Broadband-over-Powerline Experiences?

tarp asks: "I'm moving to the City of Manassas, Virginia, where ZPlug offers BPL (Broadband over Power Lines). The city was the first in the nation to offer BPL as an alternative to DSL or Cable. They claim a 300 to 500 kilobit per second connection speed, and rock-solid performance since the only downtime would be when the power grid goes down. BPL is also rolling out in other locations, despite campaigns by amateur radio enthusiasts to stop it due to interference. Anyway, have any of you used BPL, and is it something I should try rather than getting a DSL or Cable connection?"

Check the availability of cable first

[seinman]

Is 500k really that fast nowadays? I don't know about your city specifically, but Cox seems to cover most of the state for cable (i'm from Norfolk myself) and they recently upgraded their regular service to 4mbps down, 512kbps up... I think we're paying $40 a month for that, $50 if you don't subscribe to cable. So unless ZPlug is really freakin' cheap, i'd say you're getting ripped off.

I would not do such things if I were you

[ElForesto]

I would be very cautious about being an early adopter of this unproven technology. The equipment is first gen, the service techs are green and the speed doesn't sound very impressive. If that's all that's available, then I'd make sure I didn't get locked into a contract if I were you.

I went to DSL Reports [dslreports.com] and they don't even list it as a category yet, FYI.

I should also note that while the power grid is still pretty sturdy, this speaks nothing of equipment failures, and it would seem that power goes out more often than land-line phone service or cable from what I've seen. Of course, I'm basing this on Las Vegas where most of the lines are below-ground, so your results may vary.

It all boils down to this: are you willing to accept the headaches of this new technology, and is the price/performance compelling enough to warrant that risk? Of course, I think this applies to all new technology. *has flashbacks of the "bad old days" of cable modems*

Radio Interference

[tiny69]

http://www.gobpl.com/ - This site makes it sound like there is not much future in BPL.

http://vhfgroup.rochesterny.org/downloads/ - A couple of MP3's of the interference.

http://iwce-mrt.com/ar/radio_bpl_deployments_fir e/ - FEMA, which has a lot more influence that the ARRL, is siding againt BPL.

Any wire can act as antenna. Power lines by themselves give off a signal. But because power lines are not perfect antennas, efforts to limit any interference caused by BPL will not be 100% effective. What will kill BPL is if it's starts interfering with emergancy services (FEMA) or consumer products.

Personally, I'd be more concerned about the privacy issues. Any data on the power lines is essentially being transmitted to anyone with a radio who happens to be able to pick up the signal. Spread spectrum technology would help with privacy concerns.

This sounds like a fun project, sniffing traffic from power lines....