A new form of broadband is coming to Texas. Broadband by power line is just that; high-speed internet over the normal powerlines that already run into practically every house. In all honesty I have no idea if this is a big deal or not, but it is pretty interesting and it bypasses the problems that the two main other forms of broadband (DSL and Cable) have, which are distance and customer load. BPL speeds are on the lower end of broadband (although most users couldn't possibly notice the difference) so the service is comparable to the DSL that is offered most often, but slightly more expensive. However, this doesn't mean it's destined to fail. Homes may not have cable or telephones, but they do have power by default, which means BPL has practically a 100% built-in infrastructure, and that's a hell of an edge, especially in rural communities where DSL or Cable are much more problematic (trust me on this, I know). Also, in markets already saturated with cable and DSL, they may be able to market it based on simplicity and ease of use. Basically all you have to do is sign up for the service and plug the modem into the wall. From there it's the same as any other high-speed modem. But if you also compare service outages; well, power doesn't go out at most people's homes too often, whereas those of us who are broadband users know not to expect the network to be up 100% of the time.
This is going to make the broadband market a lot more interesting and more competitive (meaning cheaper for all us end-users). There's one aspect of this that is also intriguing, and that is the possibility of actually getting revenue off this service for municipalities. I haven't seen too much about it since this is still a brand-new story, but there's a line in
this article that has my attention:
In October the city of Manassas, Virginia, became one of the first municipalities in the U.S. to offer a commercial-grade, non-pilot BPL service. The company behind the service is Communications Technologies of Chantilly, Virginia (see U.S. City Lights up BPL).
At the time of the launch, ComTek said it had already signed up 700 of the roughly 12,500 households in Manassas within the scope of its BPL network and was processing another 500 households that have requested the service. The service is also available to 2,500 businesses in the city.
The company charges $38.95 a month for the service and shares revenue with the city, which owns the municipal power and fiber-optic networks.
Here's a
link to an article specifically about that deployment.
Cities offering free wi-fi and making money off BPL? Will wonders never cease?
3 comments:
This stuff is all pretty amazing. Congress was debating only a few years ago how to get broadband into most homes in American, but indsutry seems to have figured out how to get it into every home, one way or another. I think the internet's potential as an incredible resource is still mostly untapped because most Americans lack high-quality, broadband-like connections, but with more innovations like this we could see that changing soon.
FYI, is it bad that I don't even understand how it's possible to get internet through an outlet?
That's amazing to me. Obviously that's because I know nothing about electronics or electricity, but whatever. I'm easily awed by technology.
Actually, municipal wifi is becoming very widespread. San Francisco and Chicago are both putting together networks (although they may actually be run by private companies). Philadelphia already has one. Our own city of Irving, TX is considering if it wants to implement a city-wide wifi network at some point.
Yes, it's true that in theory any line could carry any signal, but as a practical matter they can only carry certain ranges because for factors we need not go into, signal-to-noise can get down to useless levels if you try to use a frequency a line can't really handle. I mean, we've known this all along, so I wouldn't expect to see any other developments like analog phone service or television coming out of power outlets. Those will still best be served by their respective technologies. You could, of course, use the broadband connection for all those, but BPL probably isn't going to expand into the higher bandwidths like cable and fiber-optic, so it's probably not ever going to be a competitive method for carrying tv and phone signals. Then again, who knows, they may develop some signal compression technology that would allow precisely that.
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