Thats weird in Cincinnati they are offering BPL and they advertise "[faster] speeds (in excess of 3 mbps) at lower monthly cost than other broadband services" They also have plans to bundle VoIP with it in the future. Unfortunelty I live outside of Cincinnati city limits which is all the further they have planned to install right now. But I can vouche for the fact that it is taking forever to roll it out here.
http://www.cinergy.com/News/default_corporate_news.asp?news_id=420 This was published in March 2004 and they probably have only rolled it out to 10-15% of Cincinnati, if that. Adam Haskell On 7/12/05, Larry C. Lyons <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Before anyone gets too excited over BBOP, Manassas (where I'm living) > has been running a test of it for the last year and a half. The > results have been very mixed. There was an article/commentary about > this project in Sunday's Washington Post. > > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/09/AR2005070900126.html?sub=AR > > and for you wrap challenged types: > > http://makeashorterlink.com/?L27D12A6B > > washingtonpost.com > Electrifying Ease, if Not Speed > > By Maria L. Henriques > Washington Post Staff Writer > Sunday, July 10, 2005; F06 > > Almost a year is a long time to wait for a faster Internet connection. > But it's nothing too unusual when it comes to getting Internet access > via electrical wires instead of cable or phone lines. > > Power-line broadband has been talked up for years as a cheap, widely > available alternative to cable-modem and digital subscriber line (DSL) > access, but it has been slow to make the move from laboratories to > homes. > > Locally, the city of Manassas was the first to start offering > power-line access, in January 2004. I first inquired in March 2004, > was told it would arrive in my neighborhood that May and put my name > on a waiting list. > > But the May deadline was pushed back to July, then October, then > January of this year. I finally got hooked up in February. > > These delays happened for two major reasons. One, the Manassas > Department of Utilities, which owns the electrical wiring, had to lay > in a fiber-optics network to bring Internet data to and from its power > lines, then install special relay units at 170 locations on its > network of power lines, each covering homes within a mile at most. > > The department had to build in this capability one street at a time > and is still not done. John D. Hewa, Manassas's director of utilities, > said that 10,000 of the city's 12,500 households can get the service > and that the remainder should over the next two months. > > Once electrical wires have been rigged appropriately, power-line > broadband sends data back and forth over them as high-frequency waves > that regular electrical equipment is deaf to but a special modem can > receive and transmit. > > The city also changed Internet providers when its contract with its > first operator, Prospect Street Broadband, ended. A new franchisee > took over in July 2004: Chantilly-based Communication Technologies > Inc., or ComTek for short ( http://www.comtekbroadband.com/ ). > > After all that waiting, however, actually installing a power-line > connection turned out to be free of suspense. I picked up a free modem > and followed directions on the box: Connect the modem to a computer's > Ethernet port, then plug the modem into any electrical outlet. > > Those instructions warned that I might lose power for up to three > minutes, but the lights didn't even flicker -- a far smoother setup > experience than with earlier cable or DSL accounts. > > At $28.95 a month, less with a quarterly or yearly contract, ComTek's > power-line service also handily beats prices for cable modem service > and slightly undercuts Verizon's cheapest DSL offering. > > Power-line broadband can't keep up with cable or DSL in terms of > speed, however. ComTek advertises download and upload speeds of 300 to > 500 kilobits per second (kbps) each. That's six to 10 times faster > than dial-up but only a third or a sixth as quick as most cable or DSL > services. > > Actual performance trailed still further. Before a repeater box was > installed outside my house (a free procedure done by ComTek), download > speeds measured only 116 kbps in a test offered by CNet.com. > Afterward, the top speed was just over 200 kbps. > > As a result, streaming audio programs took a few moments to connect, > and online video took considerably longer to start playing. > > Whatever ComTek's power-line broadband lacked in raw speed, however, > it made up for in reliability. Over six weeks of use, the connection > never dropped. Neither did the electricity at home, except for a brief > outage when the repeater was installed. (Manassas's utility department > alleviated problems by calling ahead to ask for a convenient time for > this upgrade.) > > ComTek's generally unremarkable Internet package includes the usual > freebies -- five e-mail accounts and 10 megabytes of space to put up a > personal Web site. Technical support, available round-the-clock, was > easy to reach, but calls for help with such nontechnical issues as > billing often met a busy signal or a voice-mail recording. > > Power-line broadband won't win any speed races, at least not as > deployed by ComTek. But its cost savings are substantial, and its > coverage advantages -- once a utility has prepared its system for this > technology -- are even more so. DSL is limited to areas near > telephone-network hubs, and cable service doesn't reach some rural > areas, but everybody has electricity. > (c) 2005 The Washington Post Company > > On 7/12/05, Jim Davis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > And it's getting at least a little closer to you, Dana. ;^) > > > > http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050711-5081.html > > > > The links in the article also link to other articles which flesh out the > > issues a bit more. > > > > Personally I'm hoping that WiMax takes off big. I want my little > > solar-powered cabin in the woods... but I don't want to give up BroadBand to > > get it. ;^) > > > > Jim Davis > > > > > > > > > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Sams Teach Yourself Regular Expressions in 10 Minutes by Ben Forta http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=40 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:164453 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
