Electric Broadband

Imposter

I recently signed up for BB through my electricity and am very impressed. The minimum option available ot me costs 24€ a month which saves me money seeing as I don't need a phoneline. Now i'm thinking if I could reduce the cost I spend on phonecalls to Ireland by using this it could become very handy.

Is it possible to use telephone services like VOIP or even internet to normal phone with this type of network? If so, how does it work (How does my netwrok connect to the phone network, what s/w and h/w would I need etc.)?

Also if anyone can point me to some links describing the infrastructure and generally how this technology works i would be grateful. I've done a quick search and only came up with press releases on the technology and commercial sites and both were lacking any sort of technical details.

eth0_

Eh? broadband over the electricity lines? where do you live?
Have you tried Skype?

Imposter

Linz, Austria. No not tried Skype as i'd be more interested in connecting to normal phones if it's possible.

tuxy

http://www.skype.com/store.html

skype can connect to normal phones
iv no idea if its any good as i havent used it myself
id say it would be worth getting a few € credit to try it out
2 cent a minute to call ireland

and it should work fine over your connection
good to see the internet over electrical cables is finaly being used in some countries

Imposter

Tuxy,
Thanks, had a look on the skype site. I didn't realise it works to landlines as well!

Do you know of any good links that explain how the electric BB network works?

Draíochta

You can't recieve calls on skype, but the're working on it, quality on skype is great, better than POTS for sure.
As for you internet connection, I was going to use this to network my house, but it's a bit expensive. A friend in collage done this for his final year project, didn't get too much into it as I was a bit busy with my own. Normally when you get BB you sent the signal only a short distance over the regular phone line thatn you get a better line outside your house. Broadband works at high frequancies, and the higher the freq the shorter the distance. This must mean the electrical supply is connected to the internet through a hub near your house. Just as a matter of interest what sort of band width do you have? and what are your ping times in general? As for h/w for skype, head phones and micraphone, s/w would just be skpye.

Draíochta

Links for tech stuff? try http://www.howstuffworks.com/


search for 'How Broadband Over Powerlines Works'
They have an article on it.

tuxy

Dra&#237 wrote: »

I was going to use this to network my house, but it's a bit expensive..

isnt the method of home networking by using the devices that plug into an eletrical socket alot differnt than an isp providing broadband to a house over electrical cable?

Imposter i dont know any sites about how it works but if you search google you should come up with something that explains it good

Imposter

Dra&#237 wrote: »

You can't recieve calls on skype, but the're working on it, quality on skype is great, better than POTS for sure.
As for you internet connection, I was going to use this to network my house, but it's a bit expensive. A friend in collage done this for his final year project, didn't get too much into it as I was a bit busy with my own. Normally when you get BB you sent the signal only a short distance over the regular phone line thatn you get a better line outside your house. Broadband works at high frequancies, and the higher the freq the shorter the distance. This must mean the electrical supply is connected to the internet through a hub near your house. Just as a matter of interest what sort of band width do you have? and what are your ping times in general? As for h/w for skype, head phones and micraphone, s/w would just be skpye.

Receiving calls is not a problem. Mobile is good for that and texts are always another option, especially if I can ring Ireland so cheaply.

My bandwidth is 256KBit/sec. The more expensive options are better. See here .
How do I find out my ping times? (I'll post them later this evening when I get home)

Draíochta

tuxy wrote:

isnt the method of home networking by using the devices that plug into an eletrical socket alot differnt than an isp providing broadband to a house over electrical cable?


I know this it was just small point. Same technology and the high freq has the same effect on the signal, also home netwoking works at much higher bandwidth than ISP's can provide, meaning it will not be limited in a few years, and has great potential.
I don't think we can get this service in Ireland, but it would be great.
Anybody know if we can? or are interested in starting up their own company? I'll sign up I promise.

mrhappy42

I just mailed the ESB for a statement on when if every the plan to have broadband over electricity supply, will post the reply if any.

Nietzschean

weren't the esb doing trial's of this in donegal there a while back ?

mrhappy42

The is extract from reply from ESB (removed names etc)
"
Many thanks for your e-mail.

ESB Telecom is in the process of carrying out a technical trial of Power Line Carrier in one town (Tuam) in the west of Ireland.

This is not a commercial trial and it is unlikely to be extended nationally.

We await the results of the technical trial at this stage which are due before the end of the year.

I hope this answers your enquiry.

Best regards,"

NeoSlicerZ

...Tuam.. wtf?!

Moonbeam

This is an old link -

http://www.enn.ie/frontpage/news-9372044.html

But hopefully we will have it here soon too:)

Draíochta

That's a funny article, they are calling it PLC this is a very well known acronym for 'programmable logic controllers'. It is good that the ESB are looking into it.

"This is not a commercial trial and it is unlikely to be extended nationally"

What the fluck does that mean?

Moriarty

"We were forced to run the trial by the minister and we have abso-fúcking-loutly no want nor need to run this service. We'll can it as soon as humanly possible."

chump

can skype connect to mobiles?
if so, how much?

ven0m

eth0_ wrote:

Eh? broadband over the electricity lines? where do you live?
Have you tried Skype?

BB over powerlines is more commonly called 'Powerband' & the ESB have been offering it on a limited basis (The Business Post some time back did an article on it for their Computers In Business section!)

As for Skype - the amount of computers & WINSOCK2 reinstalls I've had to do from feckin skype isn't funny & is on the increase - whoever wrote Skype needs a good kicking as it is veritable sh**e & shouldn't be put near a Windoze machine...


::: ven0mous :::

Draíochta

'Powerband' at least it's better than PLC.
As for skype, it's €0.22 a min to irish mobiles.
Go to http://www.skype.com/skypeout/help.pricelist.html for a full list of prices.
I've never had any issues with skype so far, what versions were you using ven0m?
Skype has only just gone out of beta testing, it's now at v1.0.

ven0m

Dra&#237 wrote: »

'Powerband' at least it's better than PLC.
As for skype, it's €0.22 a min to irish mobiles.
Go to http://www.skype.com/skypeout/help.pricelist.html for a full list of prices.
I've never had any issues with skype so far, what versions were you using ven0m?
Skype has only just gone out of beta testing, it's now at v1.0.

Now u mention that fact it could be related to dodgy BETA's, cos they were all 0.x releases ..... might give it a crack again & see how it goes .... just don't like doing OS rebuilds due to crap coding....

::: ven0mous :::

Washout

Moonbeam wrote:

This is an old link -

http://www.enn.ie/frontpage/news-9372044.html

But hopefully we will have it here soon too:)

However, the rollout of power line communications still requires users to be within a few miles of an electricity sub-station, not unlike the way ADSL users must be relatively close to phone exchanges.


aboveis a quote from the article in the link moonbeam posted..

WTF does within a few miles mean? isnt that the same case for ADSL?

whats the point in rolling it out and wasting millions if its still going to be unavailabe to a vast amount of potentiel users

maxheadroom

Washout wrote:

whats the point in rolling it out and wasting millions if its still going to be unavailabe to a vast amount of potentiel users

Exactly.

mrhappy42

Discussion was had here before by the looks of it: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=175282

But these guys seem upbeat:
http://www.iqpc.co.uk/cgi-bin/templates/genevent.html?topic=233&event=5359&

mrhappy42

Mailed to ESB again "It seems from your statement that the ESB has already decided this will not go ahead. Is the for commercial reason, technical reasons or environment reasons.

If so why, seeing that many countries are implementing this strategy, details below: http://www.iqpc.co.uk/cgi-bin/templates/genevent.html?topic=233&event=5359&"


and got the following reply



"No decision has been made either way as yet. We await the report on the technical trial and will make a decision at that stage."


The first reply was within a day or so this one is a lot longer so maybe some discussion happened.