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Thread Index Re: Broadband Power Line Carrier--what is it?
<x-flowed> I have been looking for some hardware to use for this. Doesn't seam to be much out there that is US FCC certified. So far all I have found X-10, HomePlug and I missed what NeatGear's hardware use's. The one carrier grade setup I found, wont contact me back =-) Have to love being small. Also, what is the legality of providing access via the power companies lines? I have a few MDU/MTU setup's i want to try the Netgear hardware on but do not want to receive a C&D letter in 2 months. The only power line networking hardware i know of that works past the transformers(in the us) is X-10. It send data at the peaks of the 60hz cycle's. Not enough bandwidth for net access but seams good for controlling the lights(and the guy's down the block, as there is no security and only 21(if i remember right) channels. HomePlug looks good for in building and possibly for all house's on a transformer(in Texas we have 11 house's on some times =) If there is a list for power line networking, id love to know about it. Maybe Jim can start another list?? Jeromie Reeves At 10:14 PM 8/5/2002 -0400, you wrote: At 09:04 PM 8/5/2002 -0500, Rod Beck wrote: > You run the data traffic on the power lines. In other words, select a > set of frequencies on the current and reserve for data transmission. > It's not rocket science. Well, the power runs at 60 Hz. So in that sense there's a lot of spectrum left. HOWEVER, power line carrier is not viewed seriously in the USA for good technical reasons. We deliver household power at 117V. On average, only eight homes are served by a single "pole pig" transformer. A transformer passes low frequencies (say, 59-61 Hz ;-) actually it's not *that* picky but you get the idea) and blocks higher ones. So the scope of a power line carrier node is typically only eight houses or so. That does not pay. A different approach is to put high-frequency bypass capacitors around the pole pigs and put data on the 2200V (or so) feeds, but that still requires every transformer to be touched. Contrast that with Europe, where household power is delivered at 240V. Their typical arrangement puts 200 houses on a transformer. The econmics of a PLC node are very different there. Yet it still has failed in the marketplace -- a big Nortel push to sell PLC in the UK was abandoned. So I'm not optimistic of its widespread acceptance. </x-flowed>
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