Robert Casey wrote:




The hidden bugaboo in the BPL equation is that they will have to
run fiber *almost* to the house, then break it out to put it on a HV
powerline before sending it to your house. In practice this means that
in addition to the signal going to your house which needs to isolate
that HV from your computer and the rest of your household items, at
the same time, that fiber will be going past your house.


If they have to run fiber down your street, they might as well do wi-fi
instead of BPL.

I'd take it one step further - If there is fiber running past my house,
I want fiber!



The "modems" for BPL and wi-fi would cost about the
same, and wi-fi would offer better and faster service.

Otherwise, agreed!

And wi-fi
is in production so why bother with BPL? It maybe some dopey legal
thing in that only the cable company or phone company is allowed
to string fiber and set up wi-fi, thus the power company can't do
anything unless they run the signal over the power wires somewhere
to the customer. But it would be better and cheaper to find a legal
work-around for this (or just bribe someone.. ;-) ).

I think the big attraction to BPL is that to the techically ignorant,
it seems like a no-brainer that you can take a wire already going into
the house and just put another signal on it, and presto magic! They
don't take into account that the wires act as both a transmitting and
recieving antenna, and that the BPL equipment might just make a path
between higher voltages and their household voltages, and that a work
truck can simply drive past their house and interuppt theie porn
download with it's wideband spark noise. Wanna see some sparks? Have the
BPL backers take on the trucking industry!!!!!

Remember, there is plenty of money to be made on failures as well as
successes. Even if most people lose their money, if the "right people"
are in at the beginning, they can bail before the big fall.

Problem is that BPL is such a stupid idea that it probably won't get
off the ground. But that's a problem for them more than us.


- Mike KB3EIA -