Stop all the kerfuffle about Internet access ... just bring in BPL!

Broadband through Power Lines ... aka Powerband ... is an extension of Power Line Communications (PLC). This uses everyday electricity systems to carry massive amounts of high speed communications along the same cables as the power.

Probably 90% of Australia is on some sort of mains power. All you need is a kind of set top box decoder ... just plugged in the wall ... and you can receive telephone, broadband, fax, cable tv ... anything, two ways, instantly. The system would require major transmitters at power junctions, but not as complex as telephone exchanges.

This is real and has already been tested in Tassie. It's just there are a lot of very big interests standing in the way. To bring in BPL and PLC into Australia ... the ideal market ... would take a government with real steel to face up to the communications giants.

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In case you guys weren't aware, the current govt in all it's wisdom is planning to place a mandatory ISP level filter on the whole of the country's internet. Apart from the abuses of government censorship this will screwup the web pretty badly. More details here:

"Australians will be unable to opt-out of the government's pending Internet content filtering scheme, and will instead be placed on a watered-down blacklist, experts say.

Under the government's $125.8 million Plan for Cyber-Safety, users can switch between two blacklists which block content inappropriate for children, and a separate list which blocks illegal material.

Pundits say consumers have been lulled into believing the opt-out proviso would remove content filtering altogether.


The government reported it does not expected to prescribe which filtering technologies ISPs can use, and will only set blacklists of filtered content, supplied by the Australia Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

EFA chair Dale Clapperton said in a previous article that Internet content filtering could lead to censorship of drugs, political dissident and other legal freedoms.

“Once the public has allowed the system to be established, it is much easier to block other material,” Clapperton said.

According to preliminary trials, the best Internet content filters would incorrectly block about 10,000 Web pages from one million. "

http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1399635276

There is an action site here:

http://nocleanfeed.com/takeaction.html

This is obscene abuse of power akin to what was attempted in China. Is this the type of government we want in Australia?

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