“Call it a dark horse in the race to bring Internet connections to America’s homes. The electric utility industry wants to bring us Internet connections as well,” Dean Takahashi reports for The Mercury News. “Consumers already have cable TV and phone companies vying to sign them up for high-speed Internet service. The power companies would be new contenders in this race.”
“It may sound crazy that the people who have brought us outages and brownouts are promising round-the-clock high-speed Internet access. But after years of incubation, industry observers say it’s ready to happen. Trials have begun, and big rollouts are expected in 2006,” Takahashi reports. “The service, called BPL for broadband over power lines, could be cheaper and faster than DSL service over phone lines or cable-TV that now supply Internet connections to most U.S. households.”
Full article here.
The only problem with BPL is that it DESTROYS citizens band radio. The interference makes that form of broadasting virtually impossible.
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=170701589
Sounds like a hoax.
cable sucks harder than i can believe. i’ll try anything new!
Jeeze. Rising electricity cost and Broadband on top of that. Do I really want to give the “Energy” company more money?
MDN Magic Word “Training” as in training me to pay whatever they want.
I dunno… The power companies already have a wire running to virtually every permanent freestanding structure in the USA, so if they could pull it off, they would have a distinct advantage over cable and DSL.
On the other hand, I don’t know about your town, but there’s only one electricity provider where I live. A lack of competition in a market that falls outside of the primary purpose for the company… where have I heard of that before?
A few years ago, I lived in a town that was testing this exact concept by the power company. In our situation, the power company set up Wi-fi on just about every other street light. Unfortunately, only a few people were selected as test users. I wasn’t one and I didn’t know anyone. I left before hearing the results.
In very small rural towns and secluded homes (farms), BPL may be the only way to get high speed being that they have no cable or DSL.
Perhaps Apple will be announcing this as their new way to access the internet. They can have 1kbps, thus making streaming and downloading HD video a real possibility. They can call it “Apple on Power Lines” – APoL.
So for Wednesday, they will announce…
1. New high speed APoL.
2. Downloadable and streamable video via new iTunes.
3. Translucent Macs with a glowing speedometer indicating the users current download speeds – an awesome way to advertise how fast their connections are (and how slow your old DSL and cable are).
4. Inter-home networking via the home’s power lines for data, music and video.
5. New Apple media center; a device not much larger than a Mac mini.
This technology has been used in other countries so I’m not surprised to see it being oferred in the US
BPL is going to be a big mess, it already is in some circles. Watch. It’s been tried around the U.S. already and pulled out.
If power lines are everywhere, what about security concerns with labs, military installations, etc.
I’m not up on this type of technology, but with power lines in every building, isn’t it possible to cut in almost anywhere and tap information?
News Item:
M$, meanwhile, backs the Broadband initiative by the Natural Gas providers. It seems this innovation was released by Mr. Steve Ballmer, CEO, after a large lunch at Taco Bell. Mr. Ballmer touted this idea as another in the series of innovations in M$’ pipeline of products.
What speed are we talking about? A few countries are already providing 100 Mbps to their customers. My “fast” cable broadband is 4 Mbps (500 KB per second).
“The only problem with BPL is that it DESTROYS citizens band radio. The interference makes that form of broadasting virtually impossible.”
Hey Good Buddy… Breaker, Breaker, It’s the f’ing 21st Century…
What kind of loser cares about CB radio anymore? 10-4?
clearly…the value of HAM radio and Citizens Band radio is under publicized.There are over 700,000 HAM operators across the nation who can broadcast when others cannot. The idea of CB’s in trucks is from the 70’s and not reflective of their real value. They were active after the recent Hurricanes in the Gulf Coast and have proven themselves many times in disasters for the last few decades. Read this page…
http://www.spacetoday.org/k3rxk/EmergencyComms.html
More background on this story:
Internet noise threatens emergency radio
10:31 14 January 2005
Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition
Barry Fox
Enlarge image
Short-wave interference
After the tsunami hit Sri Lanka on 26 December, Victor Goonetilleke, head of the island’s amateur radio society, delivered a short-wave radio set and two 12-volt car batteries to the prime minister’s emergency headquarters in Colombo. At the same time, three of his friends drove through the devastation to Hambantota, on the hard-hit south-east coast, where they set up another battery-powered short-wave radio.
For two days, while the military struggled to restore electricity supplies and phone lines, the prime minister was able to use the short-wave link to talk to staff on the ground.
Short-wave signals from Sri Lanka, the Andaman Islands and mainland India also helped to spread news of the disaster around the world. The same happened after the 9/11 attacks and last year’s hurricanes in the Caribbean. When phones and mains electricity are down, making the internet unusable, short-wave radio enthusiasts are able to maintain emergency communications.
But not, perhaps, for much longer. Plans to deliver broadband internet signals to homes and businesses down mains electricity cables, rather than telephone lines, could cause interference that will drown out the faint signals from distant short-wave transmitters.
Unshielded cables
Power companies in the US and Europe are pressing ahead with the technology, with the aim of setting up in competition to existing phone-based services. The downside is that the packets of internet data pulsing down unshielded mains cables makes the cables behave like aerials that send short-wave interference beaming out over a wide area.
Unless interference of this kind is tightly controlled, it could spell the end for emergency short-wave communications. “A few extra decibels of interference from future networks and I would not have been able to hear the news from amateurs in Sri Lanka, India and the Andaman Islands,” says Hilary Claytonsmith of the International Amateur Radio Union’s UKbranch.
The threat began when the US government gave the go-ahead to broadband over power line (BPL) technology in October. And the European Commission (EC) is close to approving its own version, called power-line communications (PLC). The names are different but the technology is the same: broadband data is sent into people’s homes as a high-frequency signal piggybacked on the 50 or 60-hertz mains supply.
Unhappy coincidence
Because the mains is a noisy environment with ever-changing patterns of interference from sockets, switches, control circuits and electric motors in appliances, the power-line data must be spread over many high-frequency carrier signals if it is to be delivered at the 5 to 10 megabits per second that these services are aiming for.
The carrier frequencies used range up to 30 megahertz – which by unhappy coincidence is the radio band that travels best around the world. It is used for amateur radio, short-wave broadcasting (such as the BBC World Service and Deutsche Welle) and includes several dedicated emergency frequencies (see graphic). Because these frequencies bounce off the ionosphere, they carry long distances, which makes them ideal for long-range intercontinental broadcasting.
When the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gave the go-ahead to BPL, it ruled that at frequencies up to 80 megahertz service providers must use filters on their household equipment. These could be set by a service engineer to chop out any internet transmission frequencies shown to be causing interference to any short-wave radio receivers nearby. The EC and the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation (CENELEC) are trying to set similar filtering rules.
Deciding on importance
But radio amateurs fear that the rules will allow the filtering to be lifted if it is having a serious effect on internet access speeds. The EC says it wants firm rules that balance “technical, social and economic” factors against the “importance” of services which suffer interference. But who is to decide what is more important, and on what grounds, the radio amateurs ask.
Michael Copps, the one FCC commissioner who opposed BPL, believes the organisation has made a rod for its own back. It is going to have to “work hard to monitor, investigate and take quick action” over any power-line internet interference to radio amateurs and others, he says.
Some technical fixes may be in the works though. The BBC, for instance, is developing a PLC modem that makes use of the fact that the short-wave frequencies for broadcast radio change throughout the day, as ionospheric conditions dictate. The BBC modem detects which frequency bands are in use at any one time – and filters them out. Such technology is not part of any PLC or BPL system currently in trials, however.
Cinergy is running BPL trials in parts of Cincinnati. If they release it, it will be $29 for minimum 3mb, down and up. Roadrunner is $45 for minimum 3mb down and 300kb (if you’re lucky) up. This bites big time when you are trying to share photo and video files.
Let’s see… if BPL comes to Cincy, will I buy??
U Betcha!
“What kind of loser cares about CB radio anymore? 10-4?”
Professional Drivers (eg, those people who drive 18-wheelers). It works a heck of a lot better when you’re in a jam in the middle of nowhere than cellular phones. Truckers still use it for traffic reports.
My roomate used to haul loads between Long Beach and Phoenix. They’d use their CB Radios to organize themselves at the port, get traffic reports along the way, and sync up along the way.
Also, it’s a great way to get help along the way. When she first started, my roomate got horrendously lost on one trip up to Idaho and ended up on a dead-end road. You try backing an 18-wheeler a mile. So she got on the radio and called for help. 10 minutes later, she had an old hand who came by and backed it out for her.
Yeah, the Dukes of Hazzard/Smokey and the Bandit-types are long gone from the CB Airwaves. And most of the people say, “Good Riddance.”
About three years ago we used ethernet adapters, that used a buildings power grid, to put together what we thought would be a quick a dirty network (until we had time to wire the building properly.
4 servers, 18 computers, 6 printers, 2 fax servers.
It worked so well we never bothered to wire the building.
Watch hi-speed charges fall when this thing is rolled out.
3Mbs (up and down) for $19.95 anybody?
“cable sucks harder than i can believe. i’ll try anything new!”
I’ll second that, but i think the next big thing will be WiMax, not BPL
wait..MACdailynews? i dont mind reading about this…just find it interesting that it would be posted here.
Interesting development!
internet and telephone through the TV cable,
internet and TV through the telephone lines,
now internet through power lines.
Mw = need
how appropriate, do we need another provider? If it shakes things up and helps bring down the price, absolutely!
“On the other hand, I don’t know about your town, but there’s only one electricity provider where I live. A lack of competition in a market that falls outside of the primary purpose for the company… where have I heard of that before?”
Yeah, well there’s only one electric company here too, and only one phone company and only one cable company. Adding the power company to the mix means more competition, not less. YMMV.
It’s not CB radioi that BPL kills… it’s Amateur Radio AND Public Service (EMS, Police, Fire) —
It is a mess.
Neal
BPL might be interesting for rural areas where providers don’t want to pull coax or fiber.
Otherwise, FTTP is the way to go.
My 2¢.
We here in Tasmania, Australia have already begun trials of broadband over power lines. I think there is only one or two other places in the world trialing the technology. Nothing bad to report so far though there hasn’t been much in the news about it. Here’s a link if anyone cares..
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1459502.htm
I’m just fine with comcast. I’m at 7mbps regularly (customers of the comcast cable got a 2 mbps boost, now it’s 8 mbps the highest).
I was paying $105/mo for cable ISP, one “persistent” IP for my server, and 4Mbps/400kbps(never topped 350), then they recently increased the “claim” to 5Mbps/768kbps. Problem is that it varies from zilch to near-maximum, but is never consistent… sometimes lots of latency, sometimes quick. At least it’s been more reliable (lately) than the power grid! Thank God for my big ol’ UPS units. Oh, and I tried their free hosting, fine for 3 months then they crashed and lost my site. :~{
Last year I’d been sucked into a local “wireless ISP” on 2.4 GHz band. Fucking thing never worked, didn’t even have dialup speed sometimes. Supposed to hit 3.5Mbps, only saw 1.8 for about 2 days once, if it ever worked it was inconsistent, kinda like ISDN…. felt like a LocalTalk net compared to gigabit.
Anyway, today my new DSL modem arrived. Only $23/mo added to my phone bill… and now I have 7Mbps/896kbps. Not too shabby? 8->
Think about it. Every single device that gets plugged in could now be designed to connect to your network or gather real time info…toaster, fridge, electric shaver… whatever. Not sure what it is yet…but maybe there is a good reason why my refrigerator should be surf’n the web.
>In very small rural towns and secluded homes (farms),BPL may be the only way to get high speed being that they have no cable or DSL.>
What’s wrong with a satellite dish?
Satellite dish = same speeds as DSL, but 2x the cost
14 September 2005
DS2’s Radio Friendly BPL Technology puts Competition on the Defensive
Speaking at 2005 UPLC Annual Conference, Victor Dominguez, DS2’s Director of Strategy and Standardization, outlined the reasons why DS2’s 200Mbps powerline solution is the only regulatory compliant technology available for BPL commercial deployments.
Dominguez was dismissive about claimed alternatives to DS2.
Mr Dominguez was adamant about competitors claims “I think that we have put the competition on the defensive. Our competitors would love to have the flexible notching capabilities that we have for BPL and In-Home PLCs, but the truth is that they don’t. DS2 has had dynamic notching since its first chip set and can mitigate radio interference in a programmable way and other PLC chipsets do not. We would like to thank our competition for the rumours propagated at several press interviews, they have been attracting attention towards one of the main competitive advantages of our technology, we mastered programmable notches in a 200 Mbps chipset more than 2 years ago, since then we have been shipping in volume for BPL and In-Home applications, and still remains to be proven that competition can follow us.”
DS2’s technology is well known in the BPL industry for being one of the first proponents of programmable notching in powerline communications, as the best method for addressing potential interference to radio services. DS2’s 200 Mbps BPL technology, available in silicon since 2003, already implements this dynamic notching functionality, which has been tested in the field, in several commercial BPL deployments, and demonstrated in several BPL industry trade shows.
“Other competing technologies have some notches, but they are fixed, including the most advanced designs from followers (on top of that they exhibit performance below 40% our speed). This means that they fall short for the demands of regulators and consumers everywhere from the FCC to the European Commission who require that frequency bands can be selectively notched out, even after the equipment has been deployed. Operators deploying non-DS2 based solutions risk having their equipment withdrawn from the field because once it is out there, there is nothing that can be done to prevent interfence with radio signals. With DS2, however, any issues can be resolved even when the equipment is in the field by remotely disabling problematic frequencies thus complying with today’s or future regulatory requirements and automatically avoiding any radio signals in any part of the world”. Mr Dominguez placed special emphasis on the radio friendliness of the system.
In February this year, DS2’s 200 Mbps powerline technology has been chosen as the baseline technology for the European utilities developing PLC standards to accelerate the adoption of low cost, high performance broadband access PLC. As part of the selection process, an extensive set of tests were performed, including notching functionality benchmarks for avoidance of potential interferences to radio services. In addition, report from Ofcom, the British telecom regulator recognised the significant advance represented “The flexibility of the DS2 product, with its programmable spectrum mask and downstream notching capability, represents a significant step towards a more EMC friendly PLT solution.”
Specifically, DS2 BPL system can implement notches in any frequency band, not only in radio amateur bands. This means that the system can be adapted to changing regulations in several countries. For example, FCC recently prohibited BPL Operators to use frequencies within defined “excluded bands”. Only products based on DS2 technology can be adapted to this new regulation remotely from the Operator’s Network Operation Centre, while products based on competing chips would need to replace the hardware in the field.
DS2 200 Mbps the technology which underlies the majority of commercial access PLC and IPTV/ADSL deployments worldwide and has been built into equipment manufactured by the leading US, European and Asian BPL manufacturers. It is used by XDSL/IPTV operators like Telefonica and electricity giants such as Consolidated Edison, Duke Energy, EdF, EdP, Iberdrola and Endesa, to drive their broadband over powerline offerings. As of September 2005, the estimated number of consumers and businesses that enjoy access to IPTV, internet and voice-over IP services is estimated at 500,000, with more than two million homes passed in deployments with more than 30 power utilities world-wide.
DS2’s Radio Friendly BPL Technology puts Competition on the Defensive
http://www.ds2.es/press/record.aspx?id=29
http://www.ds2.es/home.aspx
“the people who have brought us outages and brownouts”
For the last 51 years every time I get up the damn lights have turned on, save twice. Is this guy reporting from Baghdad?
MIcrosoft is developing its own technology to deliver data across gas or water plumbing networks. The catch is you must keep a continuous (but small) stream of water or gas running. Bounce back interference waves carry uploads of up to 128kbps … pathetic … but cheap enough to be bundled into longVista at no extra charge. Test runs have confirmed the technology is valid save for some minor problems: the water becomes contaminated and jaundiced, and the gas emits a brown soot smelling of Ballmergas.
Satellite dish = same speeds as DSL, but 2x the cost
thats crap i live in the middle of nowhere and i have a dish
it is the biggest ripoff on the planet
it takes almost 3 minutes to upload a 150kb file
and i have to unplug it at least once a day to reboot it
so that it works at all
i hate it
i just wish i had cable
thats how bad it is
i have been hoping for BPL for years
PR, thanks for the info.
The more high-speed providers the better. Competition is great. It would result in lower prices for the service.
Let the competition begin!
This is GREAT NEWS. I heard about the power line internet test in Kansas City, or wherever, a few years ago and wondered what happened. This is a fantastic alternative to expensive cable, satellite, and DSL. Anyting to bring prices down is a good thing. I’m going broke on cable.
Several things about this.
First, the argument that “it’s the only way to get broadband to rural areas” is false. BPL requires the same kind of repeaters and other equipment needed to extend DSL – and even more of them due to the problems inherent in unshielded, untwisted pairs.
Notching technology does not completely eliminate interference – it just takes it down a certain (fairly large) percentage in the notched area, but leaves the interference everywhere else. This essentially puts a stop to any future development of RF spectrum in a BPL area, because of the cost issues involved in putting yet more notching into every BPL system.
What BPL essentially does is to use up a scarce resource – the RF spectrum – to create what it already a non-scarce resrouce – broadband data channels. Yes, rural areas need better access, and this can be accomplished much better either with DSL repeaters, WiMax, or (gasp) actually pulling fiber out to where people live. Fiber is just as easy to pull as copper, and is a lot cheaper – they might as well bite the bullet now and do it. Heck, I’d think that they would already have thought of putting a small additional tax on existing broadband to pay to build the infrastructure to rural areas. Would anyone else mind paying a dime a month to get this done? I wouldn’t.