[LINK] powerline net access

richard@auscoms.com.au richard@auscoms.com.au
Fri, 25 Feb 2000 10:30:24 +1100


Roger,

I'd leave it midway between urban myth and not. Powerlines not only _can_ be
used for data, they _are_ used for it -- at middling rates, by the electricity
authorities themselves, for industrial control apps.

But as Stewart Fist points out, the practical issues make it a joke for Internet
access. [And respectable news media still get sucked in by hype just as much as
any other kind. A business newspaper is interested in money, not technology...]

RC

____________________Reply Separator____________________
Subject:    Re: [LINK] powerline net access
Author: "Roger Clarke" <Roger.Clarke@xamax.com.au>
Date:       24/02/00 23:28


stephen loosley <stephen@melbpc.org.au> :
>  ...  such report, albeit un-confirmed (www.handelsblatt.de?) ...

Karl Auer is closer to it than me, and my German is Swiss and Austrian
rather than genuine Hochdeutsch, but:
(a)  Handelsblatt = Commerce Newspaper, i.e. not the Daily Mirror
(b)  a quick check of the 'Computer und Technik' Sektion finds an article
     on the Australian situation datelined 5 Apr 99, credible, though worth a
     debate, written by a Richard Joseph, presumably he who was once of the
     Uni of Wollongong's Dept of I.T., an economist who watched I.T.
http://www.handelsblatt.de/cgi-bin/hbi.exe?SH=&iPV=0&fn=hb&sfn=index&part=news&m
ain=news_ct_listcomputer&nav=2

At a quick glance, mid-way between the Financial Review and the business
pages of the Tele, and certainly not the Xinhua Newsagency.

So:
I *still* don't know whether or not powerline net access is an urban myth!!!


Roger Clarke              http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/

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