First Canadian High Speed Internet over Power Grid

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."

What about do it yourself?

[emptybody]

Couldn't a private individual use their own gear to run their own ISP over PowerLines?

What prevents this?

Re:What about do it yourself?

[aonaran]

How about the fact that it's not actually over the powerlines, as the misleading /. headline says, maybe you should read the article first?
It's really a WiFi solution put out by the power company utilizing their existing infrastructure.

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.

Wow, I'm moving to the Soo!

[presearch]

Not only the home of the Bandettes [soonet.ca], but now internet for everyone!
My kind of town.

Similar to ESB in Ireland then...

[zoney_ie]

Here in Ireland, the Electricity Supply Board (ESB) - our State electricity company, is setting up something similar. They have a fibre ring following the trunk electricity routes - it's just fibre piggy-backed on their existing infrastructure.

I'm just amazed they haven't done this ages ago - it puts them at a huge advantage to those who have to dig up stuff and lay fibre from scratch.

Not sure what ESBs plan is to connect this main telecomms artery to anything useful...

Canada?

[NixLuver]

Ok, what's the tech market like in Canada for hard-core engineer level *Nix geeks? :) How do Canadians feel about American Immigrants? LOL

Three birds with one stone!

[Xoder]

Hey, no one likes Hams anyways. And CB is soo 80s! And why wouldn't everyone have the newest 100GHz phone (More GHz means more chicks). Short-wave? Can I get that on my TeeVee?

BTW, I'm KC2DXE and I bought one of those old 49MHz phones at a Hamfest once. Worked really well until one of my younger brothers broke it.

Re:Awesome!

[michael_cain]

Actually, they are using between 5 - 70 Mhz .... since nothing important(*) resides down there ...

The powerline stuff operates at quite low total output power levels. In the US (can't speak to Canada, although the rules are probably similar in nature), the regulations call for you to be below particular radiated power levels at distances of 1m and 3m from the conductors -- several companies claim that their powerline stuff meets these rules. Recent versions of the powerline gear uses OFDM as the modulation scheme, which does allow for avoiding particular spectrum regions where there are interference problems -- it's still not perfect, of course, but they can dodge the amateur radio bands in areas where people are sensative to even low levels of interference.

I find the claims that they're going to get reliable 150m coverage out of unlicensed 802.11b to be more dubious. For most people, there's a minimum of one outside wall between the PC and the WAP, and possibly more depending on the location of the medium-voltage power lines. If they only get 50m coverage, they're going to need a LOT more devices, greatly increasing their costs.

Re:radio comunications

[Anonymous Coward]

This subject as been discused by a recent story published on the ARRL web site (search for "lintz" "austria" "red cross"...) the emergency network working on HF bands have been impared by the BPL. And "pushing the power knob" has never been a solution.
BPL is probably the worst thing after 802.11 (or more exactly the attitude of 802.11 vendors vs the respect of ham radio bands on 23 cm)
Marc, f6itu

Re:Awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

nothing important does NOT include:

radio controlled airplanes and cars. A radio controlled airplane at 100 MPH can very easily kill someone...