"-=jd=-" wrote in message
3...

Being able to telecommute from home without your connection to a
development server or database timing-out. I actually require it in
order to do what I need to do.

I get cable broadband access for $20/month. Normally, it's $25, but I
have my own cable modem and don't pay the monthly rental fee. Last time
I had dialup, $20/month would have been a competitive rate - I'm not
sure what the average dial-up rate is today.

I would also feel quite safe in guessing that, for the vast majority of
people, dial-up would suffice if you were talking about the minimum
bandwidth needed to perform the task (email, web-surfing, etc). The
problem is "impatience" on the part of he general public (they want that
page to open NOW!) and the desire for a more "content rich" internet
experience from those pushing content as well as those pulling content.
You could most likely define "content rich" as one or more of the
following:
- MP3 Sharing
- Multimedia
- Bigger/Better/Badder Ads
- Porn


Let's not forget poorly designed websites. Some of 'em take half of forever
to load, and reward our patience with -- nearly nothing.


Speaking of which, wasn't Porn attributed to having a large influence on
the success of VHS over Beta?

Porn movies were supposed to have been about half of the video titles sold
in the mid 70s. Those would have been Beta. VHS machines were introduced
around 1980, and quickly got a price advantge on the Beta machines, and had
longer running tapes.


There's some interesting things that *could* be done with a decent
broadband connection (like smooth, undistorted voice and video "phone
calls" to family) except that broadband is never all it's cracked up to
be. It does no good to have a gigabit fiber-to-the-desktop connection if
somewhere between your PC and the other end is a 300 baud phone
coupler...

There's good and bad in most things...

-=jd=-
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Imagine the "Broadband Nirvana" of the future. Millions and millions of
computers, owned by clueless users, pumping out multi-megabyte sized virus
attachments 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That'll take our minds off BPL
radio interference.

Frank Dresser

There's no stopping any avenue of broadband delivery regardless of its
need in the marketplace, or how worthless the content. And dated
technolgies such as amateur radio and shortwave broadcasting don't
stand a chance of surviving in the face of the broadband Goliaths,
because bandwidth, any bandwidth, available by any means, equals big
money. So enjoy the MW and HF spectrum while you can, because there's
no stopping the encroaching digital hash. We've been degrading it for
years with QRM anyway, with every new switching power supply or RF
generating unit added to our homes, and millions being added every
day. Change is inevitable. I'll surely miss scanning the HF bands
with my SX-28, my HQ-120, my homebrew regen, even my Sony 7600. I love
HF and I listen to it almost every day. But the "cheese has moved."
If you live well outside of suburbia, or on the open sea, you can tune
or use what's left of HF. Otherwise, you should look elsewhere for
your radio fix.
Pete
KQ5I

"-=jd=-" wrote in message
...
Dateline "rec.radio.shortwave", Wed, 01 Oct 2003 10:34:01 GMT: As it
appeared in message-ID#


Sometimes I think the average Joe User (lowest common denominator) wants
a PC that behaves more like a really, really smart TV...


You're right, and they should have it. We don't expect people to know much
about how cars work in order to drive and we don't expect people to know
much electronics to use the radio. It's too bad Web TV has such a stigma.
It doesn't suit me, but I think it would suit alot of users just fine.


But what you wrote is both funny and depressing. It stands to reason
that virus hackers are to bandwidth what the junk we own is to closet
space, sooner or later they both tend to fill whatever room is
available...

-=jd=-
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My Current Disposable Email:

(Remove YOUR HAT to reply directly)

I don't know why ISPs don't use virus filtering as a big selling point.
AT&T started blocking the latest attachment about 6 hours after it first
struck. Plenty of ISPs don't bother filtering at all. I'd think efficent
virus filtering would be an important consideration for the majority of
users. Especially in the broadband nirvana.

Frank Dresser

"Pete Verrando" wrote in message
om...
There's no stopping any avenue of broadband delivery regardless of its
need in the marketplace, or how worthless the content. And dated
technolgies such as amateur radio and shortwave broadcasting don't
stand a chance of surviving in the face of the broadband Goliaths,
because bandwidth, any bandwidth, available by any means, equals big
money. So enjoy the MW and HF spectrum while you can, because there's
no stopping the encroaching digital hash. We've been degrading it for
years with QRM anyway, with every new switching power supply or RF
generating unit added to our homes, and millions being added every
day. Change is inevitable. I'll surely miss scanning the HF bands
with my SX-28, my HQ-120, my homebrew regen, even my Sony 7600. I love
HF and I listen to it almost every day. But the "cheese has moved."
If you live well outside of suburbia, or on the open sea, you can tune
or use what's left of HF. Otherwise, you should look elsewhere for
your radio fix.
Pete
KQ5I


Are you saying broadband access and HF radiation must necessarily go
together? If so, why?

Frank Dresser
Frank Dresser

Frank Dresser schrieb:

Are you saying broadband access and HF radiation must necessarily go
together? If so, why?

Good q. I have what can be called broadband 'net access (DSL with 768k
down / 128k up), and I have more trouble with the hets generated by ISDN
(it's a combo ISDN/DSL thing with a splitter) or rather the radiation
from the apparently unshielded ISDN cable from the ISDN NTBA to the
telephone base station than any other "telephone line" related effects.
Something that does radiate heavily, on the other hand, is my (cheap)
Fast Ethernet switch, also via the wiring, followed by my computers.
(OK, *that* stuff is in the same room as my SWL eq't. I think I needn't
mention that I always "pull the plug" on all possible sources of
interference before SWLing - all the computer stuff and the DSL
modem/router.) Powerline Communications has been proven to be
inefficient for any larger number of users and thus is good for inhouse
comm at most. I don't see any good reason to promote it except wanting
to get a number of phone calls and letters from angry hams and SWLs.

Frank Dresser
Frank Dresser

I should *really* be drinking less, it seems. (But less than nothing?
*scratching head* [1])

Stephan



[1] OK, it's a lame old joke, plus I wouldn't even see double even when
drunk, but what the heck.
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Reply to newsgroup only. | See home page for working e-mail address.

Are you saying broadband access and HF radiation must necessarily go
together? If so, why?

As a commodity, the HF spectrum can be more greatly exploited for profit as

a means of delivering data bandwidth than as a means of mass communication
or 2-way comms. Broadcasting via terrestrial MW/HF/VHF/UHF transmission
can be virtually replaced by broadband/digital, cell or satellite
technology anyway. Broadcasters look forward to the day when they can
mothball their multi-kilowatt transmitter sites and the engineers they pay
to keep them running. Imagine the savings in electricity alone!
I have a buddy who, thru his Sprint wireless internet connection, can
listen to RealAudio sites from his laptop while driving in his car. It's
just a matter of time!
Pete
KQ5I

"pete" wrote in message
news:01c38899$27465380$4c1588cf@verrando...
Are you saying broadband access and HF radiation must necessarily go
together? If so, why?

As a commodity, the HF spectrum can be more greatly exploited for profit
as

a means of delivering data bandwidth than as a means of mass communication
or 2-way comms.

MW/HF isn't much bandwidth. 30 MHz tops. As a comparison, the FM spectrum
alone is 2/3 of that . Or 5 TV channels. There's nothing favoring
broadband data transmissions on such low frequencies. Efficent antennas are
very large. Directional antennas aimed at one point source are almost
impossible. There's alot of interference from natural sources such as
thunderstorms. Radiated interference can come from halfway across the
state, or half way across the world. VHF/UHF beats MW/HF for broadband
communications on all counts.


Broadcasting via terrestrial MW/HF/VHF/UHF transmission
can be virtually replaced by broadband/digital, cell or satellite
technology anyway. Broadcasters look forward to the day when they can
mothball their multi-kilowatt transmitter sites and the engineers they pay
to keep them running. Imagine the savings in electricity alone!


OK. Let's say electricity costs 10 cents a kilowatt hour. A 50 kW
transmitter uses 5 bucks worth of electricty an hour. Imagine how much more
poor Rush Limbaugh could make if transmitters weren't bleeding the network
dry!

Now that I think of it, the real money would be found in creating automated
talk show hosts. One or two more advances in computerized vocalization, and
Sean Hannity is on the soup line.


I have a buddy who, thru his Sprint wireless internet connection, can
listen to RealAudio sites from his laptop while driving in his car. It's
just a matter of time!
Pete
KQ5I




Oh. What part of the HF/MW spectrum does it use?

Frank Dresser

"Jack" wrote in message
...


It was much easier to clean up Cable TV distribution systems. They are
already shielded, and it was mostly a matter of pressuring the cable
operators to devote the rersources to porperly maintain the cable
plant. Meaning tightening loose connectors, applying more and proper
grounding, etc. BPL is an inherently unshielded medium, as has been
noted here many times. What goes in, leaks out, all over the place.

Unless we're all prepared to bear the cost and hassle of changing
power transmission lines to a shielded medium, I don't see it being
practical.

Its new and not very widespread at present. It doesn't yet adversely
affect as many influential commercial users as it eventually will, and
I think the whipped up commotion that the nation needs broadband at
all costs has clouded potential complainants minds. I think that once
instituted on a wider scale, the FCC will start to see the damage BPL
will do to communications on a much broader scale, as the influential
interests who presently sit the fence are affected and complain of
interference. My question is that, by then, will it be too late to
turn back?

-Jack-

Well, the BPL folk say their scheme won't radiate much. I think they ought
to be held to it. I don't know exactly how much not much is, but clearly,
it's less than the ARRL monitors are recieving at the demo sites. And BPL
is on it's best behavior for the demos.

I don't know nearly enough to know what will happen with BPL in the future.
But they are wrong about a fundimental issue such as interference. Are they
wrong about other things as well? Might they have a incompletely thought
out plan, and hope to fix it up with alot of engineering on the fly? Dunno,
but I still think BPL is goofy.

It's looking like the customers will be given the final decision. And they
just want good performance at a low price. If I were a customer, I'd stick
with proven technology.

Frank Dresser

"-=jd=-" wrote in message
3...
Dateline "rec.radio.shortwave", Thu, 02 Oct 2003 05:17:17 GMT: As it
appeared in message-ID#
,
"Frank Dresser" appears to have written
the following...


"pete" wrote in message
news:01c38899$27465380$4c1588cf@verrando...
Are you saying broadband access and HF radiation must necessarily go
together? If so, why?

As a commodity, the HF spectrum can be more greatly exploited for
profit
as

a means of delivering data bandwidth than as a means of mass
communication or 2-way comms.

MW/HF isn't much bandwidth. 30 MHz tops. As a comparison, the FM
spectrum alone is 2/3 of that . Or 5 TV channels. There's nothing
favoring broadband data transmissions on such low frequencies.
Efficent antennas are very large. Directional antennas aimed at one
point source are almost impossible. There's alot of interference
from natural sources such as thunderstorms. Radiated interference can
come from halfway across the state, or half way across the world.
VHF/UHF beats MW/HF for broadband communications on all counts.


I hadn't considered antenna form-factor as I was under the impression
that the device's power cord was the antenna (so to speak) as soon as it
was plugged into the wall outlet.



BPL would be over the powerlines and any radaition would be incidental. I
got the impression the poster was thinking of directly using the entire HF
spectrum for broadband access rather than for broadcasting and ham radio.



In any event, it would seem that current fashionable/stylish appearance
designs dictate that "Smaller is Cooler". If BPL involves a gigantic set
of rabbit-ears, I'm thinking folks will turn their nose up at it...

-=jd=-
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My Current Disposable Email:

(Remove YOUR HAT to reply directly)

If BPL didn't radiate into the radio spectrum, radio hobbyists wouldn't be
bothered. Replacing MW/HF radio's space in the spectrum with broadband has
lots of problems.

Frank Dresser

The more users that demand high-bandwidth access, the more avenues the
industry must exploit to meet demand.
I suppose the MW/HF spectrum could be "given over" to BPL,
supplementing DSL and cable to deliver broadband for non-mobile users. 30
mHz is plenty, especially with compression methods constantly improving.
BPL doesn't need to supply all of a community's broadband needs, it's just
part of a larger system.
As with carrier-current AM, you don't need an antenna. Inject the rf
at the breaker panel of any building, and service that whole building with
broadband via the power outlets. Interference from natural sources is not
an issue, because the signal is not "broadcasted". Would it wipe out the
ability to use an AM/SW radio in that building? Of course. But a listener
no longer needs an analog AM radio to listen to radio programming.
I suppose VHF-UHF can deliver local broadcasting digitally for both
fixed and mobile reception. Higher frequencies can deliver cell, digital
2-way, broadcast (such as XM) and broadband wireless data via cell sites
and satellite.

The farthest any terrestrial antenna would ever need to radiate is a couple
of miles!

Electrical costs or otherwise, broadcasters would be thrilled to retire
their transmitter sites. Good-bye insurance, tower maintenence, replacement
tubes, land leases, ground radials, lightning strikes, vandals, generators,
rodents, bullet holes, cell tower de-tuning, and old-fart RF consulting
engineers making $300 an hour. Just ask Clear Channel.

Pete
KQ5I