First Canadian High Speed Internet over Power Grid 253
oO0(MjB)0Oo writes "Sault Ste. Marie, a northern Ontario town, is going to be the first installation of BPL (Broadband Power Line technology) in Canada. As reported in the Toronto Star, wireless access points will be set up along medium-voltage power lines, providing roaming capability throughout the city to all users."
Not quite... (Score:2, Informative)
Still great though
radio comunications (Score:3, Informative)
Read it again. (Score:3, Informative)
The "fiber optic backbone" means their network center.
The line says "From wireless, converted to be transmitted OVER THE GRID to the company's (PUC) fiber backbone to the internet."
It is *precisely* a test of data over power lines.
Re:Next step. (Score:4, Informative)
IP over sewage.
Re:Not quite... (Score:4, Informative)
In what way is the headline inaccurate? This is the first semi-large test of using the power grid as a network distribution medium.
Re:Not quite... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:hmmmm (Score:1, Informative)
"Wyant is quick to point out PUC won't be using power lines to deliver Internet access directly into the home. Instead, the company is installing wireless access points along its medium-voltage lines in densely populated residential areas."
So, no, you won't fry yourself..
but you will have lots of wireless internet to hack into
Read what you posted. (Score:5, Informative)
GRID == power grid.
The backbone is not everywhere.. the "backbone" is just somefiber link they have at a NOC to some other isps.
They are indeed using power line data transmission for this... that's what the entire project is about, and the only reason it is significant.
Amperion.com (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.amperion.com
Re:Read it again. (Score:5, Informative)
Backbone == NOC. They are using medium voltage power lines as a large network between their backbone and the access points... the article headline, despite being on slashdot, is acccurate.
No shielding (Score:5, Informative)
Signal strength goes a square of distance. That means that if I have an antenna running 10 meters from my house, and I'm trying to tune into a station 10 kilometers aways, that station needs to be putting out a million times more power than the segment of powerline running next to me. Ouch.
This probably won't interfere with typical consumer applications (television, FM radio), because if it did, there would be significant political reprecussions, and it would be banned (in other words, it's probably engineered to operate outside of those frequencies). On the other hand, according to the ARRL, it very likely will interfere with amateur radio and therefore emergency communications services.
My view is that it may be a good idea in some third world countries, with no telephone service, where there are no alternatives for Internet. However, in modernized countries, we're better off spending the few extra dollars to put in DSL on top of all phone lines or sticking with modems for a while longer, than in the short term, sacrificing emergency communications infrastructure, and in the long term, entrenching a system of broadband that takes away a significant chunk of the spectrum, and prevents all sorts of innovative uses of that spectrum we haven't thought of yet. Spectrum is a scarce resource, and it's gonna get scarcer. The population growing, but amount of spectrum stays constant, sans a few one-time improvements from better utilization (there are fundamental limits on signal strength vs. noise vs. bandwidth vs. bitrate -- with antenna arrays/directional transmissions, there are limits on directionality vs. frequency vs. transmitter size -- we cannot improve utilization forever). In contrast, all the benefits of power-over-power-lines are short-term -- we only gain the one-time cost of not having to modernize our infrastructure (maintanance costs of the two possible infrastructures aren't significantly different).
I don't know how this initiative works, but my impression is that it sends broadband over powerlines, and then the last gap is sent via wireless. If this is the case, it has all of the standard problems associated above. If not, I need more information than is in the article to evalute it
Re:Read it again. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What about do it yourself? (Score:3, Informative)
Sending the data to the transformers (and onto the low-voltage line that enters your house) is probably very difficult and problematic because of the effect of the transformer on the signal. If the data could easily pass through the transformer, you'd think the modem would just plug into a wall socket rather than using WiFi.
Thus, if you had the technology, you could send data through the medium voltage lines if you climbed the pole and hooked it up, but it's very unlikely that the current technology is able to send data through the transformer.
Re:Awesome! (Score:5, Informative)
(*) nothing important does NOT include:
FYI from a Canuck ... (Score:4, Informative)
Also, "hydros" in the article refer to the power utilities like Ontario Hydro. "Hydro" (water) comes from the fact that they get some of the power from hydroelectric damns.
RTFA - it IS over the powerline. (Score:5, Informative)
These wireless "boxes" convert data so they can be sent through the grid and on to PUC's fibre-optic backbone, which connects to the Internet. Home computers equipped with 802.11b or "Wi-Fi" wireless access cards and within 150 metres of these access points will be able to use the service.
The advantage of this approach, said Wyant, is that instead of being tied to home with cable or DSL service, a power-line subscriber with a wireless card can use the service anywhere in Sault Ste. Marie that's within range of an access point.
INTERNET BACKBONE
- connects to -
medium-voltage power lines
- connects to -
wireless boxes
- wirelessly transmits to/from -
subscribers wifi devices.
Re:Awesome! (Score:2, Informative)
The only signal deliberately injected on to the power line is the HF signal which is much, much lower than a 2.4 GHz. Wi-Fi signal.
Even using so-called HF (high frequency) signals (3 to 30 MHz.) on power lines is tricky -- that's one reason we didn't see this technology 10 or 20 years ago. The signals attenuate rapidly and need regeneration every several hundred or thousand meters. To the extent that the power line picks up some of the Wi-Fi signal, attenuation is much higher at 2.4 GHz.
Most radio frequency concerns associated with these systems focus on possible interference to military and amateur radio operations in the HF range, not other 2.4 GHz. devices.
BPL is a PART 15 licensee (Score:3, Informative)
See that cool remote weather station widget you got, with the remote outdoor sensor? Probably uses 450 MHz to report the outside temp back to the main unit. Baby monitors. Cordless phones, except maybe digital spread spectrum ones. Wireless burglar alarms. Etc etc etc.
All exist by the grace of FCC rules, part 15, which says, "This device must not cause any interference to any other device, and must accept any interference from any other device." That means that if you pay money for it, get it home, and the RF hash from the BPL outside your window blankets the range used by it, and it's useless, you got nobody to cry to. Refer to part 15, FCC rules.
Ok, now, Ham Radio, licensed under part 95 (or part 97? Can never keep that straight) is DIFFERENT. There are specific portions of spectrum carved out and devoted to amateur radio as PRIMARY use bands. If you are not licensed by the FCC under part 95, and you interfere in one of those bands, YOU are required to shut it down.
Lo and behold! BPL in the US is a Part 15 licensee. Guess what? A ham files a notice with the FCC and East Podunk Power Light & Internet needs to punch the buttons that shift the BPL carrier to another set of bands. Then the country sheriff's non-trunked 435 MHz (or whatever) radios become useless in certain areas. A few more notices, a few more shifts, and if they can't stay out of bands they don't belong in without radiating all over the place, and the FCC shows up and says, "Turn it off."
And how tight and non-radiating do you think those rusty bolts and cable clamps are, out in the weather, some of which were last inspected in 1952? Not very, I'll wager. Ever stand near (not UNDER!) a high-voltage distribution tower in wet weather and hear the continuous sizzle? And you think THATS RFI tight??
Call me dubious.
Re:Not quite... (Score:2, Informative)
To be exact: It's using the medium voltage grid to transport data to the NOC. You access the internet via 802.11b access points on the poles.
From the article:
These wireless "boxes" convert data so they can be sent through the grid and on to PUC's fibre-optic backbone, which connects to the Internet. Home computers equipped with 802.11b or "Wi-Fi" wireless access cards and within 150 metres of these access points will be able to use the service.
So basically what they're doing is something I did over 10 years ago -- power grid data transmission -- this isn't new, and it isn't cool; it's just over medium voltage. They're not passing data through the pole pigs into your outlets; they're avoiding that because they are not designed to transmit data. Once you're on the neighbourhood grid there are no transformers until the substation; They are essentially modulating high speed data over copper lines. Nothing new, except for the voltages involved. And isolation takes care of all of that. :-)
Re:Read it again. (Score:4, Informative)
The above is incorrect. We specialize in fiber cable systems for power utilities. (See the Fiber Planners [fiberplanners.com] web site for more info on what we do)
Power utilities build fiber into their conductors in 3 situations:
1. They use optical groundwire (OPGW) on high voltage transmission lines between cities. This is an aluminum conductor with fibers in it that is placed above the power conductors and used as combination lightning guard and communications cable. This is widely deployed.
2. On the latest high voltage underground cables, they may use one fiber as a temperature sensor. These cables are not widely deployed. There are real issues associated with adding anymore fibers to that kind of cable for communications -- it's cheaper to just bury a separate fiber-only cable nearby, unless you're deploying an undesea cable, which leads to #3.
3. A few undersea power cables (such as might feed an offshore island) may include fibers for communications.
Most fiber cable deployed by power utilities is all-dielectric (contains nothing conductive) and hung or buried near the conductors on medium voltage power distribution systems.
The Amperion system in Sault Ste. Marie uses HF radio signals propagated down PUC's standard metallic power conductors to Wi-Fi units outside subscribers' homes. The Wi-Fi unit then takes that HF signal and retransmits a Wi-Fi signal through the air the last 100 feet or so to the subscriber.
All the consumer needs is a Wi-Fi unit (Score:3, Informative)
There are other power line broadband systems from other vendors that use a special proprietary modem that plugs into the 120v outlet in the customer home and has an Ethernet output.
Read the scale on your map! (Score:3, Informative)
If you check one of those common Ontario Road maps, with one side "Northern Ontario" and the other side "Southern Ontario", you'll notice that the scale on Northern Ontario is smaller than that of Southern Ontario. Yet the Sault sometimes just barely appears on the edge of the Southern Ontario map, but also appears on a Northern Ontario map... but the scale is different!
The Sault is indeed at a more southern latitude than Seattle, and it is indeed geographically well in the southern half of the province.
Detroit is at 42 degrees,
Fort Severn is at 56 degrees,
The Sault is at 46 degrees,
Seattle is at 47 degrees.
Granted, most of the time when people are speaking about Southern Ontario, and Northern Ontario, they're drawing the border somewhere along the population rather than the geography. It strikes me as silly though when Ontario-U.S. border towns are considered in Northern Ontario.
The Northern half of Ontario is absurdly large.
RF on power conductors last mile, Wi-Fi last 100' (Score:2, Informative)
Wrong!!
The Amperion system uses RF signals injected on the power conductors for the 'last mile' to the Amperion unit on the conductor that then transmits it through the air as Wi-Fi the last 100 feet or so to the subscriber.
Some broadband over power line (BPL) systems use fiber for 'backhaul' from the injection point (often at a substation) to the utilities routers. For instance, City of Manassas Utilities [blogspot.com] is doing something like that using AFL equipment. The last mile on that system is BPL, however.
("Last mile" refers to the run from the narest aggregation point to the subscriber -- it can actually be more or less than a mile)
Geography? (Score:3, Informative)