CELL HomeNetwork with powerline ?

[version]

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/200501/05-0106E/index.html

 

[Dave Baumann]

Internet via Power Lines have been trialled years back, I'm surprised it's only just happening now. Would be nice for each socket to have an IP address as well...

 

[GwymWeepa]

I remember reading that the potential speed for powerline networking and even internet access was enormous...does anyone have any numbers? Also, I'd imagine that using a house's powerlines for a network should be relatively painless, but what about internet connectivity using powerlines, would that require all new infrastructure?

 

[hey69]

i see now and then home networking kits in shops . just plug in the back of your modem and you r set

 

[Qroach]

I remember looking into this about 5 or 6 years ago. There was only one company that found away to store data inside the magenetic field generated by power lines. It was the proposed method to solve the issues of data corruption due to random power spikes. Other methods would require the user to install new electrical sockets.

 

[Acert93]

They are doing Broadband over Power lines in a couple test markets as we speak (Washington DC is one area I know about). If they can manage the transmission range limits better than DSL they could be onto something huge. It also has an advantage over cable: 99.999% of homes have electricity, whereas far few homes have cable, especially out in the boonies. It will be interesting to see how this and wireless services take off over the next 5 years. My guess is it wont be until N6/Xbox3/PS4 that online will be a dominant feature. It is important now, but the a significant number of console owners do not have broadband access (or are not willing to pay for it for their consoles). But this will change... and I look forward to it!

 

[Dave Baumann]

http://lists.evolt.org/archive/Week-of-Mon-20010219/026207.html

[Edit] Didn't realise they were still doing it - evidently one provider already offers internet via power lines.

http://www.southern-electric.co.uk/broadband/whychoose.asp

 

[Vince]

I'm not correcting you Dave, so don't get all defensive, but your earlier post and that article refer to Internet via Powerlines vis-a-vis Broadband cable or xDSL; for clearification, the Sony announcement is, from my understanding, a high-bandwith LAN style network that fits more in with our previous discussion of network topology in the future digital home.

Like, if you remember I kept reiterating on the problems of MS using a hub-client topology based on WiFi transmission and the problems of bandwith...

 

[Dave Baumann]

Its based on the same principle Vince.

http://www.southern-electric.co.uk/broadband/faq.asp

At speeds of up to 20 times faster than dial up, our broadband product brings the internet to your home via your existing BT telephone line and delivers the same service to almost anywhere in your house through your electricity sockets. In addition to this you can connect up to 5 devices within the home allowing you to share printers, files, music, films and much more – see Why do I need Home Networking?

You'll note that the diagram from the Sony PR has a PLC modem on each socket. Sorry, but this is already here and PC's are making use of it old boy.

 

[Qroach]

BING! Interesting note.

 

[Vince]

You'll note that the diagram from the Sony PR has a PLC modem.

Which takes a Broadband input (eg. Fibre, Cable, xDSL) and lets you share the connection over the local power network. Next up, it's similar technology, I'm not debating that, but do to the locality of a LAN doesn't have many of the problems that were encountered when you tried to apply it as a bulk broadband replacement. This is what I'm getting at. Also, it's "here" in the same sense as Microsoft's Windows Media "Ecosystem" (like that marketing term Q?!?) is here... which is basically in name only with low penetration. And lastly, I'm not old like some of us

As an aside, I'd love to see a Cell-based home network topology composed of this as a backbone for distributed, but local, digital media/processing sharing dovetailed with 802.11x.

 

[Dave Baumann]

You'll note that the diagram from the Sony PR has a PLC modem.

Which takes a Broadband input (eg. Fibre, Cable, xDSL) and lets you share the connection over the powerlines.

I don't think thats the case - the input is likely to be the wide are network requests out of the home, and the power lines will be the wide area network input.

This is what I'm getting at. Also, it's "here" in the same sense as Microsoft's Windows Media "Ecosystem" (like that marketing term Q?!?) is here... which is basically in name only.

People are using it here, its a service offered.

 

[Vince]

I don't think thats the case - the input is likely to be the wide are network requests out of the home, and the power lines will be the wide area network input.

You're wrong, I'm sorry Dave. And I stand by my earlier comments of it's present status. Since this is about wrapped up, I do need to get back to work.

 

[Qroach]

No not really vince. Althought that was a marketing name, but I have no idea what it is.

 

[Dave Baumann]

The Southern Electric solution is only utilising one one IP connection by the look of things, wheras the PLC solution requires the switchboard installed on house mains to effectively act as the router. The PLC access communication arrow on the outside of the house would suggest that wide area access is intented to be via the access modem and power line - that appears to be what Mitsubishi has in mind.

As for "the problems of MS using a hub-client topology based on WiFi transmission" its irrelevant. WiFi is here now and an easy method for people to utilise networking capabilities without any signicant alterations and so the PC vendors will use that while its popular, not really anything to do with Microsoft. PLC just becomes another wired network solution that PC's and other devices will similarly utilise. Besides Microsoft started working on PLC solutions 5 years ago.

 

[aaaaa00]

PNA is nothing new -- the technology is a half-decade old.

http://www.homeplug.org/en/index.asp

You can buy current generation powerline networking products *today*, though they've never been popular compared with wireless and wired Ethernet technologies.

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProdu...g=294&DEPA=5&order=price&sort=asc

It's a lot harder to push a high bandwidth LAN through a power line than a seperate low-voltage network like Ethernet over cat5e because of the electrical noise in a power connection.

 

[AzBat]

This looks like an interesting WiFi/Powerline solution:

http://www.netgear.com/products/details/WGXB102.php

Tommy McClain

 

[aaaaa00]

More powerline networking stuff...

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,119230,00.asp

 

[Dave Baumann]

This looks like an interesting WiFi/Powerline solution:

http://www.netgear.com/products/details/WGXB102.php

If you look at the roadmap in the Mitsubishi presentation, their view is that we should alread have 45Mbps Broadband access along with a WiFi home network. Later this year they're expecting 200Mbps Access and Home WiFi and by 2006 the 200Mbps will be in the home network, coupled also with WiFi - considering WiFi is already up to 108Mbps, though, I wonder if WiFi will soon exceed the inhome bandwidths PLC is expected to reach.

 

[nelg]

University Park, Pa. -- Penn State engineers have developed a new model for high-speed broadband transmissions over U.S. overhead electric power lines and estimate that, at full data rate handling capacity, the lines can provide bit rates that far exceed DSL or cable over similar spans.

Mohsen Kavehrad, the W. L. Weiss professor of electrical engineering and director of the Center for Information and Communications Technology Research, led the investigation. He says, "Although broadband power line (BPL) service trials are now underway on a limited basis in some locations in the U.S., these trials run at DSL- comparable rates of 2 or 3 megabits per second.

"We've run a computer simulation with our new power line model and found that, under ideal conditions, the maximum achievable bit rate was close to a gigabit per second per kilometer on an overhead medium voltage unshielded U.S. electric power line that has been properly conditioned through impedance matching. The gigabit can be shared by a half dozen homes in a neighborhood to provide rates in the hundreds of megabits per second range, much higher than DSL and even cable."

Kavehrad adds, "If you condition those power lines properly, they're an omni-present national treasure waiting to be tapped for broadband Internet service delivery, especially in rural areas where cable or DSL are unavailable."

The researchers say they are the first to evaluate data rate handling capacity for overhead medium voltage unshielded U. S. electric power lines and outlined their findings at the IEEE Consumer Communications & Networking Conference in Las Vegas, Nev., Jan. 5. Their paper is titled, "Transmission Channel Model and Capacity of Overhead Multi-conductor Medium-Voltage Power-lines for Broadband Communications." The authors are Pouyan Amirshahi, a doctoral candidate in electrical engineering, and Kavehrad.

In their paper, the authors note that the junctions and branches in the U.S. overhead electrical grid cause broadband signals to reflect and produce multipath-like effects on these lines. This causes degradation in power-line broadband transmission performance and decreases transmission capacity.

Kavehrad explains, "The signal can bounce back and forth in the lines if there is no proper impedance matching. The bouncing takes energy away from the signal and the loss is reflected in the ultimate capacity.

"In service, performance will depend on how close the power company chooses to place the repeaters," he adds.

The researchers are continuing their studies. Kavehrad predicts that the engineering issues to make BPL a technical alternative to DSL and cable will be solved. Whether it will be an economical alternative remains to be seen since there are interference issues that have to be overcome.

The study was supported by a grant from AT&T Corporation.

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