The Power of the Powerline Network
We hear so much about wireless networking these days that another, more slowly growing connectivity option has gotten almost no notice at all. I'm talking about broadband over powerlines. I've just installed a powerline (or HomePlug, as the industry wants to call it) network in my house and I couldn't be happier or more amazed.
I first heard about the possibility of sending internet data over power lines from an article in the Atlantic Monthly (subscription required to view the whole article). This sounded like just the thing to solve my problem. You see my house, while not huge is kind of sprawling. I've got a separate little building in the back where my office is and that's where the computer network was set up. But I've got a laptop and I always want to come in at night and have Internet access from the living room. I work from home, so I'm in that office all day and sometimes I just get sick of being out there.
Of course I set up a wireless network, and you can almost get a decent signal if you go all the way to the back of the house. But I guess these old homes are just too well constructed. From the living room you get nothing.
I was thinking of having ethernet cables run through the walls but this "HomePlug" thing sounded even better. (Actually, the HomePlug people have this vision of your power company eventually offering you internet service and maybe even telephone and cable TV through your powerlines. That's not happening yet, but it would be interesting.)
I did a little research and found that the Netgear model is highly recommended, and must say I was impressed. Just plug the little guys into the wall, plug in your ethernet cable and you are networked.
This is not a perfect system, of course. These devices generally will not work when plugged into a powerstrip, and the Netgear model is basically a huge wall wart, so it takes up some precious wall space. Also, the instructions say that you should only expect to connect maybe 5 or 6 of them in your home. But what this did for me was allow me to set up a wireless access point in my house and connect it very easily to my main router back in the office. Here I am now typing away on this entry in my living room.
Power company ISP
My understanding of the whole power company as ISP thing is that transformers kinda get in the way. SaskPower (the local utility) apparently did some work on this a few years ago. I'm not sure how serious they got, given that another government-owned utility, SaskTel, already does a pretty good job of broadband (even towns with as few as 500 people have city-level access and performance). Anyway, my nephew interned with SaskPower for a couple of summers and he said that the big problem was getting past transformers. Apparently there are all kinds of wierd things happening that make it very difficult to get past a transformer. Given that our local infrastructure has a transformer for every few houses, that sounds like a pretty big problem.
It Works
I'm not much of an expert on the technical side of this stuff. All I can say is that my home power line network works great so far. And, as I pointed out, my network is a hybrid. Actually, you could say it's two wireless nodes connected by a simple powerline network. As for speed, I've only had it working for 2 days. No complaints.
The issue of transformers stopping power companies from becoming ISPs is interesting. I don't know anything about it, and the HomePlug site makes no mention. They give every impression that they're moving forward with what they call BPL (Broadband Power Line?). Perhaps this is an issue that's been solved? I really don't know.
Sounds like Saskatchewan (where I assume Ron is from) is a special case with the utilities, telephone, and ISP being provided by government entities. In most of the US, private companies provide all of these services. Many small towns and rural areas are not well served by ISPs. Having the power companies in the game would be good news, if the can really work out the technical issues.
Saskatchewan is unique
Yes, I am from SK and we do have a unique situation here. As an aside, all the places that trashed monopolies were a real wake-up call to our utilities. We ended up with laws allowing competition and our utilities are so afraid of privatization that they put all kinds of effort into doing the things no private company seems to have the will to do, like providing broadband deep into rural areas. I'm probably only 2 years away from having broadband at my cabin and there are only 100 cabins in this park with no businesses at all--we are 2 hours from anything that could be called a city. I understand many of the arguments against public utilities, but it's pretty tough to argue with results. Until SaskTel stepped up to the plate as an ISP, no private company was willing to take a chance on our tiny market even though we had actual usage of BBS higher than anywhere else in Canada (i.e. we were more than ready for Internet).
With that out of the way, my understanding of the transformer issue is that there are two main methods of getting the power to the end-user. One has community-based transformers that serve dozens of houses or, in rural areas, perhaps a whole town. The other is to have a bunch of smaller transformers that deal with just a few houses at a time. In urban settings, the first makes great sense and might be viable for power-ISP. In rural settings, the second makes more sense, but may interfere with the economics of power-ISP. Since SK has only recently reached the point where the majority of the population is to be found in cities, we've gone with the small transformer setup. And this is all hearsay, I'm simple recalling as best I can the conversations with my nephew, and I have no idea whether he really has the scoop.
Using the AC lines in your house for networking sounds pretty good. And with the power structure in SK, we'd only have 2 or 4 neighbours that could snoop our network instead of a whole community. Assuming of course that the signal is technically available to anybody on the same side of the transformer as you.
No Snooping
Theoretically, from what I've read, the signal of your home power line network is not open to anyone outside your house. I'm not sure how this is accomplished, but maybe somehow it doesn't get past your breaker box.
One poster on Amazon even says that he set up the network on his side of a duplex and that he tried accessing his network from his neighbor's apartment and could not.
Home Networking is Bliss
I was always intrigued by this option, glad to hear of someone trying it out. I wonder how it bears out in cost comparison w/ setting up a wi-fi network? How is your speed from various places?
I've had a wireless network for a while now (as you know) and it has served me well. On a couple of occasions I've been able to share my connection with visitors. And my wife just received a laptop from work with built in wireless network card, so we're all over the house with that action.
Now, if only my phone were wi-fi capable...