 
BigCreek
God Is Good.
Premium
join:2002-06-25
Heber Springs, AR | An interesting turn of events ... "ARRL enthused about new Motorola BPL technology"
This might actually breathe new life into BPL. We'll see. | |
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Alex G Bell
join:2002-07-02
Boston, MA
edit:
May 27th, @11:48AM
|  Another "Rube Goldberg" Idea
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Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02
Host:
Road Runner
PC gaming GAMES
PC gaming Tech
| Re: Another "Rube Goldberg" Idea I think Bbcause the main goal isn't to offer broadband, it's to integrate smart technology into utility networks for monitoring, then sell broadband as a side-revenue stream where appiicable.....
I think most of these utilities are more excited over the networking monitoring capabilities of these networks than the consumer broadband portion.
It is, and always has been, a niche solution. Not Powell's "great broadband hope". | |
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BPL for all
@optonline.net
|  Re: Another "Rube Goldberg" Idea
Ambient's Most Comprehensive Event Demonstration to Date
Wednesday May 18, 8:29 am ET
Demo at UTC Telecom 2005 to Include New Coupler and Node Designs
BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 18, 2005--Ambient Corporation (OTCBB: ABTG - News), a leader in Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) solutions, announced today its planned demonstration for United Telecom Council's (UTC) UTC Telecom 2005 Conference, May 22 - 25 in Long Beach, California. The UTC Conference is a telecommunications and information technology trade association event for utility, energy and other critical infrastructure companies.
Ambient will be located at booth 621 where it will have multiple demonstrations, including VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), an NMS (Network Management System), a load control/monitoring application, video surveillance and video conferencing. Utility application enablement will be a focus of Ambient's demonstration and has long been part of Ambient's core strategic direction. As utility decision makers from all over North America attend UTC, this is the ideal location for demonstrating Ambient's solutions.
Ambient will also demonstrate its latest version of its X-Node which contains both Generation 1 (45Mbps) and Generation 2 (200Mbps) BPL chipsets as well as 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi. This demonstrates Ambient's flexible "last mile" architecture. | |
| | | | Goldengamego
Premium
join:2004-02-22
Okemos, MI | Can someone please IP BAN this asshat already?
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Because Goldengamegod won't fit:p | |
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Alex G Bell
join:2002-07-02
Boston, MA
| I see what you mean--then they would not have to pay union-scale meter readers anymore. Anything to save a buck (don't expect any bill reduction to come of it, however, as it will all go to the CEO's salary).
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"Remember, Comrade, people who are willing to destroy an efficient telephone system may not be playing with a full deck." | |
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tech geek
|  Re: Another "Rube Goldberg" Idea
BROADBAND VOICE OVER INTERNET TELEPHONY (VOIP) already killed the landline phone industry, my friend,.... !!!
TELEVISION and VIDEO-CALLING via BROADBAND ACCESS is the next killer application that will revolutionized the century old communications system !!! | |
| | | cuindy
join:2000-07-21
Aurora, OH
| Re: lolsaid by thongsai  :good point.. if u can get wireless close enough why not go all the way? I would guess the "wireless" setup they are using is very high speed and cost big bucks. This would make the end user units expense. Plus, electric power lines tend to run in straight lines which make line of sight simple. A lot of new subdivisions have buried power lines. In home wireless over a large area would need line of sight and external antennas. You could do an apartment complex with one node.
Also, if they support the power companies energy management setup they might get free or very cheap use of the poles and wires. My power company is offering me $5.00 off during the summer months if the can control my use of A/C during peak demand. | |
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dsl_joe
@ipltin.ameritech | Re: lol It does sound like Cellular Internet  | |
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plk
bo may sleep in loft
Premium
join:2002-04-20
Ogden, IA
edit:
May 27th, @12:27PM
| Define medium voltage It depends on what they mean by medium voltage. If they have to have a wireless node at every transformer, then its a wash.
I have not looked that closely, but I think only 10 to 15 homes are on a transformer, maybe less. That's a lot of wireless nodes to contend with.
In the country, every house has a transformer and the country is the untapped market for the most part.
I sure hope this wireless via natural gas lines pans out.
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Thermaltake 2000a/Asus P4C-e/p4 3.4/ocz3500 2x512/WD.2x200g/raptor2x74 raid 0/ATI 9600/APC sua 1500/Logitech z-680/ Samsung 213t LCD/MX 1000 | |
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hdman
Flt Rider
Premium
join:2003-11-25
Appleton, WI
 ·Alltel Axess
| Re: Define medium voltage MV is between 600V and 15KV...although some say 24kV depending on the area of teh country. Anyway, there is only ONE transformer per home unless there is a cluster of homes a distance from the utility line, then they will feed 3-4 homes off one transformer. Remember, they stated this is a LOW voltage technology, or under 600VAC. Those wires in front of your house are typically at 4160V, then it is transformed to 220V and brought into the home, so at the pole they would need to put this wireless receive. Hence my point, why bother calling it "BPL" when it is only from the pole to the house??
Just an opinion....
HDMan
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Thank GOD the election is over and Bush won!!! | |
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hdman
Flt Rider
Premium
join:2003-11-25
Appleton, WI
·Alltel Axess
| Looks good....slightly The only problem I see is that this only works on LV, which means they have to go wireless ALL THE WAY TO YOUR POLE. This does not use a MV (Medium Voltage) backplane at all. The problem is that just about ANY wiring in front of you home is MV, which is 600V to 15KV. Typically, in front of your home is 4160V. So I agree with the statement, if they are coming wireless all the way to pole in front of your house, why not just go wireless the WHOLE way into the home???
HDman
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Thank GOD the election is over and Bush won!!! | |
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blahblehmeh
@dilyns.com | Re: Looks good....slightly Coming all the way to the home means expensive end user equitment (radio, ant etc). With this bpl solution you only have to sell (or rent) them a modem. | |
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hdman
Flt Rider
Premium
join:2003-11-25
Appleton, WI
·Alltel Axess
| Re: Looks good....slightly But they would have to put the transformer pad mounted receiver on each transformer and there is typically one transformer per house!! It may be cheaper for the consumer, but if they have to put the expensive part on the pole anyway, for each house, they will have to pass that cost to us somehow.....
HDMan
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Thank GOD the election is over and Bush won!!! | |
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RadioDoc
Sortofadog
Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11
Chicago, IL
 ·AT&T Midwest
| Re: Looks good....slightly One transformer per house in "the country", maybe, but in more densely populated areas it's more like 5-10 houses per transformer. You are almost certainly not going to see this outside of metro areas.
Either way it's not a terribly efficient network solution. As Karl pointed out above, this is more for internal utility management purposes with "the internets" riding along on idle bandwidth. | |
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rmrper
@169.144.x.x
| Re: Looks good....slightly If it's not coming to rural areas why should anyone care? I live in a metro area, and there is a transformer in my neighbors front yard. They do serve 10 houses or so each, but guess what? I already have Comcast HSI, I can get Verizon DSL, and later this year I should be able to get FIOS. So, I'd have to agree that this may be more useful for utility management than anything. | |
| w2co
join:2003-07-16
Longmont, CO
| Nice try but... The overall interference potential would be reduced as far as ionospheric propagated signal strengths, however the interference potential to the local neighborhood would still be very high. All it would take is one pole mounted device to disrupt the entire block and farther because the existing wiring from the pole to the houses and the internal wiring in the houses would still be radiating unwanted interference. Now it also would not protect anyone from interference into the system from any CBer down the street either. Remember as little as 5watts transmitted at frequencies anywhere from 1 to 30Mhz will disrupt BPL locally. Amateur radio stations can and do transmit many times this power on a regular basis, so I still don't see it working in this way. Nice try Motorola but no cigar. | |
| | NetDroid2
join:2004-08-16
Excelsior, MN
| Re: Nice try but... If this solution does actually partially work.
Could they make a ton of money if they could get it to work with that other hyped standard, WiMax?
That's the only way I can see that even half way working.
WiMax to the pole then BPL to the home.
Although it already sounds like the consumer grade BPL we can already use for networking. | |
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RadioDoc
Sortofadog
Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11
Chicago, IL
·AT&T Midwest
| It's basically two existing technologies tied together: Motorola's "Canopy" wireless system connected to a modified "Homeplug" hub at the transformer and modems at each customer. The 110/220v service drop is usually triaxial and as such does not radiate much of anything. The Homeplug "BPL" technology has been around for years.
In fact, this is hardly "BPL" as most of those stock-swindle fluffers would define it.
The biggest problem with traditional "BPL" is the segments on the utility side of the local service transformer. Those distribution lines are excellent longwire antennas. | |
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Just_the_facts
@boeing.com
| It may not be perfect, but it will be much better than the other BPL approaches. The lines from the transformer to the house are generally twisted. Motorola is feeding between a hot and return, so the twist will reduce the radiation quite a bit. Also, in general, they should be coupling much less power onto a line that is much shorter, since now they are only exciting between the transformer and the house. Lower power level, shorter line, and twisted line together will make a very large difference in both susceptibility and radiation. Also, the ham bands (and I suspect the CB band) will be hard filtered.
Think this is going to work! | |
| | | mc5w
join:2002-06-14
Independence, OH
| Re: Nice try but... 4160 volts is an obsolete distribution voltage. Actually, anything less than 7,200Y12,470 volts is obsolete - 6640Y11,500 is a bit of a quibble. Most distribution systems nowdays are 7,200Y12,470 volts to 19,920Y34,500 volts.
At any rate, this marriage between wireless and homeplug ( or alternatively, DOCSIS and homeplug ) seems to solve the voltage isolation problem and that aluminum siding can bollux up radio load control and automatic reading. Comverge makes a load/capacitor controller that works on the 1-way pager principle and AMR devices that work on the 2-way pager principle.
It probably will never compete for broadband via DSL, satellite, or CATV - I think that we should call this technology mediumband or middleband instead of broadband because of the slow data rate. It certainly would be faster than dialup.
Also, I have seen a meter adapter for AMR that contains prots for Homeplug, DOCSIS, and Ethernet. This is basically a multiple technology modem. | |
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Motorola's BPL Solution
