Keeping a jaundiced eye on the corporate media.
Cool. Finally, a cheap way of doing this on the horizon:
TOKYO - The common electric socket will serve as your home’s connection to broadband with a new chip developed by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. — doing away with all the Ethernet cables or the hassle of hooking up to a wireless network device.
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I’m curious as to why you think this will be so ‘cheap’?
(If I understand things correctly) DSL comes into your home on the phone lines. Phone lines are almost as ubiquitous as power lines. But for DSL to be ‘worth it’, you have to be within a relatively short distance (a mile or two) from the ‘central office’. In a bigger city, that’s no big deal, but in rural areas that beomes the problem.
I assume that ‘broadband through the power lines’ will need to have something similar to this ‘central office’ contruct.
I guess that marginally, one more option will tend to drive costs down some, but I don’t expect that to be a dramatic difference. My guess would be that this service (if it ever happens) will be in the same $25 to $45 per month that DSL and Cable now cost.
The real deal here is getting broadband out to *everybody*. It’s been tested for 3 years now in the States and works like a champ. Why is it not being rolled out? In part because HAM radio operators claim (with no basis in fact) that internet over power line will interfere with them. Bastards.
No Scott,
you are wrong. I am a (inactive) HAM radio operator. The HF frequency range between 3-30MHz is the most valuable natural resource for cheap world wide communication, because radio signals within that range can reliably reflect off the ionosphere.
With the right ionospheric conditions, you can send a signal around the world with just a few watts of power. Radio amateurs call this QRP operation, and it’s quite popular.
The HF frequency range is so precious that every half kHz is divided up and assigned to some worldwide service, not just shortwave radio.
What has changed is, the US of A doesn’t need the HF-range anymore since they can rely on satellite communication. Especially third world countries don’t have that luxury and still need shortwave (HF) communication to reach rural areas or ships at sea.
The broadband-over-powerline technology is pumping endless kilowatts in exactly that frequency range into the sky, it’s like poisoning a well that is being used by other (poor) people.
But I guess that’s the American way:
Screw the world as long as I can get free porn in rural Kentucky.
Besides, the reason why it didn’t take off is because of the cost of the repeater stations. Since the powerlines radiate like giant antennas, the signal loses power quickly and needs to be refreshed every few kilometers.
So this is a technology with (as far as I can see) no particular ‘big’ benefit, and (taking LRRR’s word for it) a significant downside.
What’s *really* going on here?
You people are missing the point. This technology (and other far superior technologies) are meant to move data around the home from room to room. It is not meant to be the delivery medium for broadband services TO the home.
dh,
I did a rtfa, and you are right. This is not about BPL (broadband over powerline) technology.
I just got cranky when I read the “bastards” comment and wrote a reply without reading the article.
The whole thing doesn’t make much sense to me, there is already cheap wireless broadband technology available for in-house broadband. Short-range (in-house) data transmission over powerlines exists for 25+ years, e.g. X10 devices. The examples they are suggesting (kitchen-devices) don’t need broadband to signal they are out of eggs, X10-speed is sufficient.
Do people really need hi-speed internet for a fridge? Very strange.
And going back to Susie’s “cheap” comment, how much is this great ‘feature’ going to add to the price of my fridge?