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join:2006-11-26
Pensacola, FL | Oh, Brother Maybe an explosion is needed to kill off this pipe dream! | |
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battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000 | Re: Oh, Brother Heh I wouldn't call 2.5M by 2011 an explosion. | |
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Jafo232
You Can't Spell Democrat Without Rat.
Premium
join:2002-10-17
Boonville, NY
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: Oh, Brother said by battleop  :Heh I wouldn't call 2.5M by 2011 an explosion. Perhaps they meant, 2.5 million will predict there will be an explosion in BPL in 2011.
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'Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached' | |
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Packeteers
Premium
join:2005-06-18
Forest Hills, NY
| I laugh every time I read about this.
did you know that Novell's original
business plan was to develop network
packet traffic over power-lines 
SPX/IPX was actually optimized for it.
that was nearly 20 years ago. | |
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explosion
@cox.net | Ready To Explode Yeah, it'll explode all right. Right off the face of the earth. =) | |
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FiL
Premium
join:2005-08-16
Silver Spring, MD | Ham Radio guys must being going nuts over this.  | |
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rf_engineer
join:2003-08-04
USA | Re: Ham Radio Not really. There's been talk about BPL subscriber explosions for the last four or five years. I think the last FCC report said there's about 8K subscribers. | |
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C0deZer0
Oc'D To Rhythm And Police
Premium
join:2001-10-03
Davenport, FL | Yet chicken and turkey radios are unaffected.
Ham Radio = porkers? | |
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brianiscool
join:2000-08-16
Miami, FL | The only explosion they are going to see.. Is a power surge lol | |
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cableties
Premium
join:2005-01-27
 ·Verizon FIOS
| esplode! -Maine and Canada loss power to millions when hit by Noreaster a few years back. Powerlines forzen and towers collapsed.
-Midwest hit by icestorms. Power to tens of thousands out for several days.
-California still to implement rolling blackouts (though not on the scale Enron did).
-Summer months in the states use most electricity and most demand on grid. Resistance increases and signal strength drops.
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Power is unclean and unreliable. BPL is more ambitious for developing countries that have newer systems going inplace. Even then, they opt more for wireless than using electric utility.
Another point: since a utility company is reselling communications, how does this play with the Public Utilities Commission? | |
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brooklynman4
join:2004-09-07
Brooklyn, NY | Re: esplode! Yeah ready to explode over powered power lines thats about it lol. | |
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Siryak
join:2005-11-26
 ·WildBlue
| Re: you would be happy about this..... said by fonzbear2000 :and wouldn't be critisizing it if you lived in an area where nothing else was available What he said. ^^^^ Plus who would not want a symmetrical connection?
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Wildblue Pro Pack / Beam 40 / Laredo NOC / Windows MCE SP2 | |
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| | W1RFI
join:2003-05-12
Burlington, CT | Re: you would be happy about this..... At home, I don't want a symmetrical connection. If they have bandwidth, I want them to provide the majority of it to me in the downstream direction. I download FAR more than I upload in my personal use of the Internet.
Ed Hare | |
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rf_engineer
join:2003-08-04
USA
| said by fonzbear2000 :and wouldn't be critisizing it if you lived in an area where nothing else was available I wouldn't be holding out hope for BPL. All of the trials except perhaps one or two have been in suburban areas with other access available. BPL has distance limitations that are worse than DSL. The economics for pulling BPL into areas that haven't been wired with cable and DSL aren't good. | |
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rf_engineer
join:2003-08-04
USA
| Re: you would be happy about this..... said by ctceo :The economics are only good if the customer base is informed properly. Of course nothing sells if it isn't properly advertised In places where BPL could be deployed that Cable and/or DSL haven't been installed, properly advertised, would be a very lucrative decision. This would also force Cable and DSL companies in the area to expand their coverage in the name of competitiveness. Customer penetration isn't the issue. If there was money to be had in these areas, cable and DSL would be there already. This is especially true for cable as they can also sell TV service and they have much higher penetration rates with TV service than broadband. Telcos already have copper pairs to every home in these areas. Broadband companies aren't stupid; they have whole departments that look at business development and would be in these areas in a heartbeat if it was profitable.
Think about this logically for a second. Why would cable and DSL chase a competitor into an area just to expand their coverage area when it wasn't worth it to go into the area in the first place? It's even less enticing with a competitor in the area as the already meager customer base is divided and because of competition prices are driven down making it less economically viable than before.
BPL in rural areas is wishful thinking. BPL in rural areas encouraging competition is delusional thinking. | |
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asdfdfdfdf
@Level3.net
| Re: you would be happy about this..... I disagree.
Why would the telcos chase a competitor into an area they weren't in before? Because they risk losing all relationship with that customer. The telcos don't show much interest in spending money where they have captive customers and no competitors. The incumbents have shown, however, that they are very interested in making sure that there are no competitors providing service, even if they don't want to provide service themselves. Take the response to threats of municipal operations, for example. Why do incumbents spend money to fight municipal build out in areas where they haven't built out themselves?
If bpl comes into an area the telco suddenly faces the prospect of losing future opportunity for a broadband customer and ALSO faces the possibility the customer will move to voip services and they will lose ALL relationship with that customer(even providing local voice service). I would bet you they would be in the area, the next day, spending the money needed to maintain that relationship. They dread losing control of households. Once a household has a non-telco broadband provider they often transition other services away from the telcos as well. | |
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ctceo
Premium
join:2001-04-26
South Bend, IN
clubs:
 ·magicjack.com
·AT&T U-Verse
·Comcast
 ·AT&T Midwest
·HughesNet Satellit..
| Re: you would be happy about this..... Agreed. At&t has recently seen a HUGE hit in loss of customers where I live to other Cell providers, Cable providers, and even Satellite providers. In the last 3 weeks we have had 5 At&t representatives at our door, asking what type of service we use for TV, Data, and Voice. I did a study, and contacted a few friends, and in seems that At&t has taken a 23% loss in clients in my zip code alone over the last year due in part to Comcasts, DTV's & Dish Networks Advertisement campaigns on local TV, in their total Telephone+Data markets to other competitors. At first they tried to lobby the Cell providers by Township to get their proposition for cell tower construction denied by ...ahem... swaying the vested parties interest by whatever means, The ones that succeed they continue to trail into appeals to slow down their deployment as best they can hoping for a favorable outcome in the end.
It seems to me that it is in a companies best interest to get the first foothold in the area, and maintain that relationship as long as possible. Obviously BPL is no exception other than the fact that they have higher legal, R&D costs, and such, which has caused their slower deployment. The minute somebodies bottom line was threatened, the opposing community swung into action to prevent it's deployment as best they can. Even if that means using old or outdated issues with the technology to prevent future deployments. | |
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rf_engineer
join:2003-08-04
USA
| said by asdfdfdfdf :
I disagree.
Why would the telcos chase a competitor into an area they weren't in before? Because they risk losing all relationship with that customer. The telcos don't show much interest in spending money where they have captive customers and no competitors. The incumbents have shown, however, that they are very interested in making sure that there are no competitors providing service, even if they don't want to provide service themselves. Take the response to threats of municipal operations, for example. Why do incumbents spend money to fight municipal build out in areas where they haven't built out themselves?
If bpl comes into an area the telco suddenly faces the prospect of losing future opportunity for a broadband customer and ALSO faces the possibility the customer will move to voip services and they will lose ALL relationship with that customer(even providing local voice service). I would bet you they would be in the area, the next day, spending the money needed to maintain that relationship. They dread losing control of households. Once a household has a non-telco broadband provider they often transition other services away from the telcos as well.
This is true to an extent, but there's some point at which the cost to maintain the relationship and the resulting time for return on investment exceeds reasonable limits. Arguably, areas that would make sense for a competitor to go into are areas that would make sense for a telco to protect its turf. But, the economics of BPL aren't better than these competitor technologies like cable or wireless, so BPL is not likely to trigger an avalanche of competition. Cable and wireless undoubtedly have already picked the low-hanging fruit. | |
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join:2003-05-12
Burlington, CT
| BPL in rural areas is wishful thinking. BPL in rural areas encouraging competition is delusional thinking. One company, IBEC, is focusing on rural-community deployments, primarily through RUS loans. They have a number "in the queue," so it appears that they can make a go of it in that niche.
The Arkansas BPL deployment being done by Entergy is on a rural line. There is rumor that some of this equipment is Ambient, but the only company listed by Entergy in their BPL-database entry is Corinex, so it appears from the public record to me that they intend to go with Corinex, if they decide to go with BPL at all.
Ed Hare | |
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n2jtx
join:2001-01-13
Glen Head, NY
·Optimum Online
| said by fonzbear2000 :and wouldn't be critisizing it if you lived in an area where nothing else was available Well if you are in area that is not being served by any broadband, I wouldn't count on BPL either. There would be no economic incentive for it either.
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I support the right to keep and arm bears. | |
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Dagda1175
join:2001-06-17
Goleta, CA | Shut up, hams!  | |
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jdracer47
join:2005-10-16
Auburn, PA | Again The only explosion will be the one from Hams detonating the ISPs
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| olegy
join:2003-06-02
San Diego, CA | Re: Again Don't you want 3Mbps symmetrical?
I'd give up my higher download in favor of 3Mpbs upload. | |
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WhyZeeGuy
Premium
join:2004-06-06
Addison, TX | Job Interview Wow, I was interviewed today by a company who wants me to sell BPL.
Maybe I should pass? | |
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| rob2006
join:2006-11-07
Austell, GA | Re: Job Interview they should offer over 100 mbps over that and multi gbit links | |
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| | W1RFI
join:2003-05-12
Burlington, CT
| Re: Job Interview said by rob2006 :they should offer over 100 mbps over that and multi gbit links Why would anyone want to offer or use 100 millibits per second? At that rate, this message would have taken about 2000 seconds to upload.
Ed | |
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Asmodeus
join:2004-05-26
Spring Valley, CA
| ENOUGH!!! BPL is a loser and i wish the fcc and it's backers would see that and STFU about it already... duke nukem forever will be out before bpl ever sees the light of day... if it even had a modicum of a chance of working and not screwing up the spectrum it supposedly says it doesn't harm, no one would want it anyway...
it's these lame conceptual ideas that sound great in the airy fairy world of venture capital, but hey, maybe i could propose we start a project that could carve out a piece of the sun and bring it back to satisfy all the needs of the earth for infinity and beyond... :rolleyes: | |
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Siryak
join:2005-11-26
·WildBlue
| Re: ENOUGH!!! said by Asmodeus :no one would want it anyway... If you think that no one would want a truly symmetrical connection, then you better think again.
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Wildblue Pro Pack / Beam 40 / Laredo NOC / Windows MCE SP2 | |
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rf_engineer
join:2003-08-04
USA
| Re: ENOUGH!!! said by Siryak :said by Asmodeus :no one would want it anyway... If you think that no one would want a truly symmetrical connection, then you better think again. Most people don't need a symmetrical connection unless they're doing P2P or serving websites from their house. The majority of the public doesn't know or care if their connection is symmetrical so it's not a big driver for BPL. | |
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Siryak
join:2005-11-26 | Re: ENOUGH!!! You can bet on it that most of the gamers out there will want it. There is a very LARGE number of gamers out there.
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Wildblue Pro Pack / Beam 40 / Laredo NOC / Windows MCE SP2 | |
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rf_engineer
join:2003-08-04
USA
| Re: ENOUGH!!! said by Siryak :You can bet on it that most of the gamers out there will want it. There is a very LARGE number of gamers out there. I was waiting to hear from the gamers. They're usually the most excited about BPL, besides the people who own BPL stock Both usually know the least about BPL's technical aspects (not intended as a slur, but often the truth).
I'm not a gamer so forgive my ignorance, but do games really require a lot of upstream bandwidth? I can see a lot of downstream for graphics and audio (which presumably would be limited as well in order to allow lower bandwidth users), but upstream I would imagine is just short control messages. It would seem to me low upstream latency would be more important than bandwidth. | |
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Siryak
join:2005-11-26
·WildBlue
1 edit | Re: ENOUGH!!! said by rf_engineer :said by Siryak :You can bet on it that most of the gamers out there will want it. There is a very LARGE number of gamers out there. I was waiting to hear from the gamers. They're usually the most excited about BPL, besides the people who own BPL stock Both usually know the least about BPL's technical aspects (not intended as a slur, but often the truth). I'm not a gamer so forgive my ignorance, but do games really require a lot of upstream bandwidth? I can see a lot of downstream for graphics and audio (which presumably would be limited as well in order to allow lower bandwidth users), but upstream I would imagine is just short control messages. It would seem to me low upstream latency would be more important than bandwidth. In order to host large matches a large upstream pipe is a must. Also yes low latency is VERY important, but BPL can deliver that too. I have seen some post from actual BPL users and the pings looked just as good as any other provider.
It will also come in handy for things like Slingbox, uploading pictures, etc.
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Wildblue Pro Pack / Beam 40 / Laredo NOC / Windows MCE SP2 | |
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verbotenfugu
@endustfiltration.com
| Why all the BPL hate Maybe I have not read enough about BPL, But what is the big deal. Why is everyone so against this tech. It always sounded like a good idea to me. And for the person that said power lines are unreliable because of rolling black-outs and outages, well even if you weren't using BPL this will most likely affect you in home internet service, so whats the difference. | |
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garitaar1
join:2005-02-21
Minneapolis, MN
| cost of architecture The cost of implementing "BPL" approaches that of implementing HFC hybrid fiber coaxial architectures. The injection has to be done with localized nodes, so the only thing missing is the 75 ohm box in your yard.
Then there is the electromagnetic compatibility issue. As hard as it is to keep the uplink on HFC clean, can you imagine dealing with inband impulse noise on the powerline that feeds your electronic air cleaner?
This is an expensive architectural solution in search of a problem. When you replace your HFC connection, let it be with fiber. | |
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Dusty101568
@rr.com
| according to David Sumner, CEO at ARRL First of all, BPL is mainly used for smart grid applications for the utility company's use and ISP is secondary. The Bpl plans in Houston are to setup smart grid and a 3rd party would do the ISP thing later. A full scale smart grid would more than justify the expense or at least it seems so according to the utility folks who want it in Texas.
Secondly, according to David Sumner, CEO ARRL in his "It Seems to Us . . ." Better BPL? article he states... "So far, Current's BPL deployment in Cincinnati--which despite all the hype about Manassas appears to be the largest BPL installation in the country--has proceeded without major interference problems."
If this can be done then who would have a complaint. Texas utility companies interested in BPL are going to use the same config as Cincinnati...word has it. | |
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| W1RFI
join:2003-05-12
Burlington, CT
| Re: according to David Sumner, CEO at ARRL said by Dusty101568 :
Texas utility companies interested in BPL are going to use the same config as Cincinnati...word has it.
It is more than "word" that has it. According to the industry BPL database (»www.bpldatabase.org), the installation in Dallas is being done using Current Technologies equipment. Word has it that they are using it for both access BPL to end users and utility applications. The other major installation in Texas is in Houston, where CenterPoint is installing Corinex equipment for utility applications.
Ed Hare | |
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W1RFI
join:2003-05-12
Burlington, CT
| Explosion? DSLReports ran an article that cited 2004, 2005, 2006 and then 2007 as "the year of BPL." How much progress this industry is making is a matter of interpretation.
According to the FCC's latest report on broadband, BPL enjoys 0.008% of the broadband lines in the country. According to the industry BPL database, BPL is installed or planned in 150 ZIP codes (out of a total of approximately 25,000 non-business ZIP codes in the US), or about 0.006% of ZIP codes. And the majority of those are either very small trials (a few miles of line at most) or not yet fully operational. I know personally that there are far more Houston ZIP codes planned than yet installed, for example. And at least a few entries in the database do not appear to exist at all (attracting venture capital?)
The 2007 United Power Line Council map of BPL deployments has far fewer entries than the 2006 map did.
An article that cites this as an explosion is an embarrassment to its publisher, IMHO. It is pretty clear that they ran the article based only on the BPL-media-PR hype they were provided.
On the other hand, TXU does plan to continue their deployment and as many as 2,000,000 homes and businesses in the Houston area may have access to access BPL over the coming years. The "take" rate in other areas appears to be somewhere between 5% and 10%, by anyone's best estimates. Current steadfastedly chooses not to release any figures of how many customers are choosing BPL in their Cincinnati deployment. (From what I have seen, the customers who do take it seem satisfied with its performance, btw, not something I can say about other BPL companies.)
Ed Hare | |
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DigitalDan
join:2007-03-04
Vancouver, BC
| A little clarity on BPL please BPL needs to be considered in 3 segments:
-"Smart Grid" over medium voltage lines.
-Internet Access over medium voltage lines.
-In-building Access over low voltage lines.
Levels and geography need to be considered
My GUESS is "Smart Grid" will be successful, if only
because reading things like power meters does not
require big bandwidth- each meter sending a short stream of
data when polled...how tough can it be? Low Bandwidth!
Latency is a non-issue!
Internet Access over MV is successful overseas.
Why? Europe and China have completely different
electrical grids... A MUCH higher number of subscribers
per transformer - so the economics work.
Berlin appears to be the most "powered by BPL" city.
They even have several Powerline radio stations!
"DROP" ceilings in N.A. commercial buildings are S.O.P.
So why the heck wouldn't you just run a cable? I would.
But that's not the case everywhere.
In North America, the jury's still out... frankly,
suggesting BPL for rural deployments is downright silly.
BUT, the big brains are still experimenting... Motorola
has a "surface wave" technology that looks promising. Time will tell.
The GOOD NEWS: In-building access works really well
and can be the lowest cost solution in many cases.
If a building is concrete, heritage or historical,
COMMERCIAL (not consumer grade) BPL hardware should be looked at. Hotel's, MDU's Campuses, Hospitals. Any
building without drop ceilings.
My point is all the BPL news seems to focus on the "trials
and tribulations" of BPL as a "last mile" technology,
completely ignoring it's a different segment with its own unique set of challenges, versus in-building solutions that do work.
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rf_engineer
join:2003-08-04
USA
| Re: A little clarity on BPL please The only company I knew that was doing surface wave was Corridor Systems. They moved away from access solutions and are focusing on mobile applications. Motorola's current solution is a hybrid wireless backbone and BPL on the LV wiring going into the customer premise. Did they decide to start experimenting with surface wave?
You're right that there is definitely different segments of BPL. I think BPL Internet access is DOA, but grid management will have the most success. Ironically though, the solution to grid management is already out there and proven, it's called PLC, the low bandwidth non-interfering and less costly predecessor to BPL. | |
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BPL 'Ready To Explode' Says Computer World
Sigh is right