Gas pipe broadband?

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"The cable guys view us as a threat," Nunally said. "But the phone companies that we have talked to seem more interested in working with us."

Internet service providers and the phone companies, in fact, have been looking for alternative ways to deliver broadband services to customers. EarthLink has been busy exploring new technologies such as broadband over power lines and citywide Wi-Fi. Back in October, it announced a contract to build a wireless broadband network for the city of Philadelphia.

A chicken-and-egg problem
It has also been testing ways to use electrical power lines to deliver broadband service into homes. It's currently testing services with Duke Power in Charlotte, N.C., Progress Energy in Raleigh, N.C., and Consolidated Edison in New York. Google is also looking into citywide Wi-Fi in San Francisco, and it's invested in a a broadband-over-power-line service provider called Current Communications Group.

Other carriers, such as BellSouth, have started offering services that use prestandard WiMax technology. It now offers service in Athens, Ga., Palatka, Fla., and parts of New Orleans.

There are technical limitations to each of these technologies. For example, broadband on power lines has interference issues. Citywide Wi-Fi and WiMax don't offer the kinds of bandwidth needed to deliver high-capacity applications like high-definition television. WiMax supports data speeds of 75mbps, but that capacity is shared among dozens of users. BellSouth's service in New Orleans only offers 1.5mbps.

Natural-gas piping could be a good solution to the problem. It already serves more than 70 percent of households and well over 35 percent of businesses in the United States, according to West Technology Research Solutions, an independent market research firm. Because the lines are underground, more powerful transmitters can be used, which ramps up bandwidth to 100mbps for every household.

Delivering broadband through gas pipes could be much cheaper than technology available today, according to a recent study by West Technology Research Solutions. The analyst firm estimates it would cost a phone company about $500 per customer to deploy broadband in gas pipes. Deploying DSL over its existing copper infrastructure costs about $1,000 per customer. Fiber to the home is even more expensive, costing about $2,000 per customer.

Nunally estimates a deployment for a city of a million homes would cost $2 million.

"If a comparable service can be delivered cheaper through natural-gas pipes, then that is a big factor," said George West, senior analyst at West Technology.

While most analysts are not sold on the technology just yet, many believe it sounds plausible.

"In theory it could work," said Craig Mathias, a principal analyst at Farpoint Group, a consultancy specializing in wireless and mobile technologies. "Ultra wideband technology is pretty tolerant. But I'm not sure how well it could work within all the twists and turns inside a natural-gas pipe."

At least one ISP says it's interested in learning more about broadband in gas pipes.

"We are just starting to look into it," said Kevin Brand, vice president of product management for EarthLink. "We still need to see how real the technology is, whether it will really work, and how much it will cost to deploy. It doesn't have the ubiquity of power line technology, but natural gas goes into a great number of homes. It's interesting."

West predicts that 3.9 million households will subscribe to broadband services delivered through gas pipes by 2008. And by 2010, he predicts that number will grow to 18.6 million subscribers.

That is, if someone has the guts to test it.

"Utilities are conservative by nature," said EN Engineering's Posewick. "There's a little bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. You need to prove to them that the technology works, but to know if it works, we need someone who can help test it."

[the liquid man]

Amazing! First broadband thru the power lines now this...

I can't wait to get broadband thru water =P

I wonder how safe it would be. Gas leak = bad

[anunally]

Broadband-in-Gas

Water is not an option - Natural Gas pipelines is a very viable option. There are no safety issues associated with UWB transmitting through the natural gas due to the fact that in order to cause a hazardous condition commands 3 elements -oxygen,fuel, and an ignition source. Natural gas pipelines are secure and contain no oxygen - furthermore, the components of BiG can be sealed from the gas flow, but again, without oxygen, there is no issue

[mwa423]

You have bigger problems with gas leaks

If you have a gas leak, you have bigger problems then your internet not working ;) (Like your house becoming a giant fireball)

[zaznet]

Not through power lines!

You missed the point of the power lines issue. What was used there was the data lines that went along with power lines. These data lines were put in place by power companies to communicate between power relay stations and collect meter data. They were simply under-utilized data lines being re-utilized for home users.

And yes, if they can get it to work with Natural gas, they should be able to make something like this work with burried water lines.

[kpowick]

Will it work over plastic?

Interesting idea, but will work over plastic pipes? Around here, when they replace or install new gas lines, they use plastic.

[anunally]

Broadband-in-Gas

Broadband-in-Gas transmits effectively through both plastic and metal pipes. Although metal is ideal, plastic requires additional power which is not a limitation due to the oxygen-free environment we are transmitting within. Having the flexibility with our transmission power makes plastic a non-issue.

Feasible, but Limited

I looked into this technology (briefly) about 6 years ago. The bottom line is that metal gas pipe acts as a waveguide, so that you get good coupling and an excellent signal/noise ratio.

There are a few problems:
1. You can only go to people who have gas service. We were looking at rural broadband, so that was a showstopper for my application.

2. Ultrawideband will have big problems with frequency dispersion and resonances. Single carrier broadband will probably work better.

3. Everybody is sharing the same bandwidth, so its like a cable modem. Even if you use 5 GHz as the carrier, there will be problems if some teenager sets up a BitTorrent server.


Finally, there will be the usual regulatory hassles. I would suggest going to co-op and municipal gas networks first, and then approach corporations in reverse order of size. (i.e. call PG&E last.)

[anunally]

Broadband-in-Gas

By item -
1. The footprint for gas services (residential and business) are substantial.
2. UWB actually works out well because of its constructive use of multipath and the fact that the pipes don't move.
3. OFDM helps out here.

[ganeshak]

Deja vu

Wait a minute...I seem to recall an April Fool's day story just like this...maybe six or seven years ago...in Wired or Business 2.0...about an ISP company in the Netherlands that was going to send internet service through sewer lines and was developing a toilet modem. There was even a bogus corporate website. Is this a gag?

[anunally]

Broadband-in-Gas

Nethercomm and our Broadband-in-Gas technology is 8 months old. The Natural gas pipeline infrastructure is in fact an incredible pathway to providing video, voice, and data (using wireless radar-type signals from the neighboorhood node) to each end user. This path beneath the ground is not regulated by the FCC and furthermore does not have the bandwidth limitations or interferance issues which plague the industry today. The level of content and speed, for the cost of DSL today, is in many ways too good to be true - BUT IT IS the up and coming means of Broadband delivery.

[ka1axy]

Fringe

This gentleman's going to have an uphill fight ahead of him. We'll overlook for the moment that he has no prototype unit, but "thinks it should work". Anyone who invests in this scheme should have their head examined.

1. Gas is explosive. You don't want to be messing with gas pipes. Putting high power RF into them is probably not a good idea, either.

2. They're plastic here in the Northeast, because steel rusts and becomes weak, allowing the gas to leak out. See #1, above. Plastic waveguides don't work very well.

3. Multipath and reflections if the pipes are steel. Gas pipes look like trees, with trunks and leaves. RF doesn't like that. You get reflections and it's harder to sort out the information you want, never mind tring to send information the other way, from your house to the network.

3. What percentage of homes have gas? Bet more of them have cable and phone lines. The ones that don't have cable, probably don't have mainline gas, either. Going to be a lot cheaper to get DSL or fiber or cable broadband.

4. Wireless

I'm left wondering why this company got two pages of coverage.

[anunally]

Broadband-in-Gas

1. In order for gas to be explosive, 3 components must exist - gas, oxygen, ignition source. Natural Gas Pipelines DO NOT contain oxygen therefore, absent 1 of 3 criterias, an explosion is not possible - the is technology has been evaluated by the gas industry as "intrinsically safe" per DOE. Therefore, power is not a limitation within this pathway.
2. Plastic pipelines are in fact becoming the standard replacement for faulty, old metal pipelines. Fortunately, without power limitations, we characterize for intermittment plastic sections, and dynamically increase the power.
3. We refer to it as either a star or mesh configuration - UWB propagates effectively with either. We use signal processing to handle all reflections and echos we create.

Keep in mind the build out cost of wireless verses fiber - full HDTV, video, voice and data for starters for the end user cost of DSL not to mention 100Mbps++ per end user

[ebrandel]

Vaporware

Vaporware, on so many levels.

[anunally]

Broadband-in-Gas

A found "Van Gough" in the attic so to speak. Wireless Broadband delivery through the natural gas pipeline infrastructure where power is unlimited due to the lack of oxygen to cause a safety condition, an environment not controlled by the FCC, full-spectrum without interferance beneath the ground, delivery of 100Mbps++ to each end user - with "no gas lines" the only VALID limitation to date.

[Roman12]

GAS PIPE

Whoa, 100mbps internet of gas pipes... Sounds crazy, but if it works, and if the pricing is right, its going to become very popular because I know some people still don't have cable lines at their place. And this gas pipe connection seems to be much faster then dsl is capabale of going at. Let's hope it works.
__________________________________
R.K.
http://www.Remove-All-Spyware.com/

[mwa423]

So what if everybody doesn't have natural gas service?

Not everybody has cable, not everybody has a clear view of the southern sky, not everybody has home phone service, but cable modems, satellite tv, and dsl all seem to be very popular ;)

You don't need every person in the world to have your product/service...but it does help.

[Earl Benser]

A word of caution.....????

From Ann Nunnally's comments about 'just using high power'
whenever needed, I get the impression that ANY accidental gas leak
is guaranteed to ignite if not detonate. With a leak, we do have the
full combination of gas, oxygen, and the high power ignition
source.

That makes a very loud KaBOOM.........

[Jim Harmon]

Need all three

The gas that would leak out of the pipe leaves the high power environment. You then have fuel and oxygen without an ignition source... until someone lights a cigarette. :)

[rrajiv]

really promising technology

this is really promising technology. I think if it works, then developing countries would benefit more than developed.

I wonder what the reaction of the cable/dsl companies would be considering they have spent a bomb laying fibre.

would they try to shutdown this new method of internet distribution that undercuts them totally?

[j-keenan]

Waveguides R Us?

Assuming you can couple sufficient RF energy into a gaspipe without blowing yourself up, I wonder how efficient one can make network distribution? Every home is a different distance from the injection point, likely with different pipe sizes and couplings, bend radius's etc. Thus every 'RF path' is unique for each home, i.e. impedence mismatch out the wazzoo. So, assuming we haven't exploded ourselves yet, the deployment tech's can spend hours of valuable time at the customer premises finding and matching to an elusive carrier signal? Note these would be the same morons who can't get an F connector on a big fat cable without screwing things up. Another great idea doomed at the outset by 'human factors...'

[rivsys]

Wow, COOL!

1) How well will the signal propagate through pumping stations? Does compression equipment create too much interference?

2) Will a pig running in a given section of pipe break a signal? I assume the packets would take another route...

3) For areas lacking "last mile" gas service, couldn't you pull the signal out of the pipe and route through a WiMax tower?

[Jim Harmon]

Not a bad idea!

I would think that treating broadband like cell phones could bring this idea to the market faster. Use gas lines to do the major distribution, and towers to the individual user. New subscribers could get a sticker to put on their laptops that says something like "Powered by gas", or "Ask me about my gas." :D

[Earl Benser]

Huh????

From what I have heard and read....

1. This is a terminal distribution system within a city. No pumps
involved

2. Pigs run only in liquid product pipelines, not in local natural
gas lines. So, no problem.

3. For areas beyond the gas lines, any other solution could work.
But, considering the limited number of customers per square
mile, WiMax might not be economically feasible.

[karn]

Why?

Technology writers are always enamored by every clever new proposal that promises to provide residential broadband connectivity on the cheap, without new infrastructure.

But why? We already have fiber optics and Ethernet. They're all we really need to connect homes and small businesses to the Internet at rates far beyond existing "broadband" technologies like DSL or cable. They have not yet been widely deployed only because, until now, Internet penetration has been relatively low.

Cable and DSL were designed back when the Internet was in its infancy, to ride piggyback on existing cable TV and telephone networks. They made sense -- then.

But now, every other home, on average, is on the Internet. The Internet has grown up, and it's time to deploy a new infrastructure designed specifically to support it. We shouldn't waste any more time on "magic bullet" technologies that kludge IP onto some infrastructure originally designed to do something totally different.

[Earl Benser]

I must agree....

The momentum in broadband is heading towards much faster
than 100 megabits/sec if movie and TV downloads are going to
be time feasible. And I have a hunch that the 100 Megabit speed
quoted for the gas pipe is max under optimal conditions.

Fibre optics is the way to go for households and businesses
operating from fixed sites. And since the telcoms are going to
be installing it just to modernize their own plant, there's no
sense playing any other half way games. Those aren't even
'magic bullets'.

[Stkr47]

Sparky

One spark in the right place should really speed up the internet!!!!!

[Stkr47]

Basic

Basics are one thing but what about reality??

[WBru]

Perfect if you have a gas stove with a gigahertz processor. Start baking before you leave the office!