Broadband goes electric

[bongme]

hi

Thursday, 13 February, 2003

Fast net services in the UK could soon be available via electricity lines as an alternative way of reaching out to those communities cut off from broadband.

Scottish Hydro-Electric is planning to extend broadband trials to a town in Scotland and one in southern England reports Computing magazine.

Eventually the service could be available to all 3.5 million of its customers.

The company has already run technical trials of the technology in the small Scottish towns of Campbeltown and Crief.

Reaching out

The trials were a big success, offering up to 2mb per second - twice as fast as most broadband services on offer in the UK - for the price of £25.

Speed and price of any commercial service has yet to be decided but the firm says it will be competitive.

And there is no reason why other power companies could not follow suit, said a spokesman for the power company.

It could be a welcome alternative for people living outside of the reach of current broadband services.

"Technically we can reach to a lot more remote spots than BT can offer but some very remote areas will still be difficult," said the spokesman.

Bongme

[RIGSBY1]

Miss jones works for Npower (northern elec & gas) they are planning trials in areas not supported by the local cable comps and BT , can only be a good thing in the long run.

[George]

hey guys , we were thinking of switching to broadband, I am spending more and more time on here,and am getting fed up watching out the window waiting for pages to load up, any one ideas as to which is better at the moment, Ive heard , or read , NTL Broad band Rocks, somewhere, Im sure the author will come forward , it was on 420 somewhere,l,,,,,for some reason it stuck in my mind, ho hum, sj

[strider]

There were trials last year or so, they spent millons and scrapped it 'cos it turned lamp posts into antenna that interfered with mobile phones etc.

Sounds like they've fixed that bug.

[2old2rock'nroll]

Hmmmm....

This broadband via electricity cables is hotly disputed in the realms of the Amateur radio world and have almost first hand knowledge of what's going on via the Radio Authority (RA).

Any transmissions by this form is thought to give a fair bit of interference to the various spectrums, mainly because the cables haven't got a earth shield covering them. However another problem arises here that any shielding over the amount of miles the cables run, and also the heat from the electricity running through them, due to inductance, becomes prohibitive due to heat. I read, in some radio amateur literature, that it won't be coming yet awhile anyhow and they'll need permission from the Radio Authority once they have sussed it out.

Hope i aint' burst anyone's bubble, I suffer from snail server to.