Broadband internet via power lines

[Erwin]

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/te...et-power_x.htm

"From those outlets pour streams of digital video, interactive games, online radio stations and services familiar to people who use cable or telephone modems to get high-speed Internet connections. This technology that delivers broadband through ordinary electric wiring should be commercially available to some consumers this year...."

"The only extra equipment a consumer needs is a modem that plugs into an electric outlet and connects to a computer or Internet gadget. About the size of a deck of cards and costing less than $70, the power line modems are already in stores for use in home computer networks that use electric wiring.

The wiring in the test home is more than 40 years old and required no changes besides the modems, Birnbaum said."

Interesting... I know you could use power wiring for networking, but internet access too... good idea really, since every house has it.

[Stu]

This has been around for a few years now, I know my local electrical company tried a scheme in 1998.
Not sure what the state of play is now, I think the largest problem was getting past the Sub Transformers, although they did achieve some success.

http://members.lycos.co.uk/sixfour/f...etwo/neeb.html

this link shows it was cancelled due to lack of funds

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/6664.html

[AWS]

This is being tested in Washinton and Vermont. There are about 100 homes in each test town hooked up. Speeds are in 1/2meg range now. Problem with this in the U.S. is the way the current is carried and modulated. Nodes are setup so every 60 houses come off a seperate transformer. Each of these nodes would have to have something to seperate power from internet and from what I've read these converters are expensive and ROI would not be enough to implement this.
There is some success overseas where the power grid is setup different with thousands of homes on one node.

[EvilLS1]

I hope they come up with something thats availible everywhere soon.. I'm using a one way DirecPC satellite right now and it sucks. Sometimes its fast, but sometimes ya can't even connect at all.