At 22:50 16.10.1997 +0200, you wrote:
>On this subject: did anyone else hear about the nice idea of using powerlines
>to connect ppl to the 'net?

Yes I am working powerline communications.
This is Lon-based network at 120KHz carrier. This design monitors
coin-machines ( one hand bandits) and sends info to owner if somebody take
money out or device is broken.
This is not ideal system, there are many difficuties for beginners: Do not
consider this as an idel way to communicate between stations.

I can mention some difficulties:

- How to move signal from on phase to other.
- A new CE-regulation ( European Interface standars)  requires a lot of
capacitors for powerline filtering in each power supply input. These
capacitors eat a small high frequency signal from power line ( as required CE!)
-You can not control what happens a the cutomer power lines after you has
got everything working

Pekka

Pekka Ritamaki PROBYTE Oy Nirvankatu 31
33820 TAMPERE Finland http://www.sci.fi/~pri
Hardware+software+development tools
phone INT +358-3-2661885 fax INT +358-3-2661886