http://biz.yahoo.com/bizj/051221/1205323.html?.v=4
quote
Under the deal, Current will design, build and operate the "smart grid,"
which will cover the majority of the TXU Electric Delivery service area
-- about 2 million homes and businesses in Dallas-Fort Worth and other
communities in Texas.
/quote

Jonesy
--
Marvin L Jones | jonz | W3DHJ | linux
Pueblo, Colorado | @ | Jonesy | OS/2 __
38.24N 104.55W | config.com | DM78rf | SK

Allodoxaphobia wrote:

Under the deal, Current will design, build and operate the "smart grid,"
which will cover the majority of the TXU Electric Delivery service area
-- about 2 million homes and businesses in Dallas-Fort Worth and other
communities in Texas.

All because you refused to boycott Google............

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM
IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667 IL Fax: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838
You should have boycotted Google while you could, now Google supported
BPL is in action. Time is running out on worldwide radio communication.

On 21 Dec 2005 18:22:46 GMT, Allodoxaphobia
wrote:

Hi Jonesy,

Did you just move to Pueblo from Gunnison? Gunnison is such a nice
town. Last time I was in Pueblo was during High School in the 60s. As
we used to say about Tijuana when I was in the Navy: didn't lose
anything there, so there was no reason to go back. Of course,
Colorado Springs has tripled in size since then, and to no positive
gain as far as I can tell.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

Time is running out on worldwide radio communication. ...

I dunno if it's quite that dire, but it is disturbing fer sure...
But I have a secret weapon in my arsonal if they decide
to move in here. My yagi, and my henry amp. :/
If they ever put me off the air, I should be able to put
them off the air right back... I'll just set the beam heading
to the offending power line, and fire up the ole food browner,
and call cq on a dead band for about 3 hourz.
If they leak that bad to me, I should be able to recipricate
I would think.
I'm such a radio heathen...
MK

On Wed, 21 Dec 2005 10:44:35 -0800, Richard Clark wrote:

Hi Jonesy,

Did you just move to Pueblo from Gunnison? Gunnison is such a nice
town.

Hi Richard.

Yep, DM68 has A LOT less WS VHF actvity now. Think of the postage I'll
save on QSL cards! HI!HI! How-some-ever, I have to start all over on
my 6M WAS. Got all but R.I. with 9.5 watts on 6M from Gunnison.
sigh...

(There really should be a W49S award! Quite a few folks have that!)

Last time I was in Pueblo was during High School in the 60s. As
we used to say about Tijuana when I was in the Navy: didn't lose
anything there, so there was no reason to go back.

Being a contrarian, I selected Pueblo for the move, after my First Wife
said she was done being cold in Gunnison. Turns out Pueblo is A Great
Place to live -- unless you're trying to raise and educate children, or
need to make a living. Luckily I'm not into any of that.

Of course, Colorado Springs has tripled in size since then, and to
no positive gain as far as I can tell.

Agreed. We bought a house on the S.E. side of Pueblo -- a little out in
the county -- just to stay as far away from C. Spgs. as possible. :-)

73 MC es HNY
Jonesy
--
Marvin L Jones | jonz | W3DHJ | linux
Pueblo, Colorado | @ | Jonesy | OS/2 __
38.24N 104.55W | config.com | DM78rf | SK

150 Million for ten years. that is a lot of money for nothing.

DQE will also have a pilot program in Monroeville PA

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/051215/cgth037.html?.v=44

I don't think they can compete with the newer intel and
motorola technology for wireless.

Jim Higgins wrote:


The result? BPL economics absolutely cannot support the
promises made for it. If they have to fulfill the promises it's dead
before it starts.

The flaw in your logic is that Google invested $100,000,000 on Current
Communications. If the trial flops economicaly, they can just keep
pouring money into it until they corner the market.

The way I figure it is they just raised $4b in a stock offering. If the
$3b left over after buying part of AOL isn't enough, they will just
sell more stock.

Every time you click on an "ads by google", you are supporting BPL.
Every time you vist a web site with "ads by google" you are supporting BPL.
If you bought Google stock, or invested in a mutual fund that did,
you are supporting BPL.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM
IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667 IL Fax: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838
The trouble with being a futurist is that when people get around to believing
you, it's too late. We lost. Google 2,000,000:Hams 0.

On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 13:57:06 GMT, Jim Higgins
wrote:

On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 06:51:08 GMT, bpl_just_say_NO
wrote:

150 Million for ten years. that is a lot of money for nothing.

DQE will also have a pilot program in Monroeville PA

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/051215/cgth037.html?.v=44

I don't think they can compete with the newer intel and
motorola technology for wireless.

If the common folk play their cards right BPL can't compete with
anyone anywhere. If rollout is inevitable it's time (past time

The PUCs want it for grid control and monitoring. The BPL marketers
have made it look like they can do that (which they can) plus have an
revenue stream from their costomers.

actually) to go to the PUC and ask that everything related to BPL only
be paid for from revenue gained from BPL. No shifting of revenue from
power sales to support BPL - strictly separate. Also ask that service

They will just state they are running the service for monitoring and
control anyway so it'll be handy if any one wants to sign up.

be provided promptly to anyone asking for it and everyone at the same
price regardless of whether in a large city or one with a population
of 22 at the end of 150 miles of dead-end power line. After all, BPL
promises high speed Internet access to EVERYONE and you can be sure

Some implented forms of BPL can't even deliver high speed with very
many customers before running into packet collisions which means wider
bandwidth or slower service.

that at some point that was said. Hold them to it now, not 20 years
from now. The result? BPL economics absolutely cannot support the
promises made for it. If they have to fulfill the promises it's dead
before it starts.

If they can be held off just two years regular broad band will be
widely available and cheaper. Rather than out in the country where
it's expensive to implement, they are finding the prime candidate are
offices and apartment buildings. OTOH once those offices and
apartments are up and running I wonder what kind of track record
they'll have? Add a few real time gamers, VoIP, and some streaming
video.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Jim Higgins wrote:
On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 14:41:03 +0000 (UTC), (Geoffrey
S. Mendelson) wrote:

And the flaw in your analysis is that they'll make up for a losing
proposition with sheer volume.

Not at all. My logic is that they will keep pouring money into it until
it makes a profit or they give up. Like UPS did with a portion of the
220 MHz band in the U.S. they lobbied for it, convinced everyone it would
be in the public good to give it to them and they took it from the hams.

By the time they got it, it was too late, technology passed them by and
they never used it. But it was never given back.

As for making a profit, there are lots of ways to recover cost. Maybe
you will start seeing "ads by google" in the middle of web pages that
did not have them, or a page request will give you an AOL page first
before the page you requested.

Haven't you heard? Google just gave AOL $1bn for the privledge of being
bought out by them. From now on a Google search will show AOL pages first.

The thing is that BPL doesn't scale up all that well. The power line
bandwidth is eaten up far faster than cable bandwidth and they can't
get more by just adding some new transducers using a different
wavelength and keep going.

Sort of. BPL uses carrier frequencies like every other digital communications
method. If they run out of bandwidth in unocuppied carriers (which don't exist
because every HF frequency is in use somewhere), they add more carriers.

If there was a burden upon them to make sure it is not in use, but all
they have to do to check that is to listen with a cheap shortwave
portable. It's not their fault there is no propigation at that moment or
all the hams are asleep. They "checked" and you would have to fight them to
get them off it.

BPL will slow down quickly as subscribers
are added and it won't be as fast as cable even with only one
subscriber. The BPL industry has sold the power companies a bill of
goods and the few who aren't simply abandoning it after initial trials
need to be fought at a level that doesn't require FCC involvement.

So what? Once it's there it's there. Once given it can never be taken away.


I'm sick and tired of seeing the ARRL humping the FCC's leg over BPL
and being ignored. It's time to add another weapon to the arsenal. If
not an approach involving regulating BPL to death thru the state PUCs,
what do you suggest?

I really can't say. I'm not in the U.S. BPL died a quick death here for
two reasons. One it sucked. Two, Israel Electric (a country wide monopoly)
has been quietly running fiber alongside of their wires. Currently they use
it for the monitoring and control functions that BPL is supposed to provide,
but if the Ministry of Communications would let them, they would sell the
bandwith for internet.

As for the ARRL if you are a member, complain. Their attitude is as long as
you don't foul my bands, I don't care. Make them care. Deluge Sumner and
Hare with emails. (one per member please, not a worthless mail bomb).

I don't believe for a second that a call to not use Google will have
any effect on BPL. It will take millions of people cooperating to
make that approach effective and you'll never get that many to
cooperate. Getting the attention of state PUCs takes far fewer people
to accomplish.

Yes, but with 600,000 licensed hams in the U.S., if they and their families
each emailed Google seperately and boycotted Google search engines, Google
maps and "ads by google" they would get the message pretty quick.

The owner of one popular ham site wrote me that he could not give up his
"ads by google" as the money paid for the site. I told him that he was making
a mistake and I would also boycott his site and his advertisers.

It's up to you. If you don't do anything, there will be no HF bands in 5-10
years. Morse code tests or not, you simply won't be able to hear anyhting
except buzz-buzz-buzz. :-(

Geoff.
--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM
IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667 IL Fax: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838
The trouble with being a futurist is that when people get around to believing
you, it's too late. We lost. Google 2,000,000:Hams 0.

Jim Higgins wrote:

On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 14:41:03 +0000 (UTC), (Geoffrey
S. Mendelson) wrote:


Jim Higgins wrote:


The result? BPL economics absolutely cannot support the
promises made for it. If they have to fulfill the promises it's dead
before it starts.

The flaw in your logic is that Google invested $100,000,000 on Current
Communications. If the trial flops economicaly, they can just keep
pouring money into it until they corner the market.

The way I figure it is they just raised $4b in a stock offering. If the
$3b left over after buying part of AOL isn't enough, they will just
sell more stock.



And the flaw in your analysis is that they'll make up for a losing
proposition with sheer volume.

The thing is that BPL doesn't scale up all that well. The power line
bandwidth is eaten up far faster than cable bandwidth and they can't
get more by just adding some new transducers using a different
wavelength and keep going. BPL will slow down quickly as subscribers
are added and it won't be as fast as cable even with only one
subscriber. The BPL industry has sold the power companies a bill of
goods and the few who aren't simply abandoning it after initial trials
need to be fought at a level that doesn't require FCC involvement.

I'm sick and tired of seeing the ARRL humping the FCC's leg over BPL
and being ignored. It's time to add another weapon to the arsenal. If
not an approach involving regulating BPL to death thru the state PUCs,
what do you suggest?



Every time you click on an "ads by google", you are supporting BPL.
Every time you vist a web site with "ads by google" you are supporting BPL.
If you bought Google stock, or invested in a mutual fund that did,
you are supporting BPL.



I don't believe for a second that a call to not use Google will have
any effect on BPL. It will take millions of people cooperating to
make that approach effective and you'll never get that many to
cooperate. Getting the attention of state PUCs takes far fewer people
to accomplish.

Unless you have one like Indiana's. They have stated that if the FCC is
happy there is no reason for them to get involved.

Dave N