a waveguide for an EM signal with a frequency _many_ orders of magnitude higher than radio and microwave signals.
Summary: Bandwidth limits and signal quality problems make this a not-very-useful technology.
Did you even bother to read any of the articles? The patent is for technology which transmits data through the magnetic fields surrounding power lines, NOT through the power line itself.
I'm afraid that this is a meaningless statement, most likely invented by their marketing departments. Click on "User Info" above to see my previous posts which cover this in more detail.
Signals capable of transmitting data in GBits/sec range shall be radio in GHz range or even optics. Electricity is an electro-magnetic phenomean and therefore manipulating the magnetic field interferes with the current in the conducter. And as explained many times before; high frequency signals cannot pass through transformers that by nature function as low-pass filters.
When using even higher frequency-signals (even up to optical signals) there would be problems with the variation of the dielectric constants of material surrounding the wires. Some use platic insulators, some paper/oil, some use air, etcetera. These changes would diffuse or reflect signals. And once again it wouldn't pass the transformer.
What do they claim:
They claim they can use the electric utility-network to transmit signals in GBit/sec range over thousands of miles. (OK, this could be done by using the network as antenna and sending very powerfull radio-signals of several kW. Only one transmittor per continent: not very useful).
They claim to use the magnetic field, not the conductor. First ask yourself: what would happen when we have no current? No signal? (this happens 50 times per second, in USA 60 times). Why they claim this: because it is different and can even confuse the average EE that think in currents instead of magnetic fields.
They claim to have patents. Well, I'm not impressed. In USA even perpetual mobiles can be patented (see www.entropysystems.com).
They claim they will demonstrate their system somewhere in 2000 by sending HDTV-signals over thousands of miles of electricity-network. This will be done to find enough investors to make the 300 million dollars they need 'to speed up the development'.
Now I understand, poor investors.
-- Fur is worn by beautiful animals and ugly people
If somebody ping floods me, does my power strip burst into flames?
I don't think it's really possible... where would the routers go? You can't have just one big net segment. - overflow
[
I live on the opposite side of the island from you (Queens, NY), They've (BA) pushed back the the "availablilty" date every month now since March.
Time Warner won't have Roadrunner in my area until this time next year.....
Like you, I'll take whatever I can get.
That, IMHO, is probably because it _is_ too good to be true. I've read much of the patent, and it seems to me that it is mostly the same mumbo-jumbo that the "free electricity" people are pushing. Free electricity folks talk about a "Fourth law of motion", Media Fusion talks about "exciting atomic states in the magnetic field surrounding the wire". Now I know quite a bit of physics, including a lot of EM theory, and that sounds like BS to me. What really sets off the alarm bells for me is that they want 300 million bucks to "speed up the development of the tech." Plus, the people who buy in early get preferential access. Sounds like a classic scam to me. Of course, that's just my opinion, based on my background knowledge; I could be wrong.
*waiting impatiently for more factual information*
me too, and i hope these folks really aren't full of it.
So you change the magnetic field of a wire eh?
Now correct me if I'm wrong but don't all the wires from your neighborhoods kinda link up and become those huge wires on the towers?
Now if this is so, does it mean when grandma mosses down the street plays scrabble online she's changing the magnetic field of the wire so I can't play quake?
I don't see how the hell they plan to make this actually work and keep the signals from getting crossed? We're talking power lines that they plan to screw with for internet connection? Hrmm god damn I hope my lights don't get packet loss from this.
supposing this does actually work, the drive makers are gonna have to start making bigger cheaper to keep up with the demand. at the speed they have on their site i could fill my drive in just under 7 seconds. come to think of it i cant see the RIAA or the MPAA being too happy about this either
There are so many "Wow, we have breakthrough technology that is 10 times better than anything out there" press releases and announcements. Yet, we never see it.
One essentially has to look at all the Web pages at this site since everything isn't in one place. They say that it will: 1) be out in 3Q of 2000 2) be targeted to business and gov first. 3) outlet box for $60 4) puts a advanced sub-carrier modulation into the magnetic field. 5) works only for the last mile to the house. They don't mention: 1) what the electric company will charge to use their lines. 2) how various ISP providers will share the wire at 2.5Gb/s simultaneously or whether the bandwidth will be broken down into channels. This is important since it isn't frequency or amplitude modulated. 3) how routing will be done. although they mention each outlet device has a unique ID. 4) How to setup private networks. 5) Since it emits EM it is easy to tap into without any problem. 6) What happens when Electrical noise during thunder storms and various weather conditions. 7) What happens when the power line is shorted due to down lines. Is everybody down. 8) Does ground fault loops cause any problem? Maybe this is how it is done. This then would be similar to neutrinos sent thru the earth. Note: The waveguide exists between the earth(ground) and the electrical wire. The wave propagation speed should be slower due to these boundary conditions vs. thru free-air. A side effect of this may be multipath effects from it's own transmission wave. The rest of the speed is probably due to compression which gives them the marketing hype of 2.5Gb/s.
Nortel was working on this a while back but I think they've largely abandoned the effort. I remember reading a white paper on it. I think they called it "Data Transmission Over Conditioned Power Lines". The original URL was http://www.nortel.com/powerline/ although I can't seem to hit it now.
It looks like "smoke and mirrors" to me. Their web site is full of techno double-talk. For example, "Fueled by magnetic fields created by alternating current, signals are pulled across wires on the electric grid at near light speed." It seems that they send a current through a wire. Last time I checked that wasn't a new concept. If there is a patent, why are they hiding the details? If gigabit ethernet can't be sent a mile over high-bandwidth, low-noise, constant-impedance category 5 cable why should they be able to do better over power lines? P.S. Does anybody know what "Advanced Sub-Carrier Modulation" is, or claims to be?
Even with many active routers to divide power networks into smaller subnetworks, encryption of internet data transmission will become much more important for maintaining security. Depending on how much they subdivide the power network (and of course more routers equals higher expenses), a user will find themselves on a subnetwork with their neighborhood, city, or possibly even state. All packets of all the users in that subnetwork would go to all computers, so they will be open for sniffing. Sniffing is currently most applicable only in large company or educational facility networks. On these networks, if active routers are not in place, a system of trust is used to maintain security. While people may trust their coworkers, it would be harder to trust all of the people their neighborhood, city, or state. Encryption would need to be used to maintain security in this type of network.
"[The patent] has made our lives a lot simpler," said Luke Stewart, Media Fusion's chairman and the inventor of the technology. "This lets people know the government recognizes the value of the science and the veracity of the technology."
This is not how a patent should be interpreted. Totally worthless patents are granted all the time. The USPTO does not have a lab, nor do they posess supeona power to gather evidence. USPTO is then necessarily restricted to searching prior art to ensure that "no one has done this before" i.e. novelty. Consumers and investors should always regard a statement such as Luke Stewart's quoted above as a red flag on his credibility.
Growler
"To excuse such an atrocity by blaming U.S. government policies is to deny the basic idea of all morality: that individu
Hrm... Im not even going to a make a guess about the soundness of this technology (i tend to be a bit skeptical about most things anyway).
6 __
U S05982276__
U S04471399__ (14 pages) U S05554968__ (6 pages) U S05559377__ (45 pages) U S05670931__ (18 pages) U S05684450__ (18 pages) U S05886619__ (18 pages)
But i am wondering how many pepole, who posted comments above about the lack of details in the patent, failed to realise that what is shown at
http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US0598227
is just the "abstract" and not the whole patent. The whole patent (all 15 pages) can be found here:
http://www.patents.ibm.com/cgi-bin/viewpat.cmd/
And how many people even bothered to looked at the patents that were referenced?
http://www.patents.ibm.com/cgi-bin/viewpat.cmd/
http://www.patents.ibm.com/cgi-bin/viewpat.cmd/
http://www.patents.ibm.com/cgi-bin/viewpat.cmd/
http://www.patents.ibm.com/cgi-bin/viewpat.cmd/
http://www.patents.ibm.com/cgi-bin/viewpat.cmd/
http://www.patents.ibm.com/cgi-bin/viewpat.cmd/
Thats over 100 pages of information about the overall process....
ah well...
(insert witty comment here)
If this is really true, and can go that fast, how would it handle collisions? Having each node back off momentarily would become an amazing waste of bandwidth at this speed, and wiring a seperate electrical grid for every node would be extremely inefficient and costly...
With just a few, at most, nodes, this would be sweet, but when a bunch of people try to a bunch of things at the same time, things get all complicated and it's time to unplug the tech support lines and take a nap.
Well, with the current lack of IP addresses, you can't do that. Push the ISPs providing this to support IPv6.
The next ISP in my town that provides IPv6 (the whole 64 bits) for the about same price as I get IPv4 will immediately get my business...
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"I already have all the latest software."
This guy was being sarcastic. Both things he said are believable. You took him seriously.
;)
Bad dog!
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"I already have all the latest software."
As soon as power-line net access becomes available, it will be considered current, and therefore will not be faster than itself.
Remember:
(1 > 1) == (1==0)
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"I already have all the latest software."
the rural people will end up getting faster service than I will on my cable modem.
Sheesh, quit saying "it will never work, there's not enough bandwidth, we need mucho repeaters, it causes interference..."
Yeah, that's why this failed in the past, i.e., in Britain, but LOOK:
This is something different; it sends data over the magnetic field created by electricity in wires, not over the wires themselves.
That's why they have $1.5 million in early funding, and lots of corporate sponsors and licensees lined up. This is something new, designed with the failures of the past in mind.
SO, do some more research... this could be some grand shiz, let's give it some time and see what happens.
--
MeDiCaL WeED {3M}
My EE prof worked as a researcher for Southern California Edison for 20 years and he said that the reason they used DC for that power link was to avoid phase synchronization problems.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
I'm not sure of the writers background or knowledge about this subject. Everthing the comment said is true, however the reference to the intro level physics textbook makes me wonder. For those that don't know, "Fundamentals of Physics, Fifth Edition", by Halliday, Resnick, and Walker" is a book used for introductory level physics classes by many colleges.
Without seeing exactly what their technology is I would be hesitant to rule anything out.
If this technology does pan out it would be a blessing to people in rural areas that can't get dsl or cable modems and can't afford costly satallite solutions.
I also think that the 2.5GB/sec bandwidth they are talking about will be shared in much the same way that the bandwidth for a cable modem is shared.
We should all wait and see what the company does according to the web page the product should roll out late in the year 2000. For now we don't have enough info to say if they are legit or not.
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
Don't think i am too worried about the 15,000th harmonic causing problems on a power supply! (at least not a few mW, anyway)
I don't have the link at hand, but look into the CDMA propaganda; these problems are all solved fairly easily when you think in terms of digital/spread spectrum systems rather than analog.
And in Australia our AC voltage is f high, as our courts are not as sue aggressive as CA. Next someone said Sweden did this at much lower rate. I trust the lower measurement more. The best solution is to sling optic fibre under the power cables, with radio links in the last mile. I do not mean crappy tv cable stuff.
HV DC power links are viable for very long distances, often justified by fewer cables, and the ability to use higher voltages. In Russia, they even have some single-wire systems, with the earth as a return path.
The only other real use is frequency conversion and out-of-phase systems, like Japan and Quebec (respectively).
Beyond just the AC and DC issue, Edison lost because you can't have a DC power transformer, so you must distribute power at the utilization voltage, hence higher losses.
The technology covered aside, doesn't spread spectrum solve these problems?
When are they up for an IPO and will they rename themselves so that their name includes "Linux" adn ".com" twice? :)
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It's life Jim, but not as w
It's hard for your typical consumer to be excited over these things, because even if the technology would come around, the only places that would have it offered would be your mega metropolises.
--------- I'm with stupid.