Bridging the digital divide and Broadband over Powerlines

[rpm]

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Broadband/970.html

 

[ebudae]

"There are currently so many other new access technologies that show more promise and less problems that it is difficult to understand why PLT is so vigorously pursued."

I could be mistaken, but barring the issue of interference, doesn't PLT make sense in country where getting an ADSL line installed could take months? I mean powerlines can be found on even the most remote little farm.

 

[w1z4rd]

"There are currently so many other new access technologies that show more promise and less problems that it is difficult to understand why PLT is so vigorously pursued."

I could be mistaken, but barring the issue of interference, doesn't PLT make sense in country where getting an ADSL line installed could take months? I mean powerlines can be found on even the most remote little farm.

One of our farms doesnt have Eskom, had to run a WW1 genny to get power

 

[ebudae]

One of our farms doesnt have Eskom, had to run a WW1 genny to get power

Okay so maybe not every farm. But the point still persists, even if in a slightly dented form.

 

[ldmelsa]

all the talk about rolling out PLT in suburbia is opportunistic advertising and companies should refrain from doing this.

Don't the myADSL members just know it!

GTS: ‘90 Mbps Broadband Triple play Service in SA in 2007’
http://mybroadband.co.za/nephp/?m=show&id=5125

GTS has indicated that they are gearing up to take on South African telecommunications and broadcasting in 2007

Better hurry up, it's August!


"Power to the people."
http://mybroadband.co.za/nephp/?m=show&id=5538

Good news for consumers is that Maguire wants GTS to use PLC to offer faster broadband than what is available today on DSL, at a lower price. The company plans to offer lower-cost Internet packages with generous 20GB monthly bandwidth caps (compare that to the average 3GB from Telkom).

hehehehe

 

[Tns]

just another buzz word that will die a slow death,well maybe not totally die, /me points to GTS

 

[Jonny Two Shoes]

I AM GOING TO THROW UP

Please don't remind me about the GTS saga

 

[Tux]

Yeah... What happened to GTS?

 

[Glordit]

Well I have power comming to my house, so why cant I have it?
Oh wait...
Telkom... is probably behind this just like WiMAX

 

[ambo]

I could be mistaken, but barring the issue of interference, doesn't PLT make sense in country where getting an ADSL line installed could take months? I mean powerlines can be found on even the most remote little farm.

There is another major issue that has been mentioned to me by a number of electrical engineers:-
Many electricity networks in ZA are extremely old and badly maintained (don't think I need to explain myself there ). As a result there are many cable joints that are heavily corroded. These joints tend to act like low pass filters which is not problem a problem for the 50 Hz wave that they are carrying. As soon as you overlay the high frequency carrier onto the line it gets heavily attenuated and the coverage is rather pathetic.

There are probably other issues as well but basically it comes down to the electrical properties of a line that is designed for something completely different from what they are wanting to achieve. The amount of engineering that will be required to hack a power line into a telecoms line is not trivial - no matter how much the marketing people try to hype it.