Internet energy use

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 21 Oct 2015, 17:07

PS_RalphW wrote:That is not the only aspect. People now use smartphones, and increasingly 3G and 4G data services, as a background default activity to do whenever they are not doing anything else more entertaining like talking to the person next to them, waiting to go to sleep, waiting for the bus, etc, etc., and this forms an entirely new energy consuming activity which simply didn't happen before. If the hand held product wasn't cheap and easy to use, this energy consumption would not occur.

What I do is fold bits of paper at these times. I am excellent at origami, and there is almost always a waste piece of paper to hand, and the end product is still reusable or recyclable

Oh wow, there's interesting. That is precisely what I do as well. I usually make at least three origami models a day. Often the same one's mind you. I just made one today for a kid at school. Hang on and I will see if I can find a picture of it on the internet......

Here it is...

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 21 Oct 2015, 19:57

Yep I have made that, although I rarely end up with such a neat example.

Pepperman · Post by **Pepperman** » 22 Oct 2015, 09:00

That's excellent. I didn't know that origami was a thing for powerswitchers but on reflection it seems like the obvious entertainment prep

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 27 Oct 2015, 15:37

Excellent follow up article.

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015- ... h-internet

Low cost (but not low tech) local directional wifi networks using cheap low power plug and play components to generate a network that grows organically with point to point line of sight connections. Can be local or linked into the global internet. The TCP protocol can be replaced with an asynchronous protocol to support slow, unreliable connections. Applications can be modified to maximise data throughput, even physical transportation of media (eg, usb memory sticks or mobile repeaters on buses or trains ) can be deployed to supply http requests hours or days after they are made.

Application software is being developed so that remote sites can maximise data retrieval or exchange without synchronous connection.

The fly in the ointment of course is the design and fabrication of the chips inside the devices, these require billion dollar factories and a global supply network, and massive distribution network often with just in time delivery, resulting in single points of failure.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 27 Oct 2015, 19:09

I use my domestic electrical mains plug ring to run my home network. I use things called "power-line adapters". They take the place of ethernet cables and simply plug into any three pin plug-socket. It basically means every three-pin plug-socket in my house is a potential network point. They work great. I have been wondering for some time if this technology could be scaled up such that the entire Internet could be piped down the mains electric grid. In other words, domestic broadband routers (other than for local networking) would become a thing of the past. If you are connected to the mains, you are connected to the Internet.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 27 Oct 2015, 19:18

The grid is copper and aluminium, not optical fibre, so it would be pretty rubbish. There may also be connectivity issues at the upstream end of sections of the grid. Those power-line adapters may work within a house but they fail over quite short distances, like 50 to 100 yards. I couldn't get mine to work between house and outbuilding.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 27 Oct 2015, 19:27

There are, apparently. several solutions being worked on

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadband ... ower_lines

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 27 Oct 2015, 19:57

It;s been tried in the past, but performance was poor, because of noise on the lines. Modern electronics would probably be better at filtering out the noise, but it would need to be very robust to survive the power spikes that go though the unfiltered power lines every time some major circuit breaker flips.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 28 Oct 2015, 12:20

Little John wrote:I use my domestic electrical mains plug ring to run my home network. I use things called "power-line adapters". They take the place of ethernet cables and simply plug into any three pin plug-socket. It basically means every three-pin plug-socket in my house is a potential network point. They work great. I have been wondering for some time if this technology could be scaled up such that the entire Internet could be piped down the mains electric grid. In other words, domestic broadband routers (other than for local networking) would become a thing of the past. If you are connected to the mains, you are connected to the Internet.

Yeah, I use these ethernet-over-powerline thingies between the house and an outbuilding. Biff's comment about reliability is nearly right: the first units I got were iffy but worked most of the time (they didn't like being plugged in with any other appliances or into extension leads, for instance) but I bought more expensive ones - often a good indicator - and these have run 100% for over a year now, no issues at all and are literally plug'n'play. One end is shoved in a multi-way extension with other stuff, to boot.

BTW, our broadband set-up was installed in 2007 very cheaply by me and other locals, with guidance from a pet nerd. The aerials, the mast on the top of a hill, the underground cabling, everything, the entire wide area network.

It was a fun project and about three dozen houses now have their very own mini internet (though we don't currently use it to communicate with each other - it's linked wirelessly to the real internet about 5 miles away). Those houses would never have fast internet if they relied on commercial interests.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 28 Oct 2015, 14:15

Ah, mine were cheap! I ended up running a long length of cat6 out to the building.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 28 Oct 2015, 14:36

biffvernon wrote:Ah, mine were cheap! I ended up running a long length of cat6 out to the building.

That was going to be my next move and what a pain that would have been.

Buy cheap, buy twice.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 28 Oct 2015, 16:48

I think connecting the eight little wires at each end of the cat6 correctly would be quite easy if you did it for a living and got to practice dozens a day.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 28 Oct 2015, 16:59

Oh, that bit's easy.

Having CAT cables exposed to our weather, animals, vehicles, wheelbarrows, etc is not a viable option, so running it underground was the plan. There's only walls, concrete, tarmac, drains, kerbing, grass and soil to cope with. Not impossible but the internet wasn't imagined when most of that infrastructure was laid down.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 29 Oct 2015, 07:31

Similar situation so I strung it through the air, twisted round a tensioned galvanised fence wire. Should be safe from wheelbarrows and strong enough for starlings. I bought the most expensive variety - all weather external grade!

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 29 Oct 2015, 11:30

Yeah, that's one way: I did consider it (although it'd be a pretty long cable if it went via a fence).

Just goes to show, underground pipes round a property with enough room in them for more than their primary purpose is a always good idea. I did that in a couple of places but none were convenient in this case. I never imagined I'd need to bring an internet signal from a cowshed roof to the house.