The rumors about broadband over power lines is as old as my misery in motion, but it’s not ever going to happen. Now Matsushita brings it up again. They claim to have built a chip that enables you to use your traditional power plug to relay data. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, but my doubts are high since the entire world is evil 
and people are totally agains’t cheap efficient technology.
This is a nifty idea Matsushita (manufacturer of Panasonic) has come up with. And if it’s for real, I’m really psyched to see it in action. Seems the Japanese-based company is developing a technology that will let you use a household plug to connect to broadband Internet. Goodbye networking hassles, hello electric socket. Basically, the socket will relay not only electricity, but data as well. Though this actual technology isn’t new, Matsushita’s tech lets them deliver broadband information at up to 170 mbps—which is even faster than Ethernet. So all you’ll have to do is attach a special device with an embedded chip (made by Matsushita of course) into a socket, plug in a product and you’ll be connected to broadband. Imagine the home networking you could do with this? Kitchen of the future? Hell yeah! The hope is to sell products with the chips already embedded, so you won’t have the extra attachable device to worry about.
JErm is a web designer and an ex-9-to-5-er semi-retiring in Bali. He runs a small 
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
In the country where I live broadband over the electricity network has been an option for quite some time, it’s in some sort of beta stage though but it’s possible in certain parts of the country.
The thing is, it isn’t totally used to run over the electricity wiring, it tends to give other items like lamps, radios etc some problems with functioning
. Appearantly besides needing just an electric wiring in your house you also need to have a certain type of switchboxes and a certain type of connector for your household items, otherwise you will keep getting those problems.
So instead of having to mess with UTP cables you’re gonna have to mess with the electricity wiring
.
They had that over here way way back before i even knew you JErm. It wasn’t and hasn’t been an option anywhere since, they started beta testing it and we heard nothing since. Apparently though it did cause a lot of the problems and issues that Stef mentions. Shame!
Broadband over power isn’t that new, nor that effective. What I would rather see is widespread implimentation of broadband in gas which uses natual gas pipelines for long rang wireless internet, and because it doesn’t use public airspace, it can use the full radio spectrum which gives about 10Gbps. Its also been proven to work without any negative side-effects, and it can be cheaply implemented.
See this: http://jmweirick.weblogs.us/archives/298
That’s a windup surely. They don’t say how they will pipe the data, you can’t just transmit data down a hollow pipe and expect it to arrive safely at the other end. ROFL!! I don’t see any difference between this idea and the electric cable idea to be honest!