Comments on: Like Roaches, Broadband Over Powerline Doesn't Go Away

By: It’s Alive! Broadband Over Power Line May Get Boost From Stimulus Bill | The Click

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 07:33:26 +0000

[...] likely to give more, as minimum speeds weren’t written into the stimulus bill. As we’ve noted previously, the viability of BPL as a web service was debunked years ago and should have died [...]

By: It’s Alive! Broadband Over Power Line May Get Boost From Stimulus Bill

It’s Alive! Broadband Over Power Line May Get Boost From Stimulus Bill — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 01:02:52 +0000

By: Andrew McCaskey

Andrew McCaskey — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:58:33 +0000

I think there are two reasons: The cost of the project is covered by $70M from the Department of Agriculture – and that is not even rounding error in today’s subsidization world. Secondly, IBM is a services business. If you wanted the study the practicality of Tesla Coils driven by computerized Solar Collectors, IBM would help you study it for $9.6M.

If you were really smart, you would call it Banking Over PowerLine (BPL) and move the decimal two places. On second thought even $7Billion is a footnote. Need another zero. Is IBM up to the task ?

By: Ian Andrew Bell

Ian Andrew Bell — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 23:30:11 +0000

Was Broadband over Power Lines ever born?

By: gfolkert

gfolkert — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:41:12 +0000

Failures across the board, not to mention the BROADCAST violations the FCC would levy.

An Amateur Radio General Class I know, he points out that those them thar wires are just gonna be one BIG transmitter and blow out nearly everything locally.

Think about when you used to travel under wires going over roads and listening to AM radio, remember how the radio turned to White Noise? It’ll be far worse for BPL and the people living around those wires.

By: Eideard

Eideard — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:00:30 +0000

Om, you made my father-in-law crack a smile for the 1st time since the market began to plummet. He used to work for Anaconda and every time this topic comes up he rattles off the list of R&D failures in this field – among his old customers.

By: Xabious

Xabious — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:45:34 +0000

I would have to agree that 2008 was the death of BPL. Having worked as a engineering director in that industry for 4 years, I can honestly say that delivery of a BPL signal over an unshielded power line can be done, but not cost effectively. The issue is in providing a robust signal in an operating environment that brings a whole new meaning to ingress noise. Repeating the signal every half or mile as the article states only works where line signal traversal is not obstructed by electrical primary equipment (switches, cap banks, dead end bridges, etc..) and where the line is relatively straight minimizing RF directional loss. Sorry I don’t believe the story that this still has legs with a real life business case.

-Xabious

By: wirelessman

wirelessman — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:35:39 +0000

It could be worse. At least it’s not broadband from high altitude balloons.