Broadband Over Power Lines?

For the ham's.....

Wired News

Internet.com... FCC Plugs In



Let the debate begin.

Mike

I figure the government will step in at some point because of all of the emergency radio frequencies that will be affected. What do you guys think?

It will be interested to see what happens. The electric companies are running this in test towns and spending a lot of money. It's potentially a lot of profit for them too. These complaints by hams have been out there for years. I think people first figured out how bad this was going to be in lik 98?

So if the government cuts it off now will they have to buy out the electric companies investment so far? Some kind of deal like that will have to be in the offing I think. They aren't going to just walk away and yet I don't think there is any way to actually fix the technology that is practical.

It will probably be another 5 years before it comes to a head though. Nobody seems to be in a hurry with this stuff at all.

Some articles and equipment available to do this in your home now.


"Turns Any Electrical Outlet into a Home Network Connection."
Net Gear

ZD Net article

PC World....Just Plug It In: Networking Via Power Circuits

GigaFast power outlet networking equipment

Mike

If I understand right the problem is the broadband creates HAM inerfierence over the poorly shielded power lines?

Quick, somebody figure out a way to cheaply insulate/isolate the noise and you'll be rich overnight. All I ask out of the billions you make is a nicely loaded PowerMac G5 and maybe a Powerbook too (Some time in the future, I'm holding out for a G5)

Maybe it can be done in a way similar to how they filter out noise in audio cables. Do a google search for balanced audio cables and the technology behind them.

This envolves big bucks. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon8.gif I think us hams are going to get the short end of the stick when it's all said and done /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

Saaby: The problem is that it's not a matter of not being able to filter something out, it's a matter of the line itself is not designed to contain the signal. In order to solve the problem, you would have to run a new *shielded* line to everyone in the country which would defeat the whole purpose.

If you were going to run new line to everyone then it would just be easier to run fiber-optic lines to everyone in the country and that may yet be what is going to happen. When the situation gets to the point that almost everyone is on the internet anyway, I figure that they will either run fiber to everyone's home or else the FCC will allocate enough bandwidth to allow the whole country to have wireless internet access. I figure the latter is the more likely scenario.

I know that I (and many others) would gladly sacrifice a few FM radio stations in order to have high speed internet access. After all, Clear Channel pretty well owns them all now anyway and you always hear the same songs played over and over all day long anyway. The people would be much better served by sacrificing a few radio stations to allow high speed internet to be delivered to the masses. If the FCC was to go for this plan now, the whole country could have high speed internet access within a year or two. I really don't see it happening though because the music industry has far too powerful of a voice in our government.

have any of ya heard that in about 5 years will will have gigabite conection?that faster then ya hardrive in most cases

Isn't ham radio rapidly disappearing? Who uses Morse code, telegrams or rotary telephones anymore?

raggie33: Yeah, I've already got one of those new gigabit cards, and like you said, your hard drive will never deliver the kind of bandwidth that it is capable of pushing. I guess it's a good thing though because when hard drives improve, the bandwidth will already be there waiting on it. With the new SATA drives coming out now, this bandwidth gap may shrink somewhat in the next few years.

The technology is still so new that it's hard to even find anyone else with another gigabit card to test it with. I hear that some of the colleges are starting to upgrade to the new standard though.

Kinda related - those of us on RoadRunner who aren't already at 3 megabits will be soon, the new speed has been slowly spreading across the country over the last month or two. I hope to be at 3 megabit later this week.

Joe

Just as a side comment, my ethernet LAN is run digitally over my in-house power wiring ... has been since February.

Works fine, except that it is subject to interference from other noisy 'things' connected to the same circuit. Fluorescent lights are a specific example.

All of my broadband internet (2.6MBS) goes through a wireless link on the LAN to the cable modem.

Even farther to the side note: Way back when I was engineering this sort of thing for living (early-mid '90's), the railroads were playing around with putting some of their control and communications links over the power lines adjacent to their tracks ...

Ok you guys... For those of us who work with this stuff day in and day out, here's the 411 dudes. Power line networking requires a "jumper" to get past various transformers/etc in the line (hassle/cost/etc). The REAL deal is this... there's a NEW "enhanced" tcp/ip protocol in testing now. On ordinary dsl lines (which by the way are CURRENTLY capable of 8Mbit) they are seeing over an order of magnitude speed increase (that's like OVER 10x as fast). I used dsl as an example, obviously it will speed up most all connection mediums. Basically it has to do with enhanced error correcting schemes. Current tcp/ip encounters an error, drops to 1/2 speed, if it doesn't resume, it drops to 1/2 again... etc. I think you get the idea from here. The enhanced protocol is designed to take advantage of the better and faster hardware we have now. The old was designed to work (think arpanet), the new to work fast (speed baby, yeah!).

But after new tcp/ip and tcp/ip v6 we'll still have people who don't know how to use email.

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif

[ QUOTE ]
But after new tcp/ip and tcp/ip v6 we'll still have people who don't know how to use email.

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif

[/ QUOTE ]
Or even worse, will think they know how to use e-mail and continue to open any and all attachments in Outlook or Outlook Express. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rant.gif

Then proceed to infect their blender with a virus.

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Mike

Unconfirmed, but I read MS is dropping outlook express.

"Unconfirmed, but I read MS is dropping outlook express."

I hope they drop it someplace far far away that nobody will ever think to look for it so that that virus magnet will never be used by anyone that I know again.

I told someone just the other day to drop Outlook after he got a virus that trashed his computer and he asked me to come over and fix it. His response was something along the lines of, 'but I'm used to it. I don't want to have to learn something new'.

Funny how people can't be bothered to take a little time to learn something new, but they don't mind asking you to take *your* time to come fix their computer when a virus hoses it...

X-CalBR8,

AMEN to that!


Mike

[ QUOTE ]
turbodog said:
Unconfirmed, but I read MS is dropping outlook express.

[/ QUOTE ]
Hehehehehe ... Let's put it this way: One of the largest problems with MSO and MSOE is that they both are too tightly integrated with the rest of the MS products. That's what makes them such a great pipeline right into everything 'MS' in the box.

What I heard was that they were going to "drop" MSO and MSOE by incorporating them directly into the OS ...

Yeah, THAT will help, uh-huh, sure ...

They are again considering not making a separate mail client (MSO/MSOE) and browsing client (MSIE), but rolling them into the OS - just like they were going to do before they had that little problem with the Feds. Don't think I need to comment on that.

One thing they've done already is discontinued all development work on MSOE and MSIE for other platforms ... Mostly that announcement was noticed by the Mac folks since it didn't directly affect most MS users.

Enjoy!