More Trouble For The Great Broadband Joke

from the nice-try-there... dept

For many, many years, there have been stories about broadband over powerlines. Every few years it seems to make a big comeback... in the press. The press loves the idea, but when it comes down to the actual technology it never gets very far. Trials get announced, and then quickly fade away. Even though Michael Powell has declared it the "great broadband hope," once again, trials are ending early, as the technology is proving to be problematic. As this article notes, fixing those technology problems "may clash with the concept of making a profit." Broadband over powerlines is looking like yet another "technology of the future... that always will be." It may be time to put it away for a few more years until some new reporters pick it up around 2007.
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  • identicon
    dorpus, 29 Jun 2004 @ 4:17pm

    What about Cincinnati?

    They do have commercially offered powerline service now. Also, as my DSL experience has shown, it is prone to interference also; they had to lower my speed because the spaghetti wiring in the apartment building was causing high packet loss rates between my apartment and the wire closet.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 30 Jun 2004 @ 1:04pm

      Re: What about Canada?

      I think there's an active trial going on in a northern Canadian town. Forget which one, but it's one of those odd towns where they still control their hydroelectric power distro and can monkey with it more easily.


      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Permanent4, 30 Jun 2004 @ 2:59pm

    Two years away?

    Are you kidding? I'm getting my broadband over power lines, and it's great! You should see how quickly I can download gigabytes of data to my holographic storage unit.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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