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When will powerline be more available?

Does anyone know when this system may go nationwide? Is there a date set to when other electricity companies will start to provide the service? Also, does anyone know if there are any distance limiations, i.e how far from sub station etc.

Also i'm a bit confused to how the system works is there some kind of wireless device used to take the signals from the electric cable in your home and then transmit to a normal wireless access point?

I'm hoping I'll be able to get this where i live as ADSL is not available yet and 1meg up and down for £30 is fantatsic!

What are real speeds on this service if anyone knows?

Sorry to ask so many questions, hope you can help!

Cheers,
 
The chances are that if you can't get ADSL, you won't get powerline (PLC) either. The reasons for this is that PLC only has a range of 600 metres from the HV transformer, and in rural areas you get groups of a dozen or fewer houses fed from small transformers, and these will not be economic to feed individually. Also, there have been problems with PLC causing interference to other radio services in the USA, where there have been more trials than here.

Out in the sticks, your chances of getting broadband are much better with wireless than with PLC.
 
has anyone got any real upto date news on this powerline BB, or is it a case of that there are no users of this to comment on it
 
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Have you read our two interview articles? One of them was only done recently and covers a number of the issues. Generally we won't know more about the prospects for NATIONAL coverage until mid-2004, if not later.

Also note that Powerline technology is not a standard, there are several very different implementations of the same 'principal'.

If you live in a small village then paying for Satellite or slower ISDN (if you want to use multiplayer) might be a better solution. If you don’t enjoy gaming then there are some cheap one-way satellite solutions that can help fill the gap.
 
thanks,

I have read the articles thanks, not bad. I was just wondering if there was any users that might read this forum to give an up date on how it is performing.

i am in the Southern Electric area, so i am intreasted in this and hoping that it all works out fine as i would get this product just for the upload speeds
 
Can you be more specific about your location, send me a private message if you're not comfortable mentioning it in public.

I can see if one of my contacts is able to do a quick feasibility study of the area, although this close to Christmas I doubt they'd be able to.
 
I live in a village called winterbourne stoke, which is quite a few miles from were they are doing the testing. It would be good to know that one day they would come into my area. I am just in the process of starting a campaign for BB for my exchange as it has just been given a Trigger level. My wish is that PLC comes before my exchange gets activated as what they offer seems a much better product for the prise.
 
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Theres a guy from Stonehaven posting the following speeds:

Direction Actual Speed True Speed (estimated)
Downstream 983 Kbps (122.9 KB/sec) 1061 Kbps (inc. overheads)
Upstream 873 Kbps (109.1 KB/sec) 942 Kbps (inc. overheads)

This is from the forum over at adsl guide. Pretty impressive if you ask me, and if it can be made readily available throughadvancement in technology, it will be a real eye opener for the telco's.:)

Trace results too:

Tracing route to clarity.jolt.co.uk [195.149.21.11]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 13 ms 12 ms 12 ms 192.168.21.65
2 38 ms 36 ms 37 ms unknown.Level3.net [212.187.151.77]
3 33 ms 36 ms 37 ms gige6-0.core2.London1.Level3.net [212.187.131.46
]
4 36 ms 37 ms 38 ms Genuity-Level3.level3.net [212.187.131.98]
5 36 ms 33 ms 36 ms p5-0-0.london2-cr2.bbnplanet.net [195.16.175.182
]
6 37 ms 35 ms 33 ms fa0-0.nildram2.bbnplanet.net [195.16.163.74]
7 35 ms 33 ms 36 ms jolt-gw.nildram.net [195.149.20.214]
8 40 ms 37 ms 38 ms clarity.jolt.co.uk [195.149.21.11]

Trace complete."
 
PLC will NEVER be viable in anything more rural the large towns and city suburbs, where there is dense housing. It suffers the same contended upstream as cable, so quite how they can run a synchronous service, I don't know.

Fact: PLC CANNOT cross a transformer.
Fact: PLC cannot be used more than 600m from a transformer, and needs fiber from the transformer back to a POP.
Fact: Houses in the country often have one transformer per house, or a group of up to say 10 houses. Fiber will need to be rolled out to the pole outside the houses with the transformer on. THAT is not viable; you might as well drop the fiber the extra few metres straight into the home.
 
Rolly_TAW said:
anything that can challange bt and its adsl works for me

Cable can
Wireless can
FTTH can

PLC can't. (and neither can Satellite for that matter)
 
Last edited:
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The IDEA is fine - 100% (well, 99%) availability of broadband, via power cables which already go to (nearly) every household in the UK. Engineering wise it sucks though - transformers, distance limitation, and possibly more importantly interference. I'm just being realistic. PLC will NEVER come to rural areas. Stop kidding yourself! If you want broadband outside of towns and cities, then you're going to have to do something about it yourself, be that an ADSL campaign, or a community wireless project. Or wait 10 to 20 years (more at the rate we're going) for fiber.

I know it sounds negative, but it's the truth; it needs action, and you'll thank me in the end.
 
then read my posts at the top and you will see that i am doing somthing about it. and i am not kidding myself and i dont think i will thank you. sorry but the tone of post is not needed.
 
It suffers the same contended upstream as cable, so quite how they can run a synchronous service, I don't know.

Exactly, you don't know, so perhaps its time for you to stop stating your opinions as if they are absolute fact.
 
Teasy said:
Exactly, you don't know, so perhaps its time for you to stop stating your opinions as if they are absolute fact.

There's plenty of absolute facts out there. The absolute fact is that powerline causes interference to other radio users see the ARRL website (the ARRL is an organisation which represents ham radio operators in the US). The site looks at all aspects of PLC, and quotes examples of interference problems caused by PLC. Interference has been so severe, that countries like Japan have totally banned PLC until further research is done.

I'm not a betting man, but I would happily have a bet with you that when you get broadband in your rural hamlet, it will be by wireless or ADSL, and not by PLC. If/when PLC ever takes off in the UK, you'll find that the rollout will take the same path that ADSL and cable have done, i.e. companies will "cherry pick" the most profitable areas, which will be areas where population density is highest. These companies are in businesses where the shareholder is #1, and not you.

The facts that ProfPete told you are all correct - a ten-minute search on Google will confirm them all. However, if you'd prefer to sit there with your heads in the sand, waiting for PLC to come to your rescue, that's your perogative, but I fear that you will be waiting a long time. If you get your power from a transformer on a pole (whether it's feeding 1 house or 50), you'll never get PLC.
 
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That being the case then elmer, why is it that scottish hydro are conducting trials in stonehaven( not far from me) and this is no big city, and planning to roll out early next year and I did post some speeds which were listed from a user in Stonehaven. The speeds and pings were as good as adsl and of course he wasgetting in the 900;s up as well as down so you cannot say it is not feasable. Take a look at their site.
 
It's just a TRIAL. BT trialled ADSL over a decade ago. Perhaps that brings timescales into perspective. BT have also trialled wireless, so have ntl. NTL "trialled" fiber to the home as well (anyone remember Dolphin Square?). That was 155mbps ATM connections though, with a dedicated piece of fiber per house, and NO contention whatsoever. Obviously they decided that wasn't viable. The chances are there's only a few users on the PLC trials - therefore, contention is not yet an issue. It DOES use a contended local loop, as with cable, there is NO other physical way it can work. The problems of the shared upstream on the contended local loop on cable are well-documented - the same will apply to powerline.
 
i think this is a good question, what do the plc guys use for there back haul. i dont think i have read anyware what they use.
 
At the end of the day we will have to wait and see, we cannot comment only on what is available right now, technology is advancing all the time so to simply say it can't be done does not apply. After all, nobody would have believed a mobile phone the size of your hand and send pictures would have been possible 10 years ago, but alas its here today. I think technology will prove the sceptics wrong, but we will have to wait and see. wont we.:)
 
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