Too tired to make it safely all the way home from Ottawa to Vermont, I stopped at the Ramada Inn in Cornwall, Ontario, right near the US border.[1] Going up to the front desk, I asked the two questions any modern-day corporate traveller will ask:

Me: Do you have a room?
Front Desk Staffperson: Yes, I certainly do.
Me: Do you have high-speed Internet access?
FDS: Yes, we do (moves off to other part of counter and bends down to retrieve something from under the counter).... you need this modem.... well, we call it a modem, but it's not really a modem. You'll see.... you get high speed access.
(I look at him quizzically.)
FDS: (Opens the cardboard box.) You take this cable (Ethernet) and plug it into your computer and the other end into this modem. Then you take this cord (from the AC adapter) and plug it into the box. Then plug it into the socket in the wall. Make sure you plug it into the wall socket and not the socket on your lamp.
Me: (Still looking puzzled, I examine the contents... a device that looks like a DSL modem, an Ethernet cable, an adapter.) I just plug my laptop into this? Is it wireless? Can I just use my laptop wireless?
FDS: No, you have to use this. The power cable is all you need. It works.

So I go to my room, drop my bags and go over to the desk, where I am greeted by a sign in bright colors:

Socket to Me!
That's right - plug into our ELECTRIC HIGH SPEED

All becomes crystal clear!

Who would have thought that out here in Cornwall, Ontario, at a Ramada Inn by the rotary right before the bridge to the US... I would wind up stumbling upon a Broadband-over-Powerline (BPL) trial? Indeed it did work just as simply as the clerk suggested it would. Connect the "modem" to the wall socket. Take the Ethernet cable from the modem to my laptop... ta da... high speed connectivity! Running a number of speed tests at DSL Reports over a 30 minute time period, I generally found that I was getting about 620-650 Kbps download about about 600-620 Kbps upload. One test I did get a 919 Kbps download and 537 Kbps upload. In any event, that's certainly decent connectivity for most uses that one would need in a hotel.

The "modem", by the way, turned out to be a Ascom Powerline APA-15i (PDF datasheet here). For an explanation of the technology, here's a brief primer. It makes sense to me that this trial is going on. Wiring a hotel for Ethernet would be timeconsuming and expensive. Wireless is certainly possible for hotels, but this Ramada is kind of long hotel and so you'd need good AP coverage... and then you get into security issues... potential abuse, etc. They already have power going to all the rooms... why not simply make use of it?

So far the service seems to be working great. My only suggestion, of course, would be that if they do stick to this trial, they should just install the BPL modem into the room and have an ethernet cable available on the desk as so many hotels do.

Who would have thought?

[1] Two reasons for stopping specifically here: 1) people who have done this trip will know that there are pretty much no hotels once you cross into northern New York for a very long time; and more importantly 2) I can grab a quick breakfast at Tim Horton's before crossing into the USA.

Tags: bpl, broadband-over-powerline, trytel