DirecTV To Test Powerline Broadband

Note that DirecTV wants to see this test done in a major city. BPL if it succeeds at all will only be in areas that already have broadband internet service, it is not an answer at all for the digital divide.

I don't get it. BPL is broaband over power line. What does a satelite provider have in common with the power company who owns the power lines? What's the power companies motivation share?
Hell the telcos had a piece of legislation in place requiring them to share and they didn't. Why would we think BPL is going to be any different?

Love your Picture...

BPL IS GARBAGE AND WILL WIPE OUT A HUGE PORTION OF RADIO SPECTRUM!!!!!!!!!!!

My point exactly + the interference with HAM radios and what-not. Now..if it came to my city of 12,000 people? I'd love it. We already have broadband, but anything above 1.5 mbit via DSL is unavailable, and cable is outrageously expensive, with their highest speed tier being ONLY 5 mbps.

I clearly remember Destruct TV's Broadband plan before.
...and it failed!

I would like to see the rest of the world get broadband. If this is the way, just don't let it screw up local AM/FM broadcasts.

-Rob

»www.savenetradio.org

they had DirecTV DSL but that was not under Liberty Media. They do have Wi-Fi with a partnership with Eartlink

I think what you are saying is that BPL will wipe out AM radio reception but I'm not clear when you mention FM.
FM radio for broadcast purpose starts around 87 Mhz. I think the highest I've heard for BPL was 54 Mhz.
So FM radio should not be a problem!
But, BPL is a problem! I actually enjoy being able to listen to broadcasts from other countries on the HF or SW bands which BPL will surely destroy.
No, I'm not an amateur (HAM) operator but I know radio.
HF/SW is a proven way of communication all the way around this screwed up world. Show me a cell phone that can talk around the world without any infrastructure and I'll give you a dollar!

Why not go back to reselling DSL? If memory serves there were a bunch here who liked them and very disapointed to see the quick exit. DSLExtreme on many occasions has mentioned that they were even working on FiOS reselling deals.

Of course "any day now" back in 2005 »Reselling FIOS - when?

Test order installed 2005?
»Any update on FIOS availability?

DSLX comment missing from this thread
»Is FIOS sill comming

But if reselling fiber is still possible it opens the door for D* to get back into a future-proof reselling biz.

I used to have DirecTV DSL. I wouldn't go as far as to say their service was particularly noteworthy or that I was "very disappointed by their quick exit". It just worked reliably and I liked the fact that I got a static IP address for the same price other ISPs were charging for dynamic service. I don't think the vast majority of the audience DirecTV was attempting to court cared about static IP addressing.

It just had no synergy at all with their satellite TV service (which I also had at the time). There was no benefit to having both, other than the fact that they showed up on the same bill.

If they couldn't make a go of DirecTV DSL, I don't know why they're trying to stick their nose into BPL now. The only reason bundling is such a hot topic is because people get discounts for combining services. TWC offers me a $15/month discount when I order all three of their services.

With DirecTV DSL, because there were extremely few shared hard costs between DSL and satellite television, they couldn't really offer any noteworthy perks. I don't see how this has changed at all now, and it certainly seems risky for them to get invovled with BPL.

-- Rob

The only thing I can see coming out of this deployment is DBS VOD but like TiVo, they can offer VoD to those who has a box with connectivity. If the DBS box has a RJ45 port they could run a speed test to their server to see if it supports streaming and if it doesn't pull a XBX360 or Vongo and xfer the VOD program before use.

This is what I was hoping E* would do with their MPEG4 DVR since it's RJ45 equipped but after the 2/14 IPTV deployment rumor proved false I am just waiting for something to come around.

If not for my E* contract I would go back to cable just for VOD as there aren't yet enough titles on the XBX360. And after digital simulcasting and other improvements the TWC picture even for the 'lower 100' looks as good or better than DBS, especially on their HD channels.

Bring this RF spectrum Polluter (BPL) to my neighborhood, and I drop any and ALL current subscriptions to my DTV ! Nuff said !

Amen brother Ham!

People could say you are the ones polluting the spectrum, and preventing a broadband technology from being deployed, it goes both ways. Something like this has the potential to bring broadband to millions who can't currently get it, let's not shut it out.

> People could say you are the ones polluting the spectrum,
> and preventing a broadband technology from being
> deployed, it goes both ways.

BPL has chosen to deploy under FCC rules that require that it not cause harmful interference to licensed radio service and that state clearly that BPL must accept any interference caused to it.

To have made the poor engineering choice of designing systems that must operate under those conditions and then to cry foul and claim that those same licensed services are "preventing BPL from BPL from being deployed" is pretty much a contradiction in terms.

Ed Hare, W1RFI
ARRL Lab

You seem to misunderstand the nature of BPL -- it does not use or require the spectrum that it pollutes as a part of its delivery mechanism. Its radiation into that spectrum is an unfortunate byproduct of this shoddy technology. In light of this, your comparison is without merit.

Now if we could somehow tie BPL into global warming that would end it right there.

That doesn't matter. It isn't ALLOWED to interfere and must accept any interference. Whether it needs the spectrum or not has nothing to do with it.

Agreed, but I swear I've read enough posts on this subjects by misinformed people who know nothing of -or- care less about the facts of how BPL is delivered. Cable and DSL must contain themselves within their respective media - and so should BPL or exit the playing field.

Sorry your 1927 technology may be hampered. People like you would be against the telephone because it was ruining the telegraph.

If you think the laws in reference to spectrum are silly and 1927-ish, then please, by all means lobby your congressman and the FCC to have them changed.

Until that time, no matter how silly you think my hobby is, the law should be followed. Interference problems arise from the fact that the BPL system interference complaints are not addressed properly when an issue arises. The law as well as the operating agreement that these companies enter into is not followed or enforced.

We are allocated that spectrum for our "hobby" use as well as the very small chance that you need us to communicate when all else fails. The federal government obviously sees a need for the existence of Amateur Radio. If they thought it outmoded and a waste of bandwidth, they would and could simply squash our existence. Our numbers are small and getting smaller.

Instead, the Department of Homeland Security is funding & outfitting countless Amateur Radio Disaster Services groups around the country as we speak. Again, there is a need.

You can be assured that if MY amateur station was interfering with BPL service locally, I WOULD respond to the interference complaint and do all that I could to eliminate it. The same cannot be said for the BPL trials run to date.

People get so accustomed to modern life amenities like the internet, telephone, and email that many forget it simply takes a small misfortune or failure in infrastructure to have those comforts removed. Then what is left? The self-sufficient volunteer amateur radio operator.

I truly hope that you will never need our services in your lifetime, but if you do, we will all gladly assist you with a smile.

P.S.-I can and do send email & short text messages over the radio...I don't believe email existed in 1927. I could be wrong though. I am only 27 years old.

I don't think anybody is arguing with you on those things, at least I'm not. What I'm saying is this technology has the potential to bring broadband to many who would otherwise be without it, and in this day and age, the internet is as important as the phone, or a radio or tv, and in times of crisis, can keep functioning when other means have been shut down. I think we can find a way for both to coexist.

We can agree on that for sure. I LOVE the internet. I'm all for everyone getting it. Even over BPL. I just wish that they would stick to their operating agreements and deal with interference the same as I am legally required to.

Now I have a question reguard ham and bpl. the one major arguement I seen is if bpl is allowed we are all screwed because ham operators wont be able to convey messages etc, in a diaster. Lets face it when telephone lines go down and cell towers are overloaded there is only one way to communicate out side the diaster area that is with ham radios. So here is my question anyway, if a diaster happened where i lived I can tellyou bpl would not be an issue as there woul be no power . no power no bpl. Also there is not that many power companies out there who want ot impleament bpl so what is the big deal. FPL (florida power and Light) Has one of the biggest fiber optics networks in the state yet has no plans to do bpl. this is almost like the little boy who cried wolf. BPL BPL BPL it will destroy us all, yet people look around and dont see bpl, so they ignore you and go on to there day to day business.

Not this tired argument again.

Again, if BPL died in the disaster area, there would be no problem IN THAT AREA! If the receiving station has BPL in the area, they won't be able to hear the station in the disaster area.

Do you propose shutting down all BPL services in the event of a disaster? That would be close to year round in this country.

I'll even add that if there was another service that interfered with someone's TV or cell phone, they would be crying how they couldn't watch Jerry Springer or call their friend to chit chat.

Yes but the difference is that the major of the us population uses cell phones and tv. Now I am sure if ham people were the majority then there would be no interfering bpl. But the fact is is that ham operators are in the minority.

> I think we can find a way for both to coexist.

Actually, on behalf of ARRL, I have been working to do just that.

I first must note, however, that calling Amateur Radio a "1927 technology" is not going to accomplish coexistance in any form. Amateur Radio uses a wide variety of operating modes, from simple Morse code through digital, television and even satellites, with communications satellites built and lauched by hams. And we won't even get into the public-service value of Amateur Radio. That sort of language is intended to be inflammatory. It bad enough when some of the BPL organizations use terms like "armchair amateurs using vacuum tube technology," but if we are to have a rational discussion, such trolling should not be used here.

For BPL to coexist with licensed radio services, it simply has to avoid any and all spectrum that is use near it (typically a few hundred feet to as much as a mile away from wires carrying BPL). BPL operating at the FCC limits can be as much as 60 dB stronger than the local noise floor. (That is a factor or 1,000,000X power).

To avoid interference, BPL must filter the spectrum it doesn't use to a good-enough degree that it doesn't cause objectionable noise to the nearby use of radio spectrum. (For a good example of what "objectionable" means, ask yourself how much noise you would tolerate on your routine use of your home telephone.)

There has been progress made on the coexistance front. To date, Amperion, Current Technologies, Motorola (now out of the access BPL market), Mitsubishi (now out of the North Amercian BPL market), Corinex, IBEC and Kaicom -- most BPL manufacturers, are actively working with ARRL on interference mitigation, and trying different system configurations and designs. (Main.net is not yet actively working with ARRL, but recently, one of their engineers approached me to note that their new systems are an improvement over what was seen in Manassas, so ARRL and Main.net are basically talking about working together.) At this point, most, but not all, BPL manufacturers are working with ARRL toward coexistance with Amateur Radio.

The results have been encouraging. First out of that gate was HomePlug technology, which implemented its first-generation product with spectral masks to protect Amateur Radio, and has maintained that design technique through two generations, into HomePlug AV, the 200 Mb/s technology. (See »p1k.arrl.org/~ehare/bpl/ ··· ARRL.pdf).

Current Technologies, the BPL manufacturer whose equipment is being used in Cincinnati, OH and Dallas, TX uses HomePlug technology on the 240-volt wiring, and 32-48 MHz on overhead power lines. The result? In both cities, BPL is deploying without major interference problems.

DS2, a BPL-chipset manufacturer, has also worked closely with ARRL, as have many of its customers, making modems using DS2 ICs. DS2 improved the performance of its filtering, with the result that ARRL site visits to several DS2-based areas (Houston, TX; Springfield, MA;Bowling Green, OH and San Diego, CA) showed that the improved notching significantly improved the EMC performance of the system, to the point that mobile Amateur Radio operation, and presumably most fixed operation, was not seeing widespread harmful interference.

There is still work to go. In most cases, these improvements have not been demonstrated by all of the BPL manufacturers in larger deployments. (Cincinatti, Dallas and Houston are pretty large at this point, so those are exceptions). BPL organizations like UPLC.org have not (yet?) demonstrated any real spirit of mutual cooperation, and ARRL does not work with them the way it does with HomePlug, the Home Phone Networking Alliance, the DSL committees and the National Cable Telecommunications Society, to name a few.

Organizationally, the industry is missing the EMC boat, and UPLC is doing little or nothing to try to open that door, despite some prodding from some of its member companies. But ARRL has been able to an end run around that general non-cooperative approach and directly approach many of the BPL manufacturers, integrators and electric utilities and accomplish a start of what it has been able to do for other industries such as cable and DSL -- prevent most interference before it happens, and develop solutions for the remainder.

Another major hole thus far is in the industry standards area. There are successful models for BPL deployment, but the industry has generally blocked the inclusion of those models in industry standards. (Although it does remain to be seen how these standards hold up to the ballot process. Under the IEEE model, the group that votes on a standard is not necessarily the same group that created it.)

I must add that all of the above applies to Amateur Radio spectrum. So far, none of the BPL operations are making any attempt to avoid the use of the international shortwave broadcast bands. The SW listeners, however, are not filing complaints, but most may not know what the noise source is, know that they can complain or want to literally make a federal case out of noise on their SW listening.

Ed Hare, W1RFI
ARRL Laboratory
225 Main St
Newington, CT 06111
Tel: 860-594-0318
Web: »www.arrl.org/bpl

Great post... Proud ARRL member here! Long live Amateur Radio and 73!

-Tzale

First off, BPL will NOT serve rural communities. It will overlap were DSL, fiber and cable are right now. It costs too much to send it out too far.

Second, keeping ham radio only around in crisis is like you not doing emergency training until an accident happens. Imagine what would happen if Amtrak mandated no emergency drills because they take up too much time and cost too much.

> First off, BPL will NOT serve rural communities. It will
> overlap were DSL, fiber and cable are right now. It
> costs too much to send it out too far.

IBEC is making a business go of selling BPL to rural areas, primarily through helping rural utilities get subsidized RUS loans. The Central Virginia Electic Co-op is building a fairly large commercial system in and around Colleen, VA.

I was just there, and it truly is rural, complete with dirt roads with route numbers and lots of cow pastures. Most of the electric lines run in between farms, so I wasn't able to get to all areas of the system.

While some of the really remote roads may not get BPL, the system there is extended well past the rural-community center of town.

> Second, keeping ham radio only around in crisis is like
> you not doing emergency training until an accident
> happens. Imagine what would happen if Amtrak mandated no
> emergency drills because they take up too much time and
> cost too much.

Few people would invest in ham radio if the only time they could use it was when there was an actual emergency to deal with. Hams put together stations because they get to use them regularly. The fact that when needed, they can sometimes provide the ONLY communication out of a real disaster area is a benefit of the whole package.

Ed

The internet is for porn not disaster relief.

If this is the extent of you knowledge and understanding of Amateur Radio as it exists in 2007, then you have obviously done no research at all prior to posting. While the physics that makes HF radio such a valuable resource has not and will not change, the technology that utilizes this resource and radio amateurs' adoption and furthering of that technology is evident to those who might make the effort to look. If you really think that those of us who are passionate about radio communication would express that passion only in terms of an antique implementation of the underlying technology, then you are mistaken and your post is irrelevant.

Once upon a time, I had the bestest DSL service ever. It was only 1.0 Mbps, but it was symmetrical. And it came with a static IP address at no extra charge. That charge was $50/mo. That's 25 times as fast downstream, and 35 times as fast as the best upstream rates that I ever got from a "56k" POTS modem, for only 2 times the price. Although there was no SLA, my uptime was well over 99%. I was happy.

Then DirecTV stepped into the picture. I must admit that they were state of the art...at billing, that is. They didn't seem to care about anything besides that. But they had billing working like a charm, even after they quit service, they just kept on billing and billing.

No, DirecTV will not be seeing another cent of my money. They had their chance and blew it. Abandoning their DirecPC customers is yet another reminder of how little they care about maintaining business relationships. I wouldn't go to them for satellite TV service either.

The ONLY time I would ever get DTV - or any satellite based "service" - would be if I were in the sticks, and it was my only option. I have no other interest in them. Period.

Now...assuming i'm in the sticks....how the #(%$#)$@# do they plan on providing me DSL, BPL, Fiber, Underwear Gnomes, etc etc?

Sorry....i'll keep my HFC network(s) for the Net' and Video....

I hope this happens and is successful. This would mean more competition, which creates more jobs and helps the consumer.

Giving more people better access to the internet is indeed commendable - but that does not mean we have to bless any old technology that comes along without weighing the pros and cons - and this BPL technology has more cons than pros to say the least!

The only drawback to many of DirecTV's broadband offering is their pricing.

I know at least from their Satellite offerings, the equipment is expensive to purchase up front to save 40 bucks a month or it's more expensive per month (around 100 bucks a month). Granted, it works pretty much anywhere you have a clear view of the sky...but for them to be competitive, there must be a decrease in price (around the 50 dollar mark).

Up until March of this year I was a Hughesnet and Directv customer, using a tripod and dish with my Motorhome. It served it's purpose. The only reason anyone would do this is if they had no choice. Like cutting off your have to get free.

I now have TWC for TV and their Internet [Roadrunner].
Still there is the occasional "Burp" in both, but they are half the price of Satellite.

When I first heard of BPL I thought, oh boy, won't that make things easier. But the drawbacks and limitations make if impractical. It still doesn't help those in the wilderness areas of America.

This press release may have been put out for some other reason then to tell people what will be coming down the pike. It may have just filled an empty spot in the press.

To try to compete with Cable and DSL at this point would be suicide financially. They will of course be able to glum tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars out of various cities to do tests. Fraud and deception.
BS at internet speeds. It will never come to pass for those who really need it.

Here is a way to solve BPL issue. Maybe they need to rid VHF channels 2,3,4 for BPL. Digital TV does not work that good on these lower vhf channels anyway and their are currently limited ammount of dtv channels in this range because of electrical interference. Problem solved!!!Reallocate digital tv channels using channel 2-4 frequency after February 2009 and assign it to unused television spectrum. Also assign channels 2-4 for as part of the ISM/Un-license Band.