htwnrver
join:2004-04-01
Houston, TX
| I don't understand
why they aren't going after BPL with full force. Now I admit I don't know the technical theory behind it but it seems like a gold mine just waiting to be tapped. The bells are whining because they have to spend all of this money to lay fiber/etc when we already have a very advanced power grid in place. It just seems like power lines would be the logical way to deliver broadband/tv/phone services.
How often do you lose power compared to how often you lose cable/phone/net? |
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KB2PSM
join:2002-08-06
Long Beach, NY
| On the surface, it seems like it should be quick and easy- just overlay BPL on existing power lines. If you look into the technology and what is required i.e. a lot of additional infrastructure, repeaters, etc., it would seem as if going through the trouble of stringing fiber (or subletting the poles for such) would be a better solution.
Visit www.gobpl.com for some insights into the technology.
Rob
said by htwnrver  :why they aren't going after BPL with full force. Now I admit I don't know the technical theory behind it but it seems like a gold mine just waiting to be tapped. The bells are whining because they have to spend all of this money to lay fiber/etc when we already have a very advanced power grid in place. It just seems like power lines would be the logical way to deliver broadband/tv/phone services. How often do you lose power compared to how often you lose cable/phone/net? |
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RayW
Premium
join:2001-09-01
Layton, UT
clubs:
 ·XMission
| reply to htwnrver
Take a few courses in electrical engineering (or even a good course for a RF Technician) and you would see why BPL is not the Magic Cure All for high speed internet access. The main problem is that the hype has far outweighed the 'laws of nature'.
My personal opinion: BPL as pushed by Ambient was never meant to service Joe 6-pack and his nudie pic downloads. It was to build an infrastructure for the power company to monitor and control your house meter. If they tried to do this for real, the investors would throw a fit because it would cost too much. But by doing BPL they can write the failure off on taxes, keep the investor's money and still have the monitoring system without the primary big investors having a fit. (BPL used for this purpose has low enough requirements that the radio waves should be unaffected)
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I am not lost, I find myself every time. |
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macken 657
join:2006-01-29
Ballwin, MO
| reply to htwnrver
trouble is you can't just couple a broadband circuit on to a 72Kv line, you must 1st push fiber deep into neighborhoods before coupling and then it needs to be a perfect electrical grid + do at least or better than 20-25 Mbs per customer. actually if it's an all aerial neighborhood, better off running all fiber |
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BPL Watcher
@avhlaw.com
| reply to RayW
"BPL used for this purpose has low enough requirements that the radio waves should be unaffected"
It could be, but it remains to be seen if this technology is any different than the PLC technology already in use. True broadband will require more spectrum, and given Ambient's attitude, I bet I know where they'll go.  |
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RayW
Premium
join:2001-09-01
Layton, UT
clubs:
·XMission
| said by BPL Watcher :"BPL used for this purpose has low enough requirements that the radio waves should be unaffected" It could be, but it remains to be seen if this technology is any different than the PLC technology already in use. True broadband will require more spectrum, and given Ambient's attitude, I bet I know where they'll go. That is probably what they want, PLC to every house. Ambients's style of BPL will do that, even though it is a pipe dream for anything else. Again, I think it is more of fraud to get what they want then an actual service for the mark.
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I am not lost, I find myself every time. |
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rf_engineer
join:2003-08-04
USA
| reply to htwnrver
I think the grid management movement (for lack of a better term) is similar to the "Information Superhighway" rhetoric we heard in the 90's. The Information Superhighway was always there, it was called the Internet. The rhetoric just brought it out into the forefront and made it mainstream. Like the Information Superhighway, the grid management movement is being propelled by political rhetoric, which was brought on by the blackouts and energy issues. The vehicle for bringing grid management has been around for years; it's called PLC, a low bandwidth BPL that has been around for years and in use extensively.
I've heard some say that the higher bandwidths of BPL could provide better grid management, but I'm hard pressed to figure out how. Equipment and line measurements can be crunched into rather "small" binary numbers and don't take up a lot of bandwidth. Controlling equipment takes even less information. Perhaps putting video cameras on poles could use this extra bandwidth, but is that really practical grid management?
The Red Herring article implies BPL is the only way to bring automatic meter reading (AMR). This isn't the case, there are several established AMR companies and a statistic I found from last year says that power system AMR penetration is at about 21% in the US.
Also, what about all the repeaters you need to make BPL work? PLC doesn't need nearly the number of repeaters. The network cost per managed network element must be huge with BPL when compared to PLC. I'm not an expert in power systems, but it would seem to me that automatic meter reading companies using PLC would be expanding their systems to include full grid management. Any utility with an existing investment in automatic metering reading infrastructure could gracefully slide into grid management applications without having to build a BPL network. |
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