Broadband over Power Lines?

[Straha]

Right, I've heard some air-wave personalities blasting this. Could someone explain to me what it is?

[EmperorMing]

Just as it sounds; high speed access over a powerline connection.

Of course it does sound a little odd to me and the obvious scare concerning the high power on the said line.

[Shinova]

It's supposed to be really really fast though. No idea on how its developing as of now.

[Slartibartfast]

I assume that some kind of device will be connected to the power line and translate the signal first, then send you that signal, so that your computer isn't actually connected to some high-voltage source directly.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Power relay stations have been using the power lines to transmit messages to each other since the 70s without burning down. It's just the usual technophobic scaremongering bullshit.

[phongn]

While the power companies have been using power lines to transmit data, they don't transmit anywhere near the amount as a high-speed internet connection feed would. Apparently the pilot programs have run into huge interference problems -- and boosting the power to overcome that interference leaks a bunch of crap out screwing with radio transmissions.

[Graeme Dice]

Power lines tend to be totally unshielded, and they aren't twisted around each other, so there will be huge crosstalk problems.

[Spyder]

Well given that the PC has to be plugged in to the wall before you can turn it on anyway... How's having power going through a power transformer/router any different then going through a PSU? You still get fried regardless if there's a surge.

[Pu-239]

Like phong said, the problem lies with interference with radio transmissions.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Right, I've heard some air-wave personalities blasting this. Could someone explain to me what it is?

It's hard to do for the various reasons already listed. The infrastructure would be expensive to set up, since you'd have to set up data rebroadcasting stations to refresh the digital information being sent over the power line before it becomes lost due to to EMI and line losses and other such things. You then have to get it past the transformer that steps down the voltage on the transmission line to a level more suited to coming into your hous. (Incidentally, this is why the technology failed when it was tried in Europe. Over there, they have a single large transformer which steps down the voltage for a block of houses, whereas in the United States, each home has a smaller transformer of its own.)

[phongn]

Well, blocks in the US also have step-down transformers ... they just don't step it down all the way since some things do use 240V in US homes.

[Uraniun235]

Well given that the PC has to be plugged in to the wall before you can turn it on anyway... How's having power going through a power transformer/router any different then going through a PSU? You still get fried regardless if there's a surge.

Some of us use surge protectors.

[Sarevok]

My internet connection is radio link. What sets is apart is the fact that I get both cable tv and internet connection through the same antenna (The ISP broadcasts cable TV signals alongside internet).

[InnocentBystander]

I've spoken with people who have experimented with that sort of thing on the home level, it doesn't work well, there is a lot of interference, it’s a nice idea, but frankly the money would be better spent on putting down more fiber optics and relay stations, or hell, even wireless.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Ah OK. They're making good progress down in Chile, so I assumed it would work just as well here, but their power line system is (presumably) decades newer so they don't face the same kinds of problems.

[EmperorMing]

I would tend to agree with InnocentBystander, lay more fiberoptic and be done with it.

[Spyder]

Some of us use surge protectors.

And why wouldn't you be able to use a surge protector for powerline data?

[InnocentBystander]

As far as I know, it doesn't use surges in the power system to transmit data. The idea of using power lines to provide internet access is a nice idea, free internet for everyone, that is a really a pipe-dream.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Some of us use surge protectors.

And why wouldn't you be able to use a surge protector for powerline data?

Because any good surge suppressor also cleans up the AC power coming into your computer, removing all the noise from what would otherwise be a perfectly good sine wave. So any information that might've been conveyed by the signal is completely destroyed.

[Spyder]

And why wouldn't you be able to use a surge protector for powerline data?

Because any good surge suppressor also cleans up the AC power coming into your computer, removing all the noise from what would otherwise be a perfectly good sine wave. So any information that might've been conveyed by the signal is completely destroyed.

Then don't use noise filtration on your data line, as long as the AC modem/router or whatever isn't passing the noise on to the motherboard then it wont matter.

[Uraniun235]

Yeah, it's not like you'd be getting data through your PSU or anything... just have the modem as a separate unit on an unfiltered line, and run the data cable through a surge protector before plugging it into your computer.

I have to agree though, there's better ways of going about increasing broadband penetration... although, aren't there many miles of fiber that are still dark and simply haven't been activated yet?

[InnocentBystander]

I have to agree though, there's better ways of going about increasing broadband penetration... although, aren't there many miles of fiber that are still dark and simply haven't been activated yet?

I would guess that when people go in to hardware fiber optics, at least in the phone company's (or I guess ISP's) case, they would put in more than 1 line, allowing them to easily connect more users. You wouldn't send people to place a single optic fiber, when for almost the same price you can place a couple dozen, if even a second line ends up getting used the extra cost gets paid for in full pretty quick.

[Spyder]

Don't get me wrong, I'd vastly prefer a fibre line to a power line. All I'm saying is that it's highly unlikely that AC data lines would be dangerous.

[InnocentBystander]

I can't see there being any danger in it at all.

[Crayz9000]

It's not that the AC carrier is "noisy". The AC carrier runs at all of 60 Hz -- nowhere near where the power line broadband is. The broadband is "piggybacked" onto the carrier, I believe it's sidebanded.

As Phong mentioned, the biggest problem with this is increasing the amount of RFI. The entire ham radio community in the United States is up in arms over this, and for good reason -- the US has ridiculously noisy power transmission lines as it is (thanks to money-hungry companies such as Enron), and this is just going to increase the ambient noise level.