Power companies enter broadband market (very interesting)

Cnet.com via The New York times on the Web ^ | October 16, 2005 | Ken Belson

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CINCINNATI--The idea has been around for years. In Spain and elsewhere in Europe, utility companies have long offered high-speed Internet service to consumers over their power lines.

But American utilities are only now beginning to roll out broadband connections on their grid.

For Jim Hofstetter, a salesman for Cadbury Schweppes, the food and beverage company, this new option was far better than the high-speed connection he used for years from his local cable provider.

"I would never go back now that I have this," said Hofstetter, who often works from his home office in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Cincinnati. He pays $30 a month for the service from Current Communications, an Internet service provider, which uses the power lines run by Cinergy, the local utility in Cincinnati. That cost is about $15 cheaper than comparable Internet access from either Cincinnati Bell or Time Warner Cable. The Current service can be piped into any electrical outlet in Hofstetter's home, with no reduction in speed even when he, his wife and their three daughters are online at the same time. All that is needed is a baseball-size jack that plugs into the wall and is connected to a computer with an Ethernet cable.

Known as broadband over power line, or BPL, the service is poised to challenge the cable and phone companies that dominate the high-speed Internet market. Instead of burying cables and rewiring homes, BPL providers use the local power grid, which means that any home with electricity could get the service.

[GretchenM]

marker

[OldMagazine]

CW= "Continuous Wave" It usually means Morse code where an unmodulated carrier is switched on and off.
It takes very little bandwidth, the equipment is simple and fairly reliable but not high speed.
Did you see the "Independence Day" movie?

[Redleg Duke]

Yeah, one of my employees is a Ham and is always complaining about this. At the same time, he lives out beyond the broadband services, so he is caught in a quandry...sorta mixed emotions, like watching your mother-in-law drive over a cliff in your new Hummer.

[jokar]

BTTT

[InfraRed]

Thanks for that link! I've listened to around a dozen of those samples. So far, a couple of them sounded similar, but I haven't really found a match yet. I'll keep digging...

[InfraRed]

Does it sound almost like a digital morse code?

Yes, it does! That's precisely what I thought it was at first. I initially assumed I had a HAM nearby that was keying the signal. After I started paying closer attention, it sounds too fast to be keyed manually, and it also sounds like there are start and stop bits framing the data.

I pick up something similar on my baby monitor and my VoIP phone.

So, your implant is on the blink too? (j/k) Actually, I'm happy to find somebody else who has been hearing this interference. I assume you're still in the D.C. burbs (per your homepage)? How often are you hearing it? I sometimes hear two or three bursts per day, but usually it's only one -- and sometimes I don't hear anything for days. I've been hearing at least one burst per week for around six months though.

I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation.

As am I, but I'd really like to know what it is...

[George W. Bush]

Ham Radio Operators to the Rescue After Katrina

I listened to some streaming podcasts of one of the HAM groups operating during the storm's aftermath. It didn't seem to be a very effective means of gathering and relaying information. Obviously they were willing but their ability to gather information was very limited.

Bandwidth is precious and non-digital uses are going bye-bye. HAM will be shunted aside in favor of BPL. And the HAMs will adapt.

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Mr. President, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to participate in this thread. We are so very honored.

[The Red Zone]

"It doesn't matter what pipe you use as long as you have a pipe into the house," said Kevin Brand, the vice president for product management at EarthLink, which plans to introduce a BPL service in the first half of 2006.

I could see possibilities here for the gas companies, too, so long as all their pipe is metal. Use the pipes as waveguides.

[The Red Zone]

Can ham use spread spectrum?