Sony, Mitsubishi and Panasonic intro 170Mbps data transfer via home power lines
By Barb Dybwad 
posted March 14th 2005 1:43PM
posted March 14th 2005 1:43PM
Move over HomePlug, there's something faster. Much faster. Sony, Mitsubishi and Panasonic are promising speeds of up
to 170Mbps around the home via infrastructure you already have in place: power lines. The Powerline technology is
similar to what the HomePlug system does, but over ten
times faster, and three times faster than WiFi — fast enough, apparently, to transmit
HDTV. The three Japanese consumer electronics giants have set up a consortium
called the SECA powerline alliance that will directly compete with the 50-company strong HomePlug alliance. It all
sounds very promising indeed, and isn't it exactly what everybody wants most: yet another standards war?
[Thanks, Lenny!]
Just out of curiousity, how does this standard work with surge suppressors and UPS systems?
Here is a working link to the story.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=582&e=3&u=/nm/20050310/wr_nm/tech_internet_powerline_dc
I'm curious to know about UPS's as well. What about other household appliances such as Microwaves and stuff?! Do they interfere?!
Call me weary, but I'd rather stick with a dedicated cable from my PC to my router and to the other PC.
isn't WiFi 10Mbps?
I never understood how something like this could work properly in an apartment building. Could it?
WiFi has various data rates. The original 802.11b standard was a 11MBs, then they doubled that, then they added 802.11g which gave us 54MBs and they've doubled that to give us 108MBs. Which BTW is fast enough to handle the MPEG2 Encoded HDTV stream of 5 720p HDTV signals. And they standard isn't stopping anytime soon.
TAZ
I might be paranoid but I've never liked the idea of using the powerlines for data transmission...I just find it unsettling to think that another nigh direct path for a surge will be created.
When I set up my home LAN 3 years ago I had the same choices everyone else did. Run Cat5, Powerline/Homeplug, HPNA (phone lines), or wireless (802.11b at the time). With a 2 story house cat5 would have either been ugly or 1st floor only, wifi was too unrealiable in my opinion and with all the electronics in my house really quite spotty (I have since added it and it works ok). That left either the powerlines or the phonelines, and as I said...electricity just plain scares me. So I went with the HPNA(2.0)...which subsequently died in the market place. Too bad too, it works pretty well for sharing the broadband connections we've had up till now (DSL and then Cable -> 1.5mbps to ~3mbps).
They recently tried to revive it with HPNA 3.0, promising speeds of up to 100mbps...no takers...or at least no one seems to be producing any hardware.
Even though Powerline/Homeplug remained marginally more popular than HPNA I think this new standard will not take off too well, even if it comes to market. It sounds fast yes, but the tests always seem to show that mediums other than good ol CatX in the SOHO area always seem to run about half of the theoretical maximum. 85mbps is still nearly as good as what can be expected from half duplex Cat5, but everyones so wireless crazy these days I doubt it will matter.
Ultimately I think 802.11b (or at least the hyp surrounding it) killed HPNA and heavily suppressed HP/PL, and I tend to think 802.11g (and later n) will do the same to this...even though I think a physical wire is better where possible.
I don't see why this couldn't live next to wireless in a given home.
Use the powerline method to get the data into the home and distributed to any wired devices. Then, use a wireless hub to distribute data to laptops and other wireless gadgets.
choice is good.
A format war does cause issues, but will they be able to extend this technology beyond the home for distrobution to compete with cable, broadband and satellite ISPs?
www.colindeford.com
Colin
Something else needlessly polluting the 3-30Mhz bands. Thank you Michael Powell!
Well, somewhere in the morass of my last comment I mentioned that at this point, wireless and a shared-wire technology DO co-habitate in my LAN. But not everyone is a geek like me, nor do they want to spend money on redundancy.
I definitely agree, choice is good. I'm not one of those 'fanboy' type people who wants to see my chosen product/form factor/whatever push the others out of the market.
I definitely like having internet access from the outdoor decks at my house (one upstairs, two downstairs) for which I can thank wifi, and I like having a good solid/constant/reliable connection from any room in the house with a phone, for which I can thank HPNA (I actually had wanted to ad homeplug/powerline so the garage would be covered by wire as well for MP3 streaming and internet access while working on cars, but my moneys had to go elsewhere).Yes choice IS good...
Trouble is, I don't think it matters to enough people to make this product a truly profitable venture. My network is pretty stable these days (although the cable modem itself has been freaking out lately) but it has been difficult to get everything to play nice with each other.
Wireless *seems* on the surface to be the easiest to set up, so that's probably what most casual computer users will go for. Once they get that set up I doubt they'll be inclined to go to the trouble and expense to have a redundant setup. And if people don't by it, manufacturers will stop (or perhaps never even start) producing it.
This new stuffs got a chance, Homeplug was never ultra-common, but you can still by products new in stores (not many but some). I just think more people like what the wifi product providers OFFER, whether they deliver it or not.
To be honest, I suppose I actually hope this stuff does take off. My HPNA bridge is on borrowed time (it's already outlasted 2 internet ip routers), and when it goes I doubt I'll be able to replace it. And I would certainly be happy to go from the anemic HPNA 2.0 LAN speed of 10mbps (more like 5-7 ) to 85 - 170...
Then again I'm only thinking about the US market. This might be real boon for some people if there are contries/regions out there that for some reason prohibit the use of wireless. And I suppose the security concious will now have another alternative to blasting their internet activities all over the neighborhood (though some point out that the homeplug signal can be detected on the line several blocks away from it's source)...
I see what you're saying OddManOut, I was pointing towards the future of powerline networking to provide access to the internet entirely (no more cable modem). Not just as an intranet tool.
" (no more cable modem)"
Obviously [see previous post] I'm all for THAT :)
I wonder if having implicit 170mbps connections to our homes would slow down the eventual penetration of fiber-to-the home, or would it just mean that those poor folks out in the sticks wouldn't suffer as much waiting to get their fiber (optics).
Kind of ironic, our broadband provider actually hooked us up with fiber to our house (if the sales guy can be believed...but they did string in some kind of new line) and I think we have yet to break 5mbps (course we haven't ASKED for more speed, I know many providers are offering 6 - 8 mbps, but I doubt they'd just give the upgrade for free).
Then again, how many people would we have to share that 170mbps with ? Even if that medium could be used to provide our broadband it could turn out to be a re-hashing of the early cable days before they capped the number of users per node at a reasonable level...
This thing has been trialled in Australia and in seems to work, however I think there are some issues with leakage and interference on other spectrums. The speed seems much slower for these trails, 10-30Mbps so I am strongly doubting the 170Mbps that has been quoted.