[Starlink] On FiWi

[Sebastian Moeller]

Hi Dave,

> On Mar 15, 2023, at 17:17, Dave Taht <dave.taht at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I still think that ethernet over powerline could make a comeback, if
> they fixed the bloat. It was otherwise "good enough".


Partly... talk to your local HAM enthusiast ;)

PLC (and VDSL for that matter) are not using licensed spectrum* but are secondary users of spectrum licensed to others. That per se is not a problem, the problem comes in as neither POTS wire pairs nor electricity wiring was ever designed with the intent of putting MHz frequency signals on. POTS wires are at least twisted and hence "not terrible", but power cables often are nicely parallel and are decent enough antennas to cause problems for the licensed spectrum users (over here HAM radio amateurs mostly) as well as VDSL2 lines. Once the switch from DSL to FTTH has been made PLC becomes considerably more attractive again (except for HAMs).

Regards
	Sebastian

P.S.: In nice convergence PLC uses similar MIMO approaches as WiFi to increase the capacity.



*) Let's ignore whether licensing spectrum is that great an idea in the first place, I believe David Reed had good arguments against it