Broadband over Gas Pipeline?
According to an article on ZDNet, a company in San Diego, California by the name of Nethercomm is developing a way to use ultra wideband wireless signals to transmit data at broadband speeds through natural-gas pipes.
The company claims its technology would deliver 100 Mbps to every home.
Excellent! Unfortunately, Nethercomm has no working product yet, and no field tests have taken place. Development is still in an early phase, and the company is trying to raise venture capital to start a pilot program with broadband providers and gas companies next summer.
So how does broadband in gas pipes work? Nethercomm is adapting ultra wideband radio transmitters and receivers to send wireless signals through the natural-gas pipe at the same time the pipe is delivering gas fuel. Ultra wideband, or UWB, is a developing communication technology that delivers very high-speed network data rates, but at higher power levels it can interfere with other wireless signals.
That’s not usually a problem when ultra wideband signals are transmitted in pipes buried underground. As a result, tremendous amounts of data could be transmitted through a gas line without causing problems.