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NPR "Morning Addition" article paints BPL as rosy solution for rural broadband.
I heard this on the local NPR radio station this morning. They made
BPL sound rosy. They did mention that the ham radio guys were against it but came up with some "notching" solution that would take care of ham radio guys concerns. You can listen to the stream at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=4801446 If would be great if a qualified ham could respond to their article. They usually take listener comment and broadcast those comments the next day or so. |
wrote:
I heard this on the local NPR radio station this morning. They made BPL sound rosy. They did mention that the ham radio guys were against it but came up with some "notching" solution that would take care of ham radio guys concerns. The "notching" solution is simple: Their BPL system does not use frequencies that are also ham bands. Whether it works or not is an open question. You can listen to the stream at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=4801446 I did - interesting piece. What they neglect to mention is that: - BPL is a "last mile" delivery method, not a complete system. Still needs a 'head end' - BPL bandwidth is shared between users on the same line, so as your neighbors sign up and use the system, your performance degrades. - There are several BPL technologies out there, not just the one they profiled. - There are other technologies (like Wi-Fi) which can do the same job without all the fuss and bother. - The big danger of BPL is that it turns the whole idea of spectrum protection and allocation upside-down, and sets a bad precedent. I wonder how rosy a solution they would think it was if BPL interfered with FM broadcasting, reducing the utility and availability of that mode of communications? If would be great if a qualified ham could respond to their article. They usually take listener comment and broadcast those comments the next day or so. A qualified ham was part of the article. The rest of us should comment, too. --- One thing the piece proved was that the media, and particularly National Public Radio, are not all a bunch of 'tree-hugging liberals'. BPL is a poster technology for the Bush Administration, who thinks BPL can do no wrong. The best BPL analogies I've seen describe BPL as unnecessary spectrum pollution, and you'd think a bunch of 'tree-hugging liberals' would be against anything that pollutes half as bad as BPL has been shown to do. The article also accepts without question the idea that fast internet access is a necessity for all Americans and their communities - another Bush Administration bit of rightthink. Thanks for posting the link. Anybody besides me and the original poster actually listen to it? 73 de Jim, N2EY |
wrote in message ups.com... wrote: I heard this on the local NPR radio station this morning. They made BPL sound rosy. They did mention that the ham radio guys were against it but came up with some "notching" solution that would take care of ham radio guys concerns. The "notching" solution is simple: Their BPL system does not use frequencies that are also ham bands. Whether it works or not is an open question. You can listen to the stream at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=4801446 I did - interesting piece. What they neglect to mention is that: - BPL is a "last mile" delivery method, not a complete system. Still needs a 'head end' - BPL bandwidth is shared between users on the same line, so as your neighbors sign up and use the system, your performance degrades. - There are several BPL technologies out there, not just the one they profiled. - There are other technologies (like Wi-Fi) which can do the same job without all the fuss and bother. - The big danger of BPL is that it turns the whole idea of spectrum protection and allocation upside-down, and sets a bad precedent. I wonder how rosy a solution they would think it was if BPL interfered with FM broadcasting, reducing the utility and availability of that mode of communications? If would be great if a qualified ham could respond to their article. They usually take listener comment and broadcast those comments the next day or so. A qualified ham was part of the article. The rest of us should comment, too. --- One thing the piece proved was that the media, and particularly National Public Radio, are not all a bunch of 'tree-hugging liberals'. BPL is a poster technology for the Bush Administration, who thinks BPL can do no wrong. The best BPL analogies I've seen describe BPL as unnecessary spectrum pollution, and you'd think a bunch of 'tree-hugging liberals' would be against anything that pollutes half as bad as BPL has been shown to do. The article also accepts without question the idea that fast internet access is a necessity for all Americans and their communities - another Bush Administration bit of rightthink. Thanks for posting the link. Anybody besides me and the original poster actually listen to it? 73 de Jim, N2EY Hello, Jim Yes, I listened to the link provided. It has possibilities - good possibilities - but we need to see a demonstration that showes little or no interference. Ed Hare demonstrated a *ton* of interference. Yep, they put the blame on amateur radio operators for complaining, but fail to realize that commercial television (channels 2 and 3 in the U.S.) as well as other users fall into the spectrum used by BPL. I think most folks would put up with a *very* small amount of interference, but what Ed Hare turned up was anything but small. The speed sounds interesting, but I'm running between 4 and 7 megabaud currently on DSL ;) 73 from Rochester, NY Jim AA2QA |
wrote in message ups.com... wrote: [snip] The article also accepts without question the idea that fast internet access is a necessity for all Americans and their communities - another Bush Administration bit of rightthink. Actually this would be more of a liberal idea. It surprises me that a Republican administration would buy into this. Thanks for posting the link. Anybody besides me and the original poster actually listen to it? 73 de Jim, N2EY Dee D. Flint, N8UZE |
Jim Hampton wrote:
wrote in message ups.com... What they neglect to mention is that: - BPL is a "last mile" delivery method, not a complete system. Still needs a 'head end' - BPL bandwidth is shared between users on the same line, so as your neighbors sign up and use the system, your performance degrades. - There are several BPL technologies out there, not just the one they profiled. - There are other technologies (like Wi-Fi) which can do the same job without all the fuss and bother. - The big danger of BPL is that it turns the whole idea of spectrum protection and allocation upside-down, and sets a bad precedent. I wonder how rosy a solution they would think it was if BPL interfered with FM broadcasting, reducing the utility and availability of that mode of communications? If would be great if a qualified ham could respond to their article. They usually take listener comment and broadcast those comments the next day or so. A qualified ham was part of the article. The rest of us should comment, too. --- One thing the piece proved was that the media, and particularly National Public Radio, are not all a bunch of 'tree-hugging liberals'. BPL is a poster technology for the Bush Administration, who thinks BPL can do no wrong. The best BPL analogies I've seen describe BPL as unnecessary spectrum pollution, and you'd think a bunch of 'tree-hugging liberals' would be against anything that pollutes half as bad as BPL has been shown to do. The article also accepts without question the idea that fast internet access is a necessity for all Americans and their communities - another Bush Administration bit of rightthink. Thanks for posting the link. Anybody besides me and the original poster actually listen to it? 73 de Jim, N2EY Hello, Jim Yes, I listened to the link provided. It has possibilities - good possibilities - but we need to see a demonstration that showes little or no interference. I disagree! Power lines were never meant to carry HF communication signals. They're lossy at HF because they radiate! The whole concept is deeply flawed. By allowing BPL systems, FCC is setting a very bad precedent by saying it's OK to pollute the electro magnetic spectrum with noise, even if there are viable alternatives to the noise-producing technology. All the notching does is to promise that particular system won't pollute the ham bands with noise. Maybe. What about harmonics and other crud? Some might say that FCC cannot ban BPL as such, but that's simply a semantic runaround. All FCC needs to do is to set very low radiated energy standards for BPL and other non-point-source systems, and the problem is solved. But FCC refused to see the difference between, say, a computer monitor that is a point source, and a BPL system that involves miles of wire. Ed Hare demonstrated a *ton* of interference. Ed and others. Carl, WK3C, did some measurements and observations of the Emmaus system as well - to name just one other. Yep, they put the blame on amateur radio operators for complaining, That's like blaming the fishermen for complaining that the sewage plant is killing off the fish because the sewage isn't treated right. but fail to realize that commercial television (channels 2 and 3 in the U.S.) as well as other users fall into the spectrum used by BPL. Heck, the second harmonic of 44-54 MHz falls right in the FM band. I wonder what they'd say if NPR stations were rendered inaudible because of BPL? I think most folks would put up with a *very* small amount of interference, but what Ed Hare turned up was anything but small. Why should licensed radio services have to put up with *any* unnecessary interference? Is there no other way to deliver broadband internet access? The speed sounds interesting, but I'm running between 4 and 7 megabaud currently on DSL ;) And that doesn't drop if your neighbor is doing big downloads. 73 de Jim, N2EY |
"Dee Flint" wrote in message ... wrote in message ups.com... wrote: [snip] The article also accepts without question the idea that fast internet access is a necessity for all Americans and their communities - another Bush Administration bit of rightthink. Actually this would be more of a liberal idea. It surprises me that a Republican administration would buy into this. Thanks for posting the link. Anybody besides me and the original poster actually listen to it? 73 de Jim, N2EY Dee D. Flint, N8UZE Hello, Dee Liberal? Pushing for more money for power companies? Please forgive my ignorance, but if I follow the money trail, it leads to big business (monopolies, at that). 73 from Rochester, NY Jim AA2QA |
wrote in message oups.com... Jim Hampton wrote: wrote in message ups.com... What they neglect to mention is that: - BPL is a "last mile" delivery method, not a complete system. Still needs a 'head end' - BPL bandwidth is shared between users on the same line, so as your neighbors sign up and use the system, your performance degrades. - There are several BPL technologies out there, not just the one they profiled. - There are other technologies (like Wi-Fi) which can do the same job without all the fuss and bother. - The big danger of BPL is that it turns the whole idea of spectrum protection and allocation upside-down, and sets a bad precedent. I wonder how rosy a solution they would think it was if BPL interfered with FM broadcasting, reducing the utility and availability of that mode of communications? If would be great if a qualified ham could respond to their article. They usually take listener comment and broadcast those comments the next day or so. A qualified ham was part of the article. The rest of us should comment, too. --- One thing the piece proved was that the media, and particularly National Public Radio, are not all a bunch of 'tree-hugging liberals'. BPL is a poster technology for the Bush Administration, who thinks BPL can do no wrong. The best BPL analogies I've seen describe BPL as unnecessary spectrum pollution, and you'd think a bunch of 'tree-hugging liberals' would be against anything that pollutes half as bad as BPL has been shown to do. The article also accepts without question the idea that fast internet access is a necessity for all Americans and their communities - another Bush Administration bit of rightthink. Thanks for posting the link. Anybody besides me and the original poster actually listen to it? 73 de Jim, N2EY Hello, Jim Yes, I listened to the link provided. It has possibilities - good possibilities - but we need to see a demonstration that showes little or no interference. I disagree! Power lines were never meant to carry HF communication signals. They're lossy at HF because they radiate! The whole concept is deeply flawed. By allowing BPL systems, FCC is setting a very bad precedent by saying it's OK to pollute the electro magnetic spectrum with noise, even if there are viable alternatives to the noise-producing technology. All the notching does is to promise that particular system won't pollute the ham bands with noise. Maybe. What about harmonics and other crud? Some might say that FCC cannot ban BPL as such, but that's simply a semantic runaround. All FCC needs to do is to set very low radiated energy standards for BPL and other non-point-source systems, and the problem is solved. But FCC refused to see the difference between, say, a computer monitor that is a point source, and a BPL system that involves miles of wire. Ed Hare demonstrated a *ton* of interference. Ed and others. Carl, WK3C, did some measurements and observations of the Emmaus system as well - to name just one other. Yep, they put the blame on amateur radio operators for complaining, That's like blaming the fishermen for complaining that the sewage plant is killing off the fish because the sewage isn't treated right. but fail to realize that commercial television (channels 2 and 3 in the U.S.) as well as other users fall into the spectrum used by BPL. Heck, the second harmonic of 44-54 MHz falls right in the FM band. I wonder what they'd say if NPR stations were rendered inaudible because of BPL? I think most folks would put up with a *very* small amount of interference, but what Ed Hare turned up was anything but small. Why should licensed radio services have to put up with *any* unnecessary interference? Is there no other way to deliver broadband internet access? The speed sounds interesting, but I'm running between 4 and 7 megabaud currently on DSL ;) And that doesn't drop if your neighbor is doing big downloads. 73 de Jim, N2EY Hello, Jim Well, by limited interference, I am suggesting that BPL be limited as any other unintentional radiator. I do hear your point and it is well taken. We do *not* need "only" a 10 dB increase in noise in general LOL Also, as we are well aware, no filter is perfect, whether a notch filter or a bandpass filter or any other filter. Also, filters introduce distortion into the signal. So, it remains to be seen if the power companies can come up with a BPL with very limited impact on licensed services. I do have my doubts, but am only suggesting that *if* they can prove a system can produce very low noise in the airwaves, then it might be worth a try. That is a *big* if. 73 from Rochester, NY Jim AA2QA |
On 17 Aug 2005 09:55:16 -0700 wrote:
| The "notching" solution is simple: Their BPL system does not use | frequencies that are also ham bands. Whether it works or not is an open | question. What about MARS and SWL frequencies? | - BPL is a "last mile" delivery method, not a complete system. Still | needs a 'head end' I've seen pictures of these units on primary (12 kV) lines, so by "last mile" this must mean more than just the drop into the home. | - BPL bandwidth is shared between users on the same line, so as your | neighbors sign up and use the system, your performance degrades. On what line? The primary (12 kV) or the secondary (120/240 V)? | - There are other technologies (like Wi-Fi) which can do the same job | without all the fuss and bother. These are on 12cm and 5cm from what I have heard. | - The big danger of BPL is that it turns the whole idea of spectrum | protection and allocation upside-down, and sets a bad precedent. It can also be susceptible to ham transmissions, which will unfairly blame the ham radio operator as the cause of networking failures. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Phil Howard KA9WGN | http://linuxhomepage.com/ http://ham.org/ | | (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/ http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 18:28:56 -0400 Dee Flint wrote:
| | wrote in message | ups.com... | wrote: | | [snip] | | The article also accepts without question the idea that | fast internet access is a necessity for all Americans and their | communities - another Bush Administration bit of rightthink. | | | Actually this would be more of a liberal idea. It surprises me that a | Republican administration would buy into this. Bush has many friends who are energy company executives, board members, and investors. He's doing his friends a favor by supporting their bad ideas, even though in the long term, BPL is doomed to flop because it simply cannot keep up with the coming fiber technology, or even match what some DSL and cable/coaxial deployments are already doing. BPL is a _waste_ of power company investment dollars, which will be diverted away from crucially needed infrastructure updates to become capable of handling new energy needs of the future, and to be secure against terrorist attacks. BPL actually puts the nation at more risk than it has now. If power companies want to play "me too" in the information services game, then what they should do is just trump everyone else by rolling out fiber now in the right-of-ways they already have. They could kill the rest of the market by deploying a gigabit fiber infrastructure. Even Verizon's fiber offering wouldn't be close. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Phil Howard KA9WGN | http://linuxhomepage.com/ http://ham.org/ | | (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/ http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
.... I don't think that is anything more than a myth you are beginning, perhaps you picked up that myth from some other place? Fiber lines are owned by a specific entity, power lines can be leased for such use by anyone... the costs are going to be very much different between the two... John On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 23:59:08 +0000, phil-news-nospam wrote: On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 18:28:56 -0400 Dee Flint wrote: | | wrote in message | ups.com... | wrote: | | [snip] | | The article also accepts without question the idea that | fast internet access is a necessity for all Americans and their | communities - another Bush Administration bit of rightthink. | | | Actually this would be more of a liberal idea. It surprises me that a | Republican administration would buy into this. Bush has many friends who are energy company executives, board members, and investors. He's doing his friends a favor by supporting their bad ideas, even though in the long term, BPL is doomed to flop because it simply cannot keep up with the coming fiber technology, or even match what some DSL and cable/coaxial deployments are already doing. BPL is a _waste_ of power company investment dollars, which will be diverted away from crucially needed infrastructure updates to become capable of handling new energy needs of the future, and to be secure against terrorist attacks. BPL actually puts the nation at more risk than it has now. If power companies want to play "me too" in the information services game, then what they should do is just trump everyone else by rolling out fiber now in the right-of-ways they already have. They could kill the rest of the market by deploying a gigabit fiber infrastructure. Even Verizon's fiber offering wouldn't be close. |
"Jim Hampton" wrote in message ... "Dee Flint" wrote in message ... wrote in message ups.com... wrote: [snip] The article also accepts without question the idea that fast internet access is a necessity for all Americans and their communities - another Bush Administration bit of rightthink. Actually this would be more of a liberal idea. It surprises me that a Republican administration would buy into this. Thanks for posting the link. Anybody besides me and the original poster actually listen to it? 73 de Jim, N2EY Dee D. Flint, N8UZE Hello, Dee Liberal? Pushing for more money for power companies? Please forgive my ignorance, but if I follow the money trail, it leads to big business (monopolies, at that). 73 from Rochester, NY Jim AA2QA Liberal because it is being pushed as every having a "right" to broadband. Yes follow the money and it leads to as many liberal business men as it does conservative ones. Dee D. Flint, N8UZE |
wrote in message ... On 17 Aug 2005 09:55:16 -0700 wrote: | The "notching" solution is simple: Their BPL system does not use | frequencies that are also ham bands. Whether it works or not is an open | question. What about MARS and SWL frequencies? | - BPL is a "last mile" delivery method, not a complete system. Still | needs a 'head end' I've seen pictures of these units on primary (12 kV) lines, so by "last mile" this must mean more than just the drop into the home. | - BPL bandwidth is shared between users on the same line, so as your | neighbors sign up and use the system, your performance degrades. On what line? The primary (12 kV) or the secondary (120/240 V)? | - There are other technologies (like Wi-Fi) which can do the same job | without all the fuss and bother. These are on 12cm and 5cm from what I have heard. | - The big danger of BPL is that it turns the whole idea of spectrum | protection and allocation upside-down, and sets a bad precedent. It can also be susceptible to ham transmissions, which will unfairly blame the ham radio operator as the cause of networking failures. It will also be susceptible to interference from natural sources such as lightning and other manmade sources such as occur with many electrical devices. It would be quite easy to have a case where the computer power supply, computer monitor, television, fluorescent lights, etc could cause a degradation of the service. Dee D. Flint, N8UZE |
Dee Flint wrote:
"Jim Hampton" wrote in message ... "Dee Flint" wrote in message ... wrote in message ups.com... wrote: [snip] The article also accepts without question the idea that fast internet access is a necessity for all Americans and their communities - another Bush Administration bit of rightthink. Actually this would be more of a liberal idea. It surprises me that a Republican administration would buy into this. Doesn't surprise me at all. Thanks for posting the link. Anybody besides me and the original poster actually listen to it? Hello, Dee Liberal? Pushing for more money for power companies? Please forgive my ignorance, but if I follow the money trail, it leads to big business (monopolies, at that). Exactly. Liberal because it is being pushed as every having a "right" to broadband. I don't hear that in the article at all. What *is* mentioned is the idea that the town needs it for their economy. Yes follow the money and it leads to as many liberal business men as it does conservative ones. Sorry, Dee, I don't see that at all. BPL is basically bad science and bad engineering, pushed by the promise of being a quick "high-tech" fix. Fits right in with the current administration's attitude towards science and technology. The pollution angle alone shows it to be a bad idea. 73 de Jim, N2EY |
From: "Jim Hampton" on Wed, Aug 17 2005 4:29 pm
wrote in message Jim Hampton wrote: wrote in message Power lines were never meant to carry HF communication signals. No kidding?!? From whom did you pick up that factoid? :-) They're lossy at HF because they radiate! The whole concept is deeply flawed. By allowing BPL systems, FCC is setting a very bad precedent by saying it's OK to pollute the electro magnetic spectrum with noise, even if there are viable alternatives to the noise-producing technology. A couple of points he First, the FCC does NOT "allow" Access BPL existance. Access BPL systems are (note carefully) UNINTENTIONAL Radiators. Secondly, the FCC has never ever established any "radio service" about or for any Broadband Over Power Lines concept. BPL is a WIRED system; i.e., NOT an intentional radiator of RF. Thirdly, the FCC DOES CONTROL RADIATED RF LEVELS AND TO ESTABLISHED SPECIFICATIONS NOW IN TITLE 47 C.F.R. That radiation level HAS been quantified and put into an Order that did appear both in the Federal Register and at the FCC website under the Office of Engineering Technology link. It wasn't under the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau page nor the Amateur radio page under that (there hasn't been any new link on the amateur page there since 2002). The NOI (Notice Of Inquiry) of the FCC that caused this recent flap and furor was NOT about the existance of BPL as any service...IT WAS ABOUT MEASUREMENT METHODS TO DETERMINE ACCEPTIBLE WAYS TO MEASURE THE RADIATION. The OET knew damn well that BPL would radiate. But, they could NOT LEGALLY STOP BPL from existing. All they could do is establish a legally-acceptible MEANS OF MEASURING THAT EXPECTED RADIATION. Well, by limited interference, I am suggesting that BPL be limited as any other unintentional radiator. It IS. One has to scrounge around the FCC webiste a bit to find it, but it IS there. I do hear your point and it is well taken. We do *not* need "only" a 10 dB increase in noise in general LOL Nobody does, but it has happened. Listen to the "ISM" bands and the DSSS and stuff there does raise the noise floor. However, the occupancy of those ISM bands is nearly ALL that mode and those users coexist peacefully. Also, as we are well aware, no filter is perfect, whether a notch filter or a bandpass filter or any other filter. Also, filters introduce distortion into the signal. Irrelevant. Those "notch filters" can't erase MOST of the frequencies on HF. The "licensed users" and the UNLICENSED listeners are spread over most of the HF spectrum. So, it remains to be seen if the power companies can come up with a BPL with very limited impact on licensed services. I do have my doubts, but am only suggesting that *if* they can prove a system can produce very low noise in the airwaves, then it might be worth a try. That is a *big* if. Many, many things ARE possible. The last 109 years of the total existance of radio have shown that. However, TRANSMISSION LINES of signals are technology that goes back BEFORE the "birth" of radio in 1896. Lee de Forrest, the inventor of the three-element vacuum tube, was studying transmission lines academically before his "audion" experiments. As far as our present-day technology knows (and that is considerable), transmission lines with lots of discontinuities will radiate; the TEM field won't be nicely contained. Given that the ordinary 60 Hz power distribution lines are chock full of discontinuities and changes in conductor size and spacing (thus a change in characteristic impedance where that step is a discontinuity), those power transmission lines WILL RADIATE RF. That is inevitable. IF and ONLY IF the electric power distribution system was designed and REBUILT to known transmission line standards at HF-VHF could such a wired BPL system be tried out for minimum interference. was not |
In article . com,
wrote: The "notching" solution is simple: Their BPL system does not use frequencies that are also ham bands. Whether it works or not is an open question. But how long will that last? Here in Israel we call it the "boiled lobster" effect. A live lobster placed in a pot of cold water is happy. As the water gets hotter it falls asleep. It never realizes it's being cooked. This what will happen with BPL. By the time you realize that it's taken over the ham bands, it will be too late. That's why I'm boycotting Google, they with two other companies invested $100,000,000 in BPL. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM IL Voice: (077)-424-1667 IL Fax: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838 Support the growing boycott of Google by radio users and hobbyists. It's starting to work, Yahoo has surpassed Google. |
A good source of information about BPL is Anthony Good's FAQ website
at: http://www.qrpis.org/~k3ng/bpl.html |
wrote:
On 17 Aug 2005 09:55:16 -0700 wrote: | The "notching" solution is simple: Their BPL system does not use | frequencies that are also ham bands. Whether it works or not is an open | question. What about MARS and SWL frequencies? That's unclear. If covered, the result is more notch than coverage. | - BPL is a "last mile" delivery method, not a complete system. Still | needs a 'head end' I've seen pictures of these units on primary (12 kV) lines, so by "last mile" this must mean more than just the drop into the home. What is typically done is that fiber or other highcapacity communications is brought to a point (the injector) near a bunch of customers. Then the signals are converted to the frequencies used by the BPL system and put on the medium-voltage distribution line. (Note that a distribution line and a transmission line are not the same thing to powerco people). At each stepdown (service) transformer, there's a coupler to take the signals around it, because such transformers are very lossy at BPL frequencies. They're intentionally designed that way to keep noise and surges off the service drops. Which means that the couplers will bring HF noise and such into customer's houses. The distance from the injector to the customers served is typically measured in hundreds or thousands of feet, not miles. The MV distribution lines are not used forlong- or even medium-distance BPL transmission - too lossy. | - BPL bandwidth is shared between users on the same line, so as your | neighbors sign up and use the system, your performance degrades. On what line? The primary (12 kV) or the secondary (120/240 V)? Both. Let's say you have an injector site that feeds a few thousand feet of MV line, and there are a dozen or so transformers on that line, each with its own coupler, and customers. The available bandwidth is shared by all the customers on that injector. If there's (say) 5 mbd available from that injector and only one customer is active, s/he gets all 5 mbd - 100 times the speed of dialup! But if there are 20 customers active, they all have to share, and may get only 250 kbd each. Which is only 5x the speed of dialup! (Numbers are only for the purpose of illustration) It's like the situation experienced by people with a DSL or cable modem connection and multiple computers in the house all online at the same time, except that you have to share with the whole neighborhood, not just Junior upstairs gaming. | - There are other technologies (like Wi-Fi) which can do the same job | without all the fuss and bother. These are on 12cm and 5cm from what I have heard. Yup. | - The big danger of BPL is that it turns the whole idea of spectrum | protection and allocation upside-down, and sets a bad precedent. It can also be susceptible to ham transmissions, which will unfairly blame the ham radio operator as the cause of networking failures. Once word of that gets around, hams may be blamed even if they're *not* the cause! Ultimately the rise and fall of BPL will depend on whether it can compete in the marketplace with DSL, cable, and other methods. Hopefully it cannot. While hams, ARRL, IEEE and others were not able to completely stop BPL, neither were BPL proponents able to get the rules changes they wanted, either. And actions by groups like ARRL spread the word of the BPL threat early on, rather than waiting until the systems gained a foothold. There have been several instances where test BPL systems were shut down as being impractical. Some municipalities that were looking at BPL eventually said "No thanks" due to the issues raised. Meanwhile, the competing broadband solutions become more available and more affordable. 73 de Jim, N2EY |
|
Dee Flint wrote:
wrote in message ups.com... wrote: [snip] The article also accepts without question the idea that fast internet access is a necessity for all Americans and their communities - another Bush Administration bit of rightthink. Actually this would be more of a liberal idea. It surprises me that a Republican administration would buy into this. There is a lot of money to be made - even if it doesn't work very well. Democrats have *not* cornered the market on bad ideas! 8^) That is why I call it "faith based engineering". It *sounds* like a great idea to use all those electrical lines to run the signals. Reminds me of when I was a little kid, and though that we could fill the cars gas tank by driving in reverse..... 8^) - Mike KB3EIA - |
wrote: From: "Jim Hampton" on Wed, Aug 17 2005 4:29 pm wrote in message Jim Hampton wrote: wrote in message Power lines were never meant to carry HF communication signals. No kidding?!? From whom did you pick up that factoid? :-) Y'know, neither were bed springs and light bulbs, but hams seem to revel in the brilliance of it. They're lossy at HF because they radiate! The whole concept is deeply flawed. By allowing BPL systems, FCC is setting a very bad precedent by saying it's OK to pollute the electro magnetic spectrum with noise, even if there are viable alternatives to the noise-producing technology. A couple of points he First, the FCC does NOT "allow" Access BPL existance. Access BPL systems are (note carefully) UNINTENTIONAL Radiators. Secondly, the FCC has never ever established any "radio service" about or for any Broadband Over Power Lines concept. BPL is a WIRED system; i.e., NOT an intentional radiator of RF. Thirdly, the FCC DOES CONTROL RADIATED RF LEVELS AND TO ESTABLISHED SPECIFICATIONS NOW IN TITLE 47 C.F.R. That radiation level HAS been quantified and put into an Order that did appear both in the Federal Register and at the FCC website under the Office of Engineering Technology link. It wasn't under the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau page nor the Amateur radio page under that (there hasn't been any new link on the amateur page there since 2002). The NOI (Notice Of Inquiry) of the FCC that caused this recent flap and furor was NOT about the existance of BPL as any service...IT WAS ABOUT MEASUREMENT METHODS TO DETERMINE ACCEPTIBLE WAYS TO MEASURE THE RADIATION. ....to measure the unintentional radiation. The OET knew damn well that BPL would radiate. But, they could NOT LEGALLY STOP BPL from existing. All they could do is establish a legally-acceptible MEANS OF MEASURING THAT EXPECTED RADIATION. Well, by limited interference, I am suggesting that BPL be limited as any other unintentional radiator. It IS. One has to scrounge around the FCC webiste a bit to find it, but it IS there. Oooh. Jim gotsta do his own legwork. I do hear your point and it is well taken. We do *not* need "only" a 10 dB increase in noise in general LOL Nobody does, but it has happened. Listen to the "ISM" bands and the DSSS and stuff there does raise the noise floor. However, the occupancy of those ISM bands is nearly ALL that mode and those users coexist peacefully. Also, as we are well aware, no filter is perfect, whether a notch filter or a bandpass filter or any other filter. Also, filters introduce distortion into the signal. Irrelevant. Those "notch filters" can't erase MOST of the frequencies on HF. The "licensed users" and the UNLICENSED listeners are spread over most of the HF spectrum. Stopit with the facts! So, it remains to be seen if the power companies can come up with a BPL with very limited impact on licensed services. I do have my doubts, but am only suggesting that *if* they can prove a system can produce very low noise in the airwaves, then it might be worth a try. That is a *big* if. Many, many things ARE possible. The last 109 years of the total existance of radio have shown that. However, TRANSMISSION LINES of signals are technology that goes back BEFORE the "birth" of radio in 1896. Lee de Forrest, the inventor of the three-element vacuum tube, was studying transmission lines academically before his "audion" experiments. As far as our present-day technology knows (and that is considerable), transmission lines with lots of discontinuities will radiate; the TEM field won't be nicely contained. Given that the ordinary 60 Hz power distribution lines are chock full of discontinuities and changes in conductor size and spacing (thus a change in characteristic impedance where that step is a discontinuity), those power transmission lines WILL RADIATE RF. That is inevitable. IF and ONLY IF the electric power distribution system was designed and REBUILT to known transmission line standards at HF-VHF could such a wired BPL system be tried out for minimum interference. was not Never happen, GI. |
Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
In article . com, wrote: The "notching" solution is simple: Their BPL system does not use frequencies that are also ham bands. Whether it works or not is an open question. But how long will that last? Exactly. Here in Israel we call it the "boiled lobster" effect. A live lobster placed in a pot of cold water is happy. As the water gets hotter it falls asleep. It never realizes it's being cooked. There's a similar story on this side of the pond about a frog. Says that if you put a frog into hot water it will jump out, but if you put one in cool water and warm it up slowly, it will not. Except that's not what happens at all - real frogs jump out when the water gets hot enough. www.snopes.com This what will happen with BPL. By the time you realize that it's taken over the ham bands, it will be too late. The ARRL and others have made a lot of noise about BPL, and they're not letting up. That's why I'm boycotting Google, they with two other companies invested $100,000,000 in BPL. Does boycotting Google help? I don't pay them any money. 73 de Jim, N2EY Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM IL Voice: (077)-424-1667 IL Fax: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838 Support the growing boycott of Google by radio users and hobbyists. It's starting to work, Yahoo has surpassed Google. |
In article . com,
wrote: Does boycotting Google help? I don't pay them any money. If you click on their ads, you are giving them money. I discussed this with the people who run eHam.net, and one of the things they told me is that they could not survive without the revenue from "ads by Google". Not only do I boycott google, but I boycott sites with "ads by google" too. I do give them the courtesy of an email, but it has not been met with great success as I seem to be the only one that cares :-( Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM IL Voice: (077)-424-1667 IL Fax: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838 Support the growing boycott of Google by radio users and hobbyists. It's starting to work, Yahoo has surpassed Google. |
Geoffrey:
Lean to edit your "hosts" file if you use windows. You can stop windows from accessing the ads, and thereby anyone from receiving revenue from those ads. (will also work in linux) John On Sun, 21 Aug 2005 07:21:01 +0000, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote: In article . com, wrote: Does boycotting Google help? I don't pay them any money. If you click on their ads, you are giving them money. I discussed this with the people who run eHam.net, and one of the things they told me is that they could not survive without the revenue from "ads by Google". Not only do I boycott google, but I boycott sites with "ads by google" too. I do give them the courtesy of an email, but it has not been met with great success as I seem to be the only one that cares :-( Geoff. |
You can listen to the stream at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=4801446 I found the transcript: Analyis: Utilities look to new broadband over power lines 16 August 2005 NPR: Morning Edition STEVE INSKEEP, host: There's a new broadband technology spreading across the United States called broadband over power lines or BPL. It uses the utility's electric power lines to deliver a high-speed Internet access into a home or business. And because your house is already wired for electricity, it turns every outlet into a connection point. NPR's Wade Goodwyn traveled to one small town that's betting on that technology's future. WADE GOODWYN reporting: Halfway between Houston, San Antonio and Austin is the town of Flatonia. Population: 1,400. (Soundbite of train) GOODWYN: Flatonia happens to be where the Union Pacific's north- south line crosses the railroad company's east-west line. A lot of trains come through Flatonia, and to its amazement, train buffs have started showing up to watch. So the town built a covered observation platform. (Soundbite of train) GOODWYN: Flatonia's got many things. There's a huge kitty litter factory, an even bigger cow main egg processing plant(ph), but one thing it could not seem to get no matter how it begged was broadband service. Mayor LORI BERGER (Flatonia, Texas): We want to offer our citizens-- just because we're rural doesn't mean they're not entitled to the same thing everybody has in Austin, Houston and San Antonio. GOODWYN: Lori Berger grew up in Flatonia and now she's the mayor. Berger says that having high-speed Internet is critical to the town's future and she's betting $200,000 of taxpayer money on broadband over power lines technology. And a big bonus comes with her purchase because, in addition to high-speed Internet access, BPL will give a municipal-owned utility powerful new capabilities. Mayor BERGER: We would be able to read meters, water meters and electric meters, through the system, and we'd know if there was a power outage exactly where it was. GOODWYN: Broadband over power lines technology turns the utility's electric lines into a data network. So say if a transformer explodes during a lightning storm, instead of sending trucks out into the dark in a search mission, BPL software can pinpoint the blown transformer. The utility operator can see on a computer screen precisely how many customers lost service and who exactly those customers are. Berger says this will be a major improvement over the way Flatonia used to operate. Mayor BERGER: We had a power outage about three months ago in the evening, and I realized it was going on. So I came up to City Hall to answer phones. So we sat here for two hours and answered phones, trying to figure out exactly what line was down. GOODWYN: Although city officials are excited about remote meter reading and fantasizing how fast their reaction is going to be the next time a big thunderstorm knocks out the electricity, it's the new broadband connections that Flatonians are happy about. Ms. CARLENE CARLOCK(ph): It's new for me. GOODWYN: Carlene Carlock doesn't look like a great-grandmother as she spritely moves around her antique shop, but her granddaughters have been getting busy, sending her pictures of her new great- grandchildren from locations far and wide. Ms. CARLOCK: They're in Germany, in California, and my granddaughters, they e-mail me pictures of them. She was just born, my last. And within a day, I had pictures of her. So, you know, it's pretty important when your great-grandchildren are that far away, and I get pictures every week. GOODWYN: Until two weeks ago, Carlock had to endure up to two hours of frustration on her dial-up connection every time she'd download a picture file. Ms. CARLOCK: It was horrible. That doesn't happen anymore. I mean, it just comes through real fast. Just blip, blip and it's there. GOODWYN: BPL is pretty fast, four megabytes, comparable to cable broadband. But the new generation of BPL equipment, just now coming out, will boost speeds up to 90 megabytes, capable of video on demand. Mike Bates is the co-founder of Broadband Horizons, which is setting up the system in Flatonia. Bates says that BPL is perfect for small-town America, especially towns which own their own utilities. Mr. MIKE BATES (Co-Founder, Broadband Horizons): With broadband over power line, the real benefit is that they then can control their own destiny. They can use what they already own, this utility asset, and transform the asset and provide broadband in every home via their electric outlets. So it's--that's what the promise is for these communities. GOODWYN: Bates sells the town the equipment, maintains it and then splits the $25 monthly service fee each customer pays. It's all pretty new. Word is just getting out in Texas, but there's one groups that wary, and that's ham radio operators. Ed Hare is the laboratory manager at the American Radio Relay League, the national organization of ham radio operators. Mr. ED HARE (Laboratory Manager, American Radio Relay League): BPL that operates at the FCC limits can and does cause strong local interference problems on any spectrum it's using. GOODWYN: But BPL operators say they've come up with a technological fix. It's called notching, and it notches out of the BPL signal that part of the spectrum that amateur radio operators use. Mike Bates says he's currently working with a dozen Texas small towns and one rural electric cooperative in Kentucky, setting up their new BPL systems. Like Wal-Mart before him, Bates is betting small-town America is hungry for what he's selling. Only this time it's broadband over power lines at everyday low prices. Wade Goodwyn, NPR News. |
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