Broadband Over Powerline Astroturf

The NMRC is nothing more than an industry lobbying front and PR mouthpiece (aka Astroturf). The BPL industry shills have been making the same ridiculous claim for the past several years. 2003, 2004, 2005, it's still not the year for BPL, and never will be. It's a turkey. Regardless, it is increasingly apparent that the BPL industry is comprised of the clueless and incompetent when it comes to Internet broadband. The list of BPL failures grows daily. No traction, defective technology, bad press. It's a desperate industry.

BPL is junk no matter how many hyped-up press releases with bogus claims are issued. The biggest laugh in this one, the claim that a quarter million homes had the opportunity to choose BPL. Looks like 99.99% must have said no to the offer. What a joke.

Kudos to BBR and others in the media for exposing these phony special interest lobbying fronts. Well done.

Well, why don't you take your OBVIOSULY superior intelligence and help these folks out?

You surely could make a few million off consulting fees alone.

"Well, why don't you take your OBVIOSULY superior intelligence and help these folks out?"

Because you cannot help out a naturally flawed technology.
Why don't you read up on the technology and all of it's problems, not just flame off on the things you know nothing about. Jeeze! it's people like you who are the reason for this crappy technology and why it's made it this far in the US. What a waste of time and money - too bad this money will need to be paid back to the uninformed investors. Guess who will end up paying it back via higher bills.

notsodumb
anonymous
duke-energy.com
reply to vote4change
Ahh the scream of the ignorant.
--- X

Ah the meaningless comment direct from Duke Energy one of the BPL companies driven by greed.

The Duke plan is to install the BPL system then make all the ratepayers pick up the tab.

»charlotte.bizjournals.co ··· ry2.html

No cost to Duke only profits and destruction of the spectrum.

To bad they for got the little tidbit about how the plug was pulled on the Manassas BPL situation because of the high cost and problems.

R Collins

p.s. my truck is bigger then your truck cause my mommy said so

The plug was not pulled on Manassas, they're just on their second partner/contractor. The following were shut down:

Cedar Rapids, Iowa

The system was deactivated by the carrier after a ham filed interference complaints. The carrier attempted to resolve the interference issues, but after 11 weeks or so, the interference was still unresolved. The FCC stepped in and the carrier voluntarily deactivated the system.

Penn Yan, New York

The system had open interference complaints, and the system integrator decided to discontinue the BPL trial and migrate to wireless.

Raleigh, North Carolina

The carrier announced deactivation of the system which they claim was a successful trial. The system had numerous interference complaints lodged, however, most of which were unresolved at the time of the announcement. It's arguable whether this shut down was due to interference, but the FCC never officially dismissed the interference complaints.

Lets all hope this BPL crap falls to the bottom of the ocean!!!!!!!

NO ONE WANTS IT!!!!!!! (Especially those of us that love listening to .530 - 70Mhz!!! (A HELL OF ALOT OF SPECTRUM!!)

What is with the double "the New Millennium Research Council is for hire"? Out of ideas how to express it differently?

or will it just be certain areas.

How about they just offer remote DSLAMS or wireless or cable lines in remote areas? BPL sounds like to me it can damage you and your PC.

Rob

»www.robfwb.com - the chat room IS open!

...they're electric power companies, not telco's or cable companies. Power lines are what they have, and they see them as their entry into the lucrative (?) broadband internet business.

Never mind the negative effects to public safety, aircraft and radio amateurs. Never mind the near certainty their customers will experience frequent service interruptions when licensed transmitters are in operation. (FYI, a 1500 Watt output CW signal into a 10db gain antenna can generate really impressive field strengths.)

BPL opponents haven't needed to astroturf to make their case: the Florida hurricanes of last summer and the recent tsunami in Asia have demonstrated the importance of HF communications, even in this age of cell phones and the Internet.

73
KQ3T

I am going to call BS on that one. Cell phones still worked during the tsunami.When the Florida hurricanes happened how did the old hams help ? Most of the state still had telephone access and the network was so large that carriers still worked for the cell phones.

And just to add to the fact that there are other ways of communication with out using hams, i.e satellite phones(Which are popular in Asia) used by the news media.

Ham is ancient let it go. We need more competition for internet and if BPL is going to give us a big upload speed then I find it more beneficial to all of us. Unlike hams which are used only by a niche certain percent of the population.

BPL could technically lobby for HF spectrum if it actually used it for providing service. The fact is it doesn't, it merely pollutes it. As such, it needlessly wastes wireless spectrum. We can have broadband and wireless HF spectrum. BPL is not needed to provide more broadband or competition as the barriers to this are political, not technical.

Amateur radio is more than emergency or hobbyist communications. It's also about education and experimentation and is much like a natural resource available to the public. Cell phone networks aren't nearly as resilient as they used to be and satellite communications isn't very cost effective. There's always a need for alternate communications capabilities. HF provides a simple, infrastructureless, cost-effective means of communicating around the world when everything else is congested or has failed.

I also call BS on the value of the Ham's during the recent hurricane season. Not only did the cell system stay up, but so did the wireline broadband networks. Progress Energy/Telecom, that operates a multi-state multi-thousand route mile fiber-based system DID NOT DROP A SINGLE CIRCUIT DURING THE ENTIRE HURRICANE SEASON, AND LOST ONLY ONE SEGMENT OF FIBER CABLE.
I agree. The "public good" value of the Ham's has come and gone. Let's look at this lobby as what it is, a group of strident hobbyists with a lot of time on their hands, and whose time has come an gone.

( Note that Progress Energy ran a test BPL site and deactivated it while it had active interference complaints. )

The "public good" of ham radio continues today, you just fail to see it or chose to ignore it. Regardless of your perception of ham radio's value during the hurricane or any event, it makes no sense for BPL to wreck 30 Mhz of prime wireless space, especially when there are hundreds of Mhz of spectrum available for unlicensed broadband use at much high power levels. Let's look at BPL for what it is, a bad solution attempting to carry broadband data on a medium never suited for broadband, pushed by hype and the fallacy of rural coverage and cheaper service.

I'll I did was try to connect to the local BPL network and KA-POW!!!!! now look at me I mean youch it hurts.

Side affects are generally mild and may include: Headache, Bleeding, Anal Leakage and Death.
Erections lasting for more than four hours require immediate medical attention.
Do not take BPL if you are a Ham Operator or Emergency personal as a sudden loss of frequency may result.

Blah Blah Blah

Flushls

the day CABLE/DSL rates will surely go down... and the death of WW2 hamsters hobby with proliferation of satellite phone technology !!!

Cable/DSL lobbyist continnued backhole support of HAMSTER group to fight their competitor is a shame... !!!

In the end broadband consumers will still win !!!

200mbps Broadband over powerlines will win the race !!!

Same guy again

do you EVEN read the posts? people arent buying your BS
i will NEVER get BPL if it EVER becomes available just because you had to post unproven propaganda in here, i will stay on DIALUP if i have to
BPLThe future interfering technology of your, Cell phone, Satilight, Cordless phone, PDA, FM radio, PACE MAKER, ECT
BPL THE "FUTURE OF BROADBAND" IN AMERICA (because some people are stupid enough to believe in it)Not responsible for any, but not limited to: smoldering pets(DEAD HAMSTERS), sterilized people, or half baked equipment, WARRANTED equipment void if not properly covered in aluminum foil

Electricity on power lines is at 66 hertz, let that power travel all it wants. All they are doing is sending more freqs down the line, same thing they do with copper phone lines. The line bleed is higher since the amount of power going thru the lines is so much greater. I think they can tweak the bleedout and make everyone happy. Only a true idiot would NOT support the research into this. So many of you want muni ran ISP's now is your chance. Also it is very strange to see BBR post a article about the bad stuff from BPL, and then the same week try to make muni ran fiber sound like a good idea.

Makes you wonder who is paying the BBR bills?????????????

Bottom line BPL should be explored, the technology is getting much better and the complaints are few. Uf they get the process to run smooth, and the cost for upkeep and upgrades is low then I would support this as a option to muni ran tax dollar wasteing fiber.

Why don't you use that little search button and read the posts of "rf-engineer" who explained, in great detail, what BPL does and its inherent problems.

This is NOT new tech, it has been tried before and has failed multiple times for various reasons.

BBR's bills are not paid by the telcos or cable companies. If you think they are, read some of the forum posts when complaints are made (caps and faulty email servers are good searches.)

justncredible? - yeah, the fact that there isn't a single technically accurate fact in your entire post! Have you read anything about this technology before posting? With support like this, BPL is certainly doomed.

BPL has been researched and explored for years. It's not like this is nuclear fission. Your explanation of the power transmission frequency (which is actually 60 hertz) and BPL data transmission is incredibly simplistic and wrong. You can't "tweak" radiation from an unshielded line that is multiple wavelengths long, you just relocate the frequencies so you hopefully don't interfere with anyone. But this technique runs into problems as the bandwidth needs of the system go up because you need to run more frequencies on the line. This isn't the same as copper twisted pair as you claim - that medium is naturally self-shielding and doesn't have the problems that BPL does.

Munis can use wireless. Fiber costs significantly more right now, but it's a future-proof solution. BPL is trying to solve an unsolvable physics problem with marketing, hype, and political smoke and mirrors games.

I think my poin is that BPL with noise mitigation in place can cost about $10k per mile about what I spend on Fibre.

Flushls

BPL ready to come of age say NMRC

25 February 2005 - Broadband over powerline (BPL) technology may be "primed for real growth in 2005 and beyond" across the US, according to a new white paper released today by the New Millennium Research Council (NMRC).

BPL transmits high-speed communications services, including the Internet, over the existing electric infrastructure using adoptive technologies. Trials and actual commercial deployments of BPL systems are on the rise in the US, with over 20 projects in operation in 2004.

The NMRC white paper suggested that electric utilities across the US are deploying the necessary technology to provide broadband and other advanced communications services, such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), via the power lines.

Industry representatives at a press conference yesterday believed that BPL could dramatically change the landscape of the broadband market, offering new forms of competition and delivering a service to remote areas.

Joseph E. Fergus, president and CEO of COMTek, one of the BPL companies profiled in the report, said: "BPL isn't the answer for every community, and, in some cases, the technology is likely to be blended with other broadband platforms in order to provide the widest possible coverage. But the bottom line is unmistakeable: BPL is finally here in a real way that will touch the lives of millions of additional US consumers and businesses in 2005 and beyond."

Though BPL is in its infancy with regard to deployment in the US, it is available in sections of New York City and, in what is the first city wide commercial BPL network in the US, the suburban Washington D.C. community of Manassas, Virginia.

from »pepei.pennnet.com/Articl ··· 2076&p=6

Another point to ponder.

Internet Access Over Power Lines Creates Radio Interference

The Federal Communications Commission is looking into complaints from amateur radio operators about the use of electrical power lines for providing broadband internet service, a concept known as BPL, for Broadband over Power Lines. Many power companies and some members of the commission see this as a promising technology that could be especially useful in getting such service to remote rural areas at a reasonable price. But the cost could be high in terms of radio interference.
Power lines can also be viewed as long antennas. The energy running through them transmits signals out around the lines. In cases where the signals interfere with other services that rely on the same frequencies there can be what the FCC terms harmful interference.
This is not permitted under the FCC rules...........etc etc.......

»www1.voanews.com/article ··· 0DB17713

Microsoft on Thursday filed 117 civil lawsuits against alleged phishers trying to scam Microsoft customers out of personal information such as credit card numbers.

The lawsuits, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, seek to identify large-scale scam operations and recover damages from so-called phishing operations.

Source : http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/03/31/HNmsfilesphishingsuits_1.html

I'd like to think this is a GOOD THING that MS is doing......However in my mind,i know its probably just to extract $$$ (But still the effort is appreaciated to get back @ these losers)