ACTEW article and using power grid for Internet?
Keith J. Anderson: Technology Solutions Architect 04-Mar-1997 2149
anderson@bigun.ENET.dec.com
Tue, 4 Mar 97 06:25:23 EST
Looking at the Australian story today on ACTEW reminded me of an article I saw
coupla days ago on using a power grid as a network..here it is.
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EMail: anderson@kleine.enet.dec.com . Keith J. Anderson
or anderson.keith@cao.mts.dec.com . Networks and Systems Integration
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..."Brought to our attention by John Rowlett, the Feb. 10 InfoWorld
( http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayArchives.pl?dt_iwe06-97_21.htm )
describes Ethernet inventor Robert Metcalf's belief that relatively
high speed, pervasive, local connectivity for wired devices could
conceivably come from -- the power line!
Consider the "just plug it in once" allure as, eventually, you
really may want your office's or home's various communicating
computing appliances (everything from copiers and fax machines to
computers to appliances to lighting and infrastructure controllers,
and more) to be able to talk with their Mother Ship. For example,
consider their talking to a local building server/controller, or
talking to an appliance's manufacturer for ongoing maintenance
visibility, or how about communicating with a value-added service
vendor so, for example, your freezer could order replacement frozen
pizzas as you eat them!
Carrying data over the already-available power lines in a building
isn't new -- it's a great idea which has been pursued for years, on
a residential scale, by companies making "X10" power line
controllers -- http://www.x10.com/ ). But now that concept holds
tremendous additional appeal for turning the growing number of
"communicating computing appliances" into an inter-working "system"
using existing infrastructure. After all, using the power line for
local networking as well as for power means you don't have to pull
another network cable (very expensive even in the best of
circumstances). And, "plug and play" would take on a whole new
meaning -- just one wire to the wall.
So, why hasn't power line networking caught on? Well, for one
thing, until recently there hasn't been all that much demand to
network "things" together (although as we have discussed in
previous RCFoC issues, as more and more "non-computer" devices
become Internet nodes, I think that's going to change). And, to put
it mildly, the power line is a rather hostile environment for data.
X10 is successful because it's limited commands are transmitted
slowly and redundantly ( http://www.x10.com/x10tech.htm ), but that
won't work when a lot of devices want to exchange a lot of data
over a difficult shared medium.
Metcalf suggests that new techniques, such as the use of
spread-spectrum RF-over-power-lines now being used by Adaptive
( http://www.adaptivenetworks.com/ ) at 100 Kbit/second, hold the
potential to grow to robust megabits-per-second speeds!
Let's imagine just a couple of interesting potentials if everything
that plugged into the wall had an inexpensive power line
megabit-per-second Internet controller on-board:
* First, at that point, any PC, server, or dedicated controller
in that office or home would now hold the potential to whip
this group of (previously) fiercely independent electronic
citizens into a "whole" that should yield more value than just
the sum of its individual parts (see below); and
* Beyond that, suppose that power companies were to choose to
offer an Internet router as a part of the power meter,
connecting your office or home to the global Internet via the
fiber that they're beginning to string along their
right-of-way, or by using whichever is the most appropriate
high speed Internet access for any given locale (Cable TV,
telephone company xDSL, etc.).
There are, of course, LOTS of issues and unknown territories with
such a scheme:
* The whole realm of security, such as not letting someone in
the adjacent business (or across the globe) reprogram your fax
machine to send them copies of your correspondence, steal your
files, or mess with your PBX, to name a few);
* The increased traffic that such "communicating computing
appliances" might generate (although the Internet hasn't
melted-down yet under escalating traffic); and of course
* "Who you gonna call" when some "combination service" (a
value-added service that makes shared use of many of your
commodity "communicating computing appliances," such as a
premises alarm that might watch door and motion sensors,
control lights, and use the telephone) fails to work?
These issues, and many more that I'm sure you're thinking of, do
represent significant challenges. But they also represent just as
significant Opportunities for hardware, software, networking, and
service vendors as -- the rules continue to change.
Pervasive networking for "things" may not unfold as we've
speculated above, but if someone does come up with really
inexpensive modules that can turn anything into a "communicating
computing appliance," how long do you think it might take for The
Innovators to turn those capabilities into a competitive advantage,
or a quality-of-life enhancement, that many might decide they just
can't live without? (Remember the telephone, electricity, the VCR,
and the fax machine?)
We don't yet how exactly how it will happen, but
"Internet-everywhere" could well be one of the more interesting
results of -- the rapidly changing face of computing.
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extracted from
The Rapidly Changing Face of Computing
Feb. 24, 1997
"Tickle-Me Windows"?
by Jeffrey R. Harrow
Senior Consulting Engineer
Corporate Strategy & Technology,
Digital Equipment Corporation
harrow@mail.dec.com
Insight, analysis and commentary on contemporary computing
and the technologies that drive it (not necessarily the
views of Digital Equipment Corporation).
Copyright 1997, Digital Equipment Corporation
Note: The RCFoC is available to the public at
http://www.digital.com/info/rcfoc/