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gwion
wild colonial boy
Premium,ExMod 2001-08
join:2000-12-28
Pittsburgh, PA
1 edit | The boat left... ohhhh, let's see... yeah, it left
... around noon... 1995. I guess one of the comical asides I see in the whole thing is that BPL might have actually generated some interest and excitment, if not downright enthusiasm, ten years ago. That's forever in tech years.
Once cable, DSL... heck, now we're deploying FTTP... and all became reasonably available, the market for Jerry-rigged approaches like BPL sort of dried up a little... OK, a lot.
It's a lot like a charity trying to build a two room shack for a homeless person who hit the lottery a week after he cashed in his ticket and moved into a mansion. It's downright humorous.
Why would someone choose BPL over fiber to the premises? If they would, wouldn't they expect to get it for a nickel and a dime? Wouldn't its sole major competitor be dialup?
For an area that needs service because the DSL, cable or fib-op system isn't being deployed there, great. It's a stop-gap alternative... again, directly positioned against dialup, and, maybe, satellite... can you really imagine that it's going to create competition for FTTP, FTTN, DSL or cable?
Effectively, it is "FTTN" the way it's usually implemented. In other words, it's nickel and diming the comm network by running the last mile over power lines instead of dedicated comm services lines...
But here's my question, in the proverbial nutshell: they expect us to start jumping up and down, drooling with anticipation and excitement, for a technology that, for most populated areas, was in practicality already obsolete before it was even widely discussed?
You don't expect to sell 12 inch black and white CRT TV sets, today, by pricing them competatively with and positioning them next to brand new 42 inch plasma sets...
No, I've never been excited about the tech, to be honest. But the question that really amuses me is why they're running around spending money they could be using to put in a real long term solution for the underserved instead of just trying to create a way of underserving them, just for a few years, using a new underserving technology, instead of just biting a bullet and deploying a proper, future-proof, dedicated comm network? As far as serving areas already being feasted upon by the cable company, the ILEC, a few CLECs and several dozen dialup providers, you'll have to pardon me if my first question is "why would you bother?" ...
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Semper Eadem
Sir, I have been through it from Alpha to Omaha, and I tell you that the less a man knows the bigger the noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands.
- Twain, "How I Edited an Agricultural Paper," 1870 | |
RayW
Premium
join:2001-09-01
Layton, UT
clubs:
 ·XMission
| Re: The boat left... ohhhh, let's see... yeah, it
Actually, Ronpin in Keller, TX (and a few other people in other threads) probably come the closest to the reason for the BPL HYPE.
BPL has a use for the power companies, it will allow them to read and control your power usage. It is also low bandwidth, so the RF radiation is probably insignificant. Now, considering the stodginess of the power industry, if they tried to put the BPL in place for that purpose, the stockholders would call it a waste of money. But to try and do Internet to Joe Six Pack, now THAT is different. Now we do a business case, get funding, do a tax plan, then when it folds, take a write off, and recycle it all to the controlling the user better.
Makes more sense than what the media is hyping.
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I am not lost, I find myself every time. | |
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