{"id":20,"date":"2006-09-12T00:11:00","date_gmt":"2006-09-12T04:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbachnet.wwwmi3-ss40.a2hosted.com\/2006\/09\/12\/a-big-alternative\/"},"modified":"2022-12-30T11:55:14","modified_gmt":"2022-12-30T16:55:14","slug":"a-big-broadband-alternative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/a-big-broadband-alternative\/","title":{"rendered":"A BIG Broadband Alternative"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AA San Diego<\/a> firm believes it has come up with a high-speed alternative to cable and phone company Internet access<\/a> services. Nethercomm<\/a> claims it can send broadband via wireless signals<\/a> through the gas pipes that deliver the natural gas used to heat homes.<\/p>\n

The firm sees opportunities for Broadband in Gas (BIG) with pay-TV providers to compete with cable and satellite, cable companies looking for extra bandwidth to feed their high-definition TV<\/a> channels, phone companies looking to reduce their fiber to the home (FTTH)<\/a> investments, and gas companies, could use the broadband service to remotely monitor the integrity of their lines and read gas meters.<\/p>\n

The firm\u2019s broadband technology is based on ultrawideband wireless. Ultrawideband is a new unlicensed wireless technology, which broadcasts across a very wide range of frequencies that if some data packets are lost through the gas pipes, the rest will make it enough to work.<\/p>\n

According to Nethercomm founder and CEO Patrick Nunally, BIG works because federal rules which limit the strength of ultrawideband signals don’t apply in underground pipes. BIG power levels can be increased to provide each household with bandwidth of up to 6 gigabits per second, while the power is low enough so that signals can share the pipes with natural gas without starting a fire, according to Nunally.<\/p>\n

BIG requires the installation of an ultrawideband transmitter that’s linked to an ISP at a gas company’s network hub. A receiver would be placed at a customer’s gas meter. Nethercomm estimates BIG build-out costs are about $200 per household. By contrast, broadband over power lines costs about $600 per household, while phone and cable TV<\/a> networks each cost well over $1,000 per home to build, says West Technology Research Solutions.<\/p>\n

Freescale Semiconductor<\/a>, the chip manufacturer that was working with Nethercomm, recently shifted course to focus on its handset business. “It would be hard for anybody to say (BIG) doesn’t have tremendous potential,” says Freescale’s Jon Adams.<\/p>\n

news.yahoo.com\/s\/usatoday\/20060911\/tc_usatoday\/gaslinebroadbandapipedream<\/p>\n

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