[UgaBYTES] THE PROMISE OF POWERBAND

[Francis Mwathi]

An emerging technology may be the newest heavy hitter in the competitive
world of broadband Internet service.Depending on who you talk to, though,
it’s either a controversial idea that could jam radio communications or
the next big thing for Internet access.
We’re talking ‘power-band’, ‘power-line Internet’ or broadband over
power-lines (BPL). This is the use of power-line communications technology
(PLC) to provide broadband Internet through ordinary power-lines. A
computer or any other device would need only to plug a BPL modem into any
outlet in an equipped building to have high-speed Internet access.


This technology promises to offer high-speed access through the most
unlikely path — a common electrical outlet. With BPL, you can plug your
computer into any electrical outlet in your home and instantly have access
to high-speed Internet. Power-line communications technology can also be
used to network home computers, peripherals or other networked consumer
peripherals as the alternative ‘last mile’ platform.
Despite the proliferation of broadband technology in the last few years,
there are still huge parts of the world that don’t have access to
high-speed Internet. When weighed against the relatively small number of
customers Internet providers would gain, the cost of laying cable and
building the necessary infrastructure to provide DSL or cable in rural
areas is too great. But if broadband could be served through power-lines,
there would be no need to build a new infrastructure.
Anywhere there is electricity, there could be broadband. By slightly
modifying the current power grids with specialised equipment, the BPL
developers could partner with power companies and Internet service
providers to bring broadband to everyone with access to electricity.
By just providing high-speed data transmission between all of the
electrical plugs in a house or building there is the potential to network
all kinds of common appliances in a household. If your alarm clock, light
switch and coffee maker could talk each other via a high-speed connection,
mornings might look a lot more different.
The idea of using alternating current (AC) power to transfer data is not
new. Bundling radio-frequency (RF) energy on the same line with an
electric current, data can be transmitted without the need for a separate
data line.
BPL seems to offer benefits relative to regular cable or DSL connections.
For instance, the extensive infrastructure already available would allow
people in remote rural locations to have access to Internet with
relatively little equipment investment by the utility. Also, such
ubiquitous availability would make it very much easier to motivate
telecommunications and cable operators to move quickly to serve rural
communities.
BPL holds great promise as a ubiquitous broadband solution that would
offer a viable alternative to cable; digital subscriber line, fibre and
wireless broadband solutions and it should be one of the local ICT
sector’s top priorities.
Like telephone companies, power companies do have lines strung all over
the world. The difference is that power companies have power-lines in a
lot more places than telephone companies have their infrastructure. This
makes power-lines an obvious vehicle for providing Internet to places
where these infrastructures have not reached like in the rural areas.
Since BPL signals cannot readily pass through transformers repeaters would
have to be attached to the transformers. In the US, it is common to see
small transformer hung from a utility pole to service a single house or a
small number of houses. Broadband over power-lines has developed faster in
Europe than in other parts of the world. It is even more common for a
somewhat larger transformer to service ten or 100 houses in Europe.
Delivering such BPL over the power grid of a typical African (Third world)
city might require many more repeaters than would be required in a
comparable European city.
BPL can also be used as a backhaul for wireless communications, for
instance by hanging WiFi access points or cell-phone base stations on
utility poles, thus allowing end-users within a certain range to connect
with equipment they already have. In the near future, BPL might also be
used as a backhaul for WiMAX networks. Power-line carrier apparatus may
also be useful as a backup channel or for very simple low-cost
installations.
Like any other technology, BPL has a number of complex issues, the primary
one being that power-lines are inherently a very noisy environment. Every
time a device turns on or off, it introduces a pop or click into the line.
Energy-saving devices often introduce noise into the line. The system must
be designed to deal with these natural signalling disruptions and work
around them. Universal standards are still being developed to allow
interoperability between equipment from different manufacturers and
co-existence of multiple power-line systems within the same environment.
The advancement of BPL is moving forward as it waits for standards and
logistics to be decided by world’s regulating bodies.
Recently, power and telecommunications companies have started tests of the
BPL technology. South Africa has already trialled the technology and is
offering service in the suburbs of Pretoria with plans to extend coverage
to other areas.
In the US the city of Manassas began the first wide-scale deployment of
BPL service offering 10Mbps service for under $30  per month to its city
residents. In January 2006, a PLC trial was introduced by the Ministry of
Communications and Information Technology in Romania offering phone and
broadband internet access.
The technology was introduced to 50 households. If successful, it is hoped
that the technology will be extended to other rural areas throughout
Romania.
Successful pilots for the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) have been
carried out since 2005. These combines fibre, radio link, Wi-fi and PLC to
provide broadband Internet access and telephony, It showcases the
inter-operability of the PLC technology and the company’s expertise in
emerging market design and deployment.
There are many applications that can be supported by BPL. One natural
application of power-line communication is the control and telemetry of
electrical equipment such as meters, switches, heaters and domestic
appliances.
Control and telemetry applications include automatic meter reading, load
management, load profile recording, credit control, pre-payment, remote
connection, fraud detection and network management, and could be extended
to include gas and water.
These could also include street lighting control, remote metering and
billing, customer specific tariff optimization, contract management,
expense estimation and gas applications safety.
There are also many specialised niche applications which use the mains
supply within the home as a convenient data link for telemetry. For
example, in the UK and Europe a TV audience monitoring system uses
power-line communications as a convenient data path between devices that
monitor TV viewing activity in different rooms in a home and a data
concentrator which is connected to a telephone modem. Power-line
communication is used for transmitting radio programmes over power-lines
or over telephone.
Power-line technology also enables in-vehicle network communication of
Data, Voice, Music and Video signals by digital means. Advanced digital
communication techniques tailored to overcome hostile and noisy
environment are implemented in a small size silicon device.