Electric Companies Get Involved With Broadband

Billosaur writes "The Marketplace Morning Report on NPR has an interesting piece on how electric companies are getting into the high-speed Internet business with 'Broadband over Power Lines', or BPL." From the article: "By purchasing the right equipment power companies can quickly offer Internet service to millions of new customers. There are several pilot projects being launched in the US, including one in the Pittsburgh suburb of Monroeville. That service is being offered by Duquesne Broadband -- a spinout of the local power company.'"

How does this work?

[iamlucky13]

Previous discussion of broadband over powerlines that I've read discussed it as an alternative to wireless or wiring your home...really small networks that then plug into a traditional connection. I'm curious how you would handle multiple users on one line. You're not just running half a dozen or so connections into a hub and multiplexing the signals. The power grid is huge! Along those lines, what about capacitance and interference? Wouldn't those kill the range?

I love this only because it causes quaking

[Spirckle]

...in the boots of the telcos and cable companies. If broadband over the power grid were technically and economically doable, it eliminates the need for telcos if you have voip and for cable with a big enough pipe.

First things first

[Jim in Buffalo]

Before this can be rolled out, the power companies will want to run a massive national smear campaign against ham radio operators, you know, just to make sure no-one listens to them when they complain about interference.

Re:More competition is better, whatever it is!

[theodicey]

Having three competitors in a market makes it much harder to collude. So anything that breaks up the cable/telco duopoly is fine with me.

Especially since SBC/AT&T and the bastard sons of Ma Bell have proven themselves to be Big Brother's best man and groomsmen.

Already Involved

[Doc Ruby]

One of the problems with a website like Slashdot is that its editors aren't reliable for perspective on presentation of stories with a history, both in the world and in the site's coverage. BPL has been covered on Slashdot several times, as the electric companies have evolved their business proposition and dealt with technical, economic and political problems. But the story presented here "introduces" BPL without any of that perspective. The new Slashdot story/style presentations do better, at least eliminating pure duplicates, but the nanothin editorial depth leaves out the context that is part of the story, both on Slashdot and in the world. Consider this BPL story, and others, with an itchy google finger.

BPL is teh ghey

[JPriest]

BPL is only being pushed because so many people are stupid enough to believe that if they have electricity, they will be able to get BPL.

"quickly offer Internet service to millions of new customers" they say.

This is not true. They can't run the service over high voltage lines.

They have to fiber out to medium voltage (7,200 volts) lines and then offload from fiber ($$) to the unshielded lines.

The lines may be 7,200 volts, but to comply with section 15 the data is transmitted somewhere closer to 1 volt.

Emergency frequencies tend to be low because the low attenuation rate allows for greater travel. BPL being sent at 1 volt attenuates quickly so their workaround is to use EMRGENCY FREQUENCIES to transmit data on the power lines.

Even at 1 volt it is enough to disturb radio and emergency communications because med voltage power lines are basically a big antenna.

The problem with being only about 1 volt is that the signal must be cleaned and re-amplified every few hundred feed (more equipment, $).

medium voltage lines are stepped down to 240 volt drops to peoples homes but the data could not survive this. The result is the need for a CT coupler (yes, more $) to bypass the transformer and again reinsert the signal onto the shielded line.

When all is said and done you have a service that is expensive enough to run that it will no be a rural broadband solution.

At best it will be available to areas that already have a choice between Cable, DSL, Fiber, and soon WiMAX.

For the high maintenance costs of keeping BPL signal leakage from PBL deployments you could just run fiber right to the home.

Also, BPL maintenance and inline equipment = network (read Power) outages.

Besides, internet access is a very step for power companies. By the time they establish data centers, mail platforms etc. there will be a slew of better alternatives that won't cause power outages.

Maybe they should instead focus on providing reliable power service or clean energy.

As for the latest "We can monitor equipment with it" they already have technology in place to do that that. It is simply their latest ploy to get people to sign off on their raping the radio spectrum.

Internet Fools Gold

[Spazmania]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: BPL is Internet Fools Gold. The power companies are going to keep pouring money in to this until PONS gets so far ahead of what's theoretically possible with BPL that they finally give up.

Every power line is an antenna, fouling nearby radio with signals placed on it and absorbing signals from nearby radio and noise. Every transformer is a barrier that requires a rugged powered device to bridge the Internet signal for those four housholds. These are fundamental constraints to which no reasonable engineer expects to find a solution.