Does Quest (“Ride The Light” company) use regular power lines to send data?
(excuse me if this has been asked before I tried to search but didn’t find a clear answer)
Their ad (that pops up every time I log on) reads like this:
I had heard that it was possible to use regular power lines to send other communication signals.
In fact, that’s how my baby monitor intercom worked (I think).
If that’s NOT the message, then exactly what are they doing that’s “different”?
I thought at first, that sounds like fiber optics, but then I took a trip to http://www.qwest.com/ and found this page. On this page I found:
I don’t believe Qwest is invloved in the power line internet access stuff. This technology is from Media Fusion At this time their website is down (perhaps the company is ‘down’ itself ??)
See also:
http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2334515,00.html
I thought at first, that sounds like fiber optics, but then I took a trip to http://www.qwest.com/ and found this page. On this page I found:
I don’t believe Qwest is invloved in the power line internet access stuff. This technology is from Media Fusion At this time their website is down (perhaps the company is ‘down’ itself ??)
See also:
http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2334515,00.html
My company was looking into these guys for voice/data years ago. IIRC their deal was that they bought rights to run fibre in all the railway lines in the US. They were doing everything fiber optic on their main lines, so the tagline does have some relation to their underlying business.
I don’t know if they’ve changed strategies since then, this was 3 or more years ago I think.
So, no they do not use power lines unless I’m misremembering.
douglips is exactly right. Qwest uses fiber optics which they have strung through conduits buried along railroad tracks (mostly).
They also sold conduits, dark fiber and even IRU’s, so others have identically laid out (if different optronically) networks along the same rights of way.
Want a conduit? You can probably get one at a pretty attractive price right about now.
Even if they have fiber backbones (like who doesn’t now?), a huge fraction (maybe all ) of their customers get their data on copper for that last drop onto the prem. Quest is a reseller. They use our facilities (at least in northeast) but ultimately rely on us ([James Earl Jones]Verizon[/James Earl Jones] to switch their data through our public switches and deliver it to their customers on our copper facilities.
We have numerous SONET (Synchronous Optical Network) rings within our footprint that you can think of as analogous to the beltway (mucho heavy traffic that goes fast). But just as the beltway doesn’t go right up to your house, the SONET doesn’t go all the way to the customer prem. Just like the beltway has off ramps, data on the SONET rings has to get switched onto lower capacity copper facilities as it gets closer to customer prems. Only if you have OC3 service (or higher) is it likely that you’ll get lightspan facilities all the way to your company’s phone closet.
“The Qwest Macro Capacity® Fiber Network, designed with the newest optical networking equipment for speed and efficiency, spans more than 104,000 miles globally.”
“We’ve said from day one that Qwest is going to be different,” said Davis. “We said we wanted to bring about competition in all markets – local service, long distance, cable television, the Internet – and starting today we’re going to make this a reality.”
So they have a special interest in optical networks and are “different” in being involved end-to-end, rather than just long-distance or just internet backbones.
Which is actually a lot like the other giants, ATT etc.