This company is about to go public.
Posted on 10/17/2005 10:11:58 AM PDT by rawhide
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.com ...
www.nrtc.coop
National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative...all sorts of services for rural areas, including new high-speed satellite internet.
We have the so-called high speed satellite. While faster than dial-up it is less than DSL and much more expensive. than dial-up
Wonder how they get around isolation transformers?
It can also severely hamper shortwave, including Ham, radio communications.
Development is supposed to be underway that will deliver broadband directly through existing electrical wiring.
It is supposed to be something like 7x faster than highspeed cable.
Some DSL prices have dropped significantly, except for isolated areas not served by the big Bells and telecoms. Centurytel is still high priced. Cable HS in my area runs about $40 for the 4MiB download speed.
ping
I am clueless about this.
Would High Speed Internet effect the power grid in any way?
I would not want to live with another power outage like we did a few years ago.
This company is about to go public.
Time to sell your cable TV and internet-over-cable stocks...
Meaning, what? About .0001% of the population?
Are you talking about DirectWay? There's a new service out, called WildBlue.
Direc(t)Way stinks.
Right now there is free wireless in downtown neighborhoods in Cincinnati.
bump
I like this from the article:
'They have two broadband adapters that they can move to any outlet in the house. When Hofstetter takes his computer to a different room in the house, he takes an adapter with him, plugs it in and is instantly connected to the Internet. He can buy extra adapters for about $30.'
Meaning the next time your town is hit by a hurricane, tornado, earthquake, flood, etc. the 100% of the population depending on the guy down the street who used to be involved in ham/emergency communications will be stuck.
That guy gave up his hobby after being wiped out by interference. The fact the the interference is gone during the emergency, and corresponding power outage is irrelevant. He got rid of his gear already. So sorry, no comms.
I am not a techician but never understood why there was that big of a problem serving rural areas. The towns have high speed at reasonable rates and they are basically the same distance from any really large urban areas as we are.
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