broadband from a wall plug

[honorarybrutha]

http://news.com.com/IBM+partners+to+offer+broadband+from+a+wall+plug/2100-1034_3-5782194.html

IBM is expected to announce a partnership Monday with CenterPoint Energy, a utility based in Houston, to develop broadband services to be delivered over electric power lines.

CenterPoint says it will be one of the first utilities to test new technology, including faster chips that roughly triple connection speeds. With these chips, consumers will be able to receive Internet connections at about 7 megabits a second, equal to some of the fastest speeds available from cable companies.

[thecoalman]

I've heard of this before, quite a while ago to tell you the truth. Bet that will put a scare into the cable companies. Pretty convenient for the consumer too, everyone has wall plugs in there rooms if that's all that is required.

[Evan Parker]

A few power companies have been working on this for a few years, but this is the first time that a tech company has helped out. Now there will be some standards with the "modem" that you will plug into the wall and then into your computer.

I've been looking forward to this just so I can get rid of the phone company and the cable company once and for all.

[ROBERT BLACK]

I've been looking forward to this just so I can get rid of the phone company and the cable company once and for all.

That's a good enough reason to hope this is developed further. It'll deliver a great blow to that monopoly.

[AlecWest]

IBM is expected to announce a partnership Monday with CenterPoint Energy, a utility based in Houston, to develop broadband services to be delivered over electric power lines.

I don't know how many of you listen to Art Bell when he's on Coast To Coast AM (on the radio), but he's a Ham Radio operator. And every time he hears about BPL (broadband over powerline), he goes ballistic ... claiming it will not only be the death of shortwave radio (interference) but also opens a Pandora's box to government intrusion (easier to "tap" into your system).

Is there any truth to this? If so, how much truth???

[gadgetguy]

I've never heard of Art Bell but he sounds like an alarmist trying to increase ratings. The technology to allow networking over power lines is not new and has been successfully demo-ed on a small scale (within a single location). As I understand it, (and I could be wrong since I have no 1st hand knowledge, only what I've read), it operates at high frequencies similar to how DSL works on a phone line. What's new here is implimenting it on a large scale. The claim that it will interfere with shortwave radio seems unlikely to me. If the process turned the electrical system into a broadcast antenna that would interfere with shortwave then it would also be susceptible to that same type of interference and that would make it unworkable.
As far as the government intrusion, this will not make it any easier or harder than it is today. The same types of security protections that keep your neighbor from tapping into your system through your shared CableTV line will be available for the AC system.

[nzjacob]

Pretty old news, I was involved in a trial we had running over a year ago :
http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/UNID/008BFB09990A1F68CC256E34007BBC1D

There was actually a lot of complaints of interferance, and the local Ham radio Club petitioned the government to put a holt to the trial at one point.

It worked OK, but was not ideal, and I moved back to normal ADSL over a year ago. The biggest problem I had was if it was raining the connectivity was erratic, and anyone who knows this part of the world - its wet.

edit : a fair bit of interferance info here :
http://www.nzart.org.nz/nzart/update/bpl.html