BPL - a curious twist to consider !
 

Let's face it boys, BPL is comming at us like a fast
freight train rolling thru the Utah Badlands on the
Southern Pacific. (..or is that the Burlington Northern?)

It will turn up in your neighborhood if you're in the suburbs.

Consider THIS however...can you imagine the SUPRISE
and SHOCK (..hint) when all those folks who signed up
for BPL are all online when the first Spring or Summer
thunderstorm rolls thru...????

Think of it 4 a moment..............

It sure is going to be as *amusing* as a Baby Ruth bar in a punchbowl
at a Bar Mitzva, when all your dumbsh-t neighbors get their PC's
other "BPL ready" hardware fried-to-a-crisp when a lightning bolt from
above hits the power pole 1/2 a mile away and blows the crapola
out of every PC that's plugged into the outlet for **miles** around !!

BZZZZZZAPPP!!!!!!! POW-POP!!!
......"WHAT HAPPENED ?!?!?"

(..and I will bet you dimes to doughnuts that the local utility
will bury a tough *non-liability clause* into the 2mm tall fine print when
they sign up for BPL internet service, absolving themselves for all surge
related damage because the average person will think they are "safe".
when that happens, watch everyone dump BPL like it's a used ford car)

koolones wrote:

Let's face it boys, BPL is comming at us like a fast
freight train rolling thru the Utah Badlands on the
Southern Pacific. (..or is that the Burlington Northern?)

It will turn up in your neighborhood if you're in the suburbs.

Consider THIS however...can you imagine the SUPRISE
and SHOCK (..hint) when all those folks who signed up
for BPL are all online when the first Spring or Summer
thunderstorm rolls thru...????

Think of it 4 a moment..............

It sure is going to be as *amusing* as a Baby Ruth bar in a punchbowl
at a Bar Mitzva, when all your dumbsh-t neighbors get their PC's
other "BPL ready" hardware fried-to-a-crisp when a lightning bolt from
above hits the power pole 1/2 a mile away and blows the crapola
out of every PC that's plugged into the outlet for **miles** around !!



Similar issues with dial-up modems on the phone line have existed for
years. Lightning
gets on the phone line also. Besides a spike that can blow up a BPL
modem would
likely fry the PC power supply anyway.

The RFI from thunderstorms should make life interesting for BPL users....

BPL is the most evil thing to come along since communism!

BPL is the most evil thing to come along since communism!

Honestly was Marx that bad ?
I now his brothers made bad films but really communism Vs BPL !

In article ,
"Dave" wrote:

snip

it won't be any worse than the hits that modems already take from phone
lines, or that cable modems get from their systems, or that computers
without surge protectors get hit with now... it may even be better as they
are likely designed with that in mind anyway. the one that will be more fun
will be to watch the bpl tech try to diagnose a problem in the neighborhood
when a m/m contest station fires up at 0000z on friday night and shuts down
the whole area.



I think simple economics will be the death of BPL. Cable Broadband, and
DSL are getting cheaper and cheaper, and for the first time DSL is
actually cheaper in some markets than Cable broadband. Broadband can now
be had for what a dialup line cost just a few years ago. The newest
contender, and the one I think is going to kill BPL in the long run, is
satellite internet. The price is a bit high right now, but no more so
than DSL was a short time ago. I predict that it will be coming down
fast, and satellite internet will be *the* provider of the future
because it can be had as a package with digital satellite television,
and provides service to *anywhere* in north America with a clear view of
the southern sky. No miles to source limits, no load balancing, no
landlines, no muss, no fuss. I just don't believe BPL can catch up with
the economics of its competitors who have been at it alot longer.

73,

Mathew

--
ROT 13 this address to mail me:

bar jbeq abg guerr; uvtu qrfreg zna, gura nqq - ng lnubb qbg pbz.

"KD6MSI" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Dave" wrote:

snip

it won't be any worse than the hits that modems already take from phone
lines, or that cable modems get from their systems, or that computers
without surge protectors get hit with now... it may even be better as
they
are likely designed with that in mind anyway. the one that will be more
fun
will be to watch the bpl tech try to diagnose a problem in the
neighborhood
when a m/m contest station fires up at 0000z on friday night and shuts
down
the whole area.



I think simple economics will be the death of BPL. Cable Broadband, and
DSL are getting cheaper and cheaper, and for the first time DSL is
actually cheaper in some markets than Cable broadband. Broadband can now
be had for what a dialup line cost just a few years ago. The newest
contender, and the one I think is going to kill BPL in the long run, is
satellite internet. The price is a bit high right now, but no more so
than DSL was a short time ago. I predict that it will be coming down
fast, and satellite internet will be *the* provider of the future
because it can be had as a package with digital satellite television,
and provides service to *anywhere* in north America with a clear view of
the southern sky. No miles to source limits, no load balancing, no
landlines, no muss, no fuss. I just don't believe BPL can catch up with
the economics of its competitors who have been at it alot longer.

satellite may be ok for the REALLY remote place that wants to surf the web
and download email, but it has serious drawbacks for anything more than
that. the delays up and down are so long that real time games are
worthless. the split ip system messes up some business vpn uses. the
uplink bandwidth from the user is SLOW (read 56k or less in most cases).
the downlink bandwidth is limited and in the one i looked at they reserved
the right to throttle you back if you were using too much... remember, the
downlink is shared just like cable broadband, so one hog slows it down for
everyone else. they also did not like streaming video and prohibit servers.
and it is not a do-it-yourself installation, it must be installed by trained
techs. fiber to the curb, cable broadband, and improved dsl with extended
range is more likely to be the common mechanism... some of the terrestrial
wireless systems are also making inroads in medium density areas.

"KD6MSI" wrote in message
...

I think simple economics will be the death of BPL. Cable Broadband, and
DSL are getting cheaper and cheaper, and for the first time DSL is
actually cheaper in some markets than Cable broadband. Broadband can now
be had for what a dialup line cost just a few years ago. The newest
contender, and the one I think is going to kill BPL in the long run, is
satellite internet. The price is a bit high right now, but no more so
than DSL was a short time ago. I predict that it will be coming down
fast, and satellite internet will be *the* provider of the future
because it can be had as a package with digital satellite television,
and provides service to *anywhere* in north America with a clear view of
the southern sky. No miles to source limits, no load balancing, no
landlines, no muss, no fuss. I just don't believe BPL can catch up with
the economics of its competitors who have been at it alot longer.

As the population ages and moves into condos, satellite access is going to
have less appeal. Wireless, OTOH, could be used anywhere. The countryside is
already littered with cellphone towers.

There's another problem with DSL in particular: Aged, inadequate telephone
delivery conductors. This may not be a problem in 6-land, but it is in other
parts of the country. The phone companies have been getting by with
antiquated wiring for decades. Or you have the 'distance from switching
center' problem. WRT keeping up with the times, the cable companies have
done a better job, because they had to, to compete with the satellites for
television service. Cable comes with its own set of problems, though. IMO,
instead of inflicting another system on consumers, FCC would have better
served its role by working to improve what we already have. I would say that
BPL is sort of like reverse psychology: Use BPL to threaten DSL and cable
providers, so they improve their service; but I don't think Powell is that
smart.

73,

"PM"

"Unlikely. It is more likely a transformer would explode before you would
see any home damage."

I disagree with this statement for the following reason. The flavor of BPL
that allows the outlets in your home to be the internet connection, through
the BPL modem, requires that the step down transformer from the 4 KV to
13.8KV lines be BYPASSED, primary to secondary, with capacitors to let the
HF BPL signal around it. Guess what this will do. This implementation of
BPL will let HF noise along with the BPL signal on the lines into your home,
including all that lightening energy. This may actually help protect the
transformer while the energy is directed into your home! Not all BPL
equipment companies are going this way though.

Chuck...K1KW

On Fri, 30 Apr 2004 12:38:34 GMT, Paul_Morphy wrote:

As the population ages and moves into condos, satellite access is going to
have less appeal. Wireless, OTOH, could be used anywhere. The countryside is
already littered with cellphone towers.

As we aged we moved OUT of a condo. Too small for our needs and too
many restrictions, although I was able to put up 4 vhf/uhf verticals
and a 200-foot long wire.

Young thirty-something family members, though, moved into a rental
condo and one of their conditions was an internet connection "in the
wall" - no problem finding it in any place that they looked.

Finally, installation of small-dish satellite antennas for delivery
of broadcast and video services (including internet) has better legal
pre-emption than we hams have with PRB-1.

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon