Reporters and Technology

in the early morning on Monday, the 19th of July 2004 by Chad

CNet has this article talking about how good the new voice over IP phones are. A few people here at the office have it and like it, but there are valid limitations. However, this dumbass quote isn’t one of them:

Also, there’s still no way to guarantee VoIP phones will work when power is lost, and not all VoIP providers offer 911 service.
During a power outage, a VoIP phone is only as good as any battery backups on hand, because delivering power through the broadband connection isn’t possible on a wide commercial basis. An emerging alternative broadband-delivery technique, broadband over power line, will solve this problem, but wide deployment is years away.

So let me get this straight. Broadband over power lines will give you your fast internet connection, all on the same lines that you get your electricity from. Fine and dandy, except for the massive interference it has been shown to cause to radio operators, so it may not be approved.
But more importantly, this reporter believes that in the event of a power outage, not only will the internet still flow through your power lines, but you will still get electricity through your power lines, to power your internet connection, all during a power outage!
Now that is a great improvement in technology there! Next, they’re going to invent how to do all this, getting power and internet, with no wires at all!!!