Broadband over Power Line (BPL)

G

Gooseneck

Active Member
I read the SMECO insert in my last bill and they mentioned they are now testing BPL noise issues with the FCC. They said they would have more info this fall.

With no other broadband options currently available to me, I would sign up in a heartbeat if SMECO offered BPL.
 
tirdun

tirdun

staring into the abyss
Why do I shudder thinking about plugging my PC into a 120 outlet...

Dear sir, we're very sorry about that cross-connection thing that wiped out your computer. However, if you check your service agreement under the section marked "waiver of liability"... Sincerely, SMECO.

I'm just a pessimist, that's all.
 
sleuth

sleuth

Livin' Like Thanksgivin'
Gooseneck said:
I read the SMECO insert in my last bill and they mentioned they are now testing BPL noise issues with the FCC. They said they would have more info this fall.

With no other broadband options currently available to me, I would sign up in a heartbeat if SMECO offered BPL.
Click to expand...
I looked into that awhile back. Still an immature technology, and you have to worry about how much stuff you got plugged in at once. Still... if nothing else is available... I'd sign up.

Check out this: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/power-network.htm
 
duzzey1

duzzey1

New Member
I read up on this technology. You won't connect directly to the wall outlet. You will probably connect to a sort of receiver that will take the signals from the 120vac. It will then convert it to ip traffic that your computer speaks. The techology sounds good, essentially providing internet to everyone. Hope it takes gmp away.
 
tirdun

tirdun

staring into the abyss
I get the reasoning, after all probably 99% of the US is wired for electricity. That provides the backbone for transmission, both inside the house and out.

My confusion arises from transmitting data across an AC system, but I'm no electrician. Also, it appears to be quite a bit slower than existing broadband systems (in the 50-350 Kbs range) which is, what 30-200 times slower than 10Mbs networking? It still beats 56K, which usually runs at 35-40Kbs. Given the fact that local networking equipment is nosediving in price and Broadband of some sort or another is spreading fast, I'm curious to see if they can up the technology enough to make it marketable, more options IMHO is always better.
 
W

Warron

Member
The biggest problem with BPL is the amount of radio frequency noise given off by the power lines when its used. Unless this can be brought under control there will continue to be allot of resistance to its implementation.
 
duzzey1

duzzey1

New Member
tirdun said:
I get the reasoning, after all probably 99% of the US is wired for electricity. That provides the backbone for transmission, both inside the house and out.

My confusion arises from transmitting data across an AC system, but I'm no electrician. Also, it appears to be quite a bit slower than existing broadband systems (in the 50-350 Kbs range) which is, what 30-200 times slower than 10Mbs networking? It still beats 56K, which usually runs at 35-40Kbs. Given the fact that local networking equipment is nosediving in price and Broadband of some sort or another is spreading fast, I'm curious to see if they can up the technology enough to make it marketable, more options IMHO is always better.
Click to expand...

Well, I might be wrong, but they send the signals to ride over the ac current which is transmitted from the power station at 60Hz. They would have to send it at a higher frequency and then break it out of the ac path at your home. The problem with that is that the higher the frequency, the shorter the distance of the transmisstion line. You would have to amplify the entire ac signal so that the internet traffic would increase in bandwidth and without increasing noise from the alternating current! My guess is that it would cost too much to the consumer to be a viable alternative.
 
lucaswebco

lucaswebco

New Member
Actually a better way to go is having the broadband hard wired to the telephone poles and beaming the transmission to your house wirelessly via receptors. There were a couple of companies doing this down south a few years ago.

For those still living on dail-up get the new accelerator service offered by Earthlink, NetZero, etc. It'll be better than 26 - 56K anyday.
 
tirdun

tirdun

staring into the abyss
One of the other compression tricks is to pre-cache pages on the web server that are linked to the page you're looking at. So if the main page links to ten subpages, the optimizer will pre-load all 10 subpages while you're busy looking at the index page. IF you pick one of the precached pages and IF you've waited long enough for it to load, it'll load faster. This involves a lot of downloading in the background, though.

Also, PHP and a number of other web server languages are starting to include or automatically use server-side compression usign gzip. This means that if the developer of the page bothers to turn auto-compression on (or not turn it off in some cases) the page will be automatically compressed for everyone. This could even make the "faster" accellerated services slower as they attempt to compress a page that's already compressed.

All in all, save your money. You're either going to have to live at dial up speed or pay for a real data pipe, the phone line is full.
 
duzzey1

duzzey1

New Member
Has anyone heard of a wireless solution for internet connectivity in this area? If you could find a tall enough building you could set a good size high gain omni antenna on top and distribute the internet that way. Wouldn't cost much mote than the cost of a good size data pipe, a server, and a trasmitter. And of course somebody to run the whole thing.
 
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