Broadband over Power Lines
Emerging technology shows growing promise
Dec. 19, 2006
By JOSEPH M. DELEON News-Post Staff
jdeleon@fredericknewspost.com
FREDERICK Imagine the power of the Internet within reach of every electric outlet in your office. What if you could see or hear any song or video in your entire library from any room in the house?
It's called Broadband over Power Lines a method of moving data across existing electric cables and it's gaining popularity.
The emerging technology shows growing promise as an alternative to broadband Internet, a replacement for home or office networking, and as a tool to help electric companies manage infrastructure and power.
To distribute BPL , power companies embed a radio frequency inside an electric current to send data across power lines. Equipment at electricity substations and in consumers' homes or offices encode and decode the signal, which can carry such data as e-mails, movies and commands to read electric meters.
The radio signal that carries broadband Internet, voice, audio and video to homes and businesses is called access BPL .
While DSL and cable often allow 1 to 5 megabits per second downloads, and considerably less during uploads, BPL commonly serves customers at about 10 Mbps in either direction.
Current Communications Group LLC, a Germantown-based BPL service provider to electric distribution companies worldwide, launched the first residential BPL pilot program in the United States in 2000, serving about 100 homes each in Cincinnati and Potomac.
While the company still doesn't offer the service in Maryland beyond the pilot program, it provides BPL to more than 50,000 homes in Cincinnati, adding a voice over BPL service earlier this year.
Current Communications plans to launch the largest BPL deployment in the world early next year near Dallas, serving more than 2 million homes and businesses in north Texas with Internet and voice communications.
Naqi Jaffery, president and chief analyst of Telecom Trends, a market-research company in Falls Church, Va., believes BPL will easily compete in the broadband and networking market.
While BPL enjoys some success competing against DSL and cable Internet delivery, the most powerful thing about BPL isn't broadband Internet it's taking advantage of established power lines.
"Wherever you have electricity, you can have BPL ," Mr. Jaffery said. "That's where electric companies need to be involved. As long as they can make money, they will be all too happy to offer the service.
Managing the grid
Before customers can take advantage of access BPL , power companies need to install special couplers equipment that connects radio transmitters to electricity lines on the power grid to send data through the lines.
While the radio signal can carry Internet traffic to buildings, utility companies can also use it to monitor the condition of the power grid, diagnose problems and manage electricity through electric lines, which is called control BPL .
Jay Birnbaum, vice president of Current Communications, said a utility company's willingness to let a third party set up BPL on their lines is vital to grow Internet over power lines.
But more important than competing in the broadband business, is delivering diagnostic services to the power company.
All utility companies are interested in smart grid technology, another name for control BPL , Mr. Birnbaum said. But not every company is interested in providing Internet service.
"Half of the utilities are interested (in broadband), the other half are not it's not their area of expertise," Mr. Birnbaum said. "The key driver for the utility company to accept the technology ... is how can they use it and what will it do to the bottom line."
Utility companies might use control BPL to automatically read meters, adjust prices based on power usage or detect power outages.
"Think of the middle of summer, when everyone runs their AC," Mr. Birnbaum said. "The cost of electricity to the utility may go up if they have to buy power on the spot market, which could mean higher prices to consumers."
Using BPL can help power companies run time-of-day or even real-time pricing. That ensures customers don't overpay for electricity and helps the power company determine exactly how much electricity is needed.
BPL can also help with outages. Finding the cause of a power outage can be expensive, Mr. Birnbaum said. Normally, power companies find out there's a problem only after customers call to complain.
"Imagine a storm knocks down trees and breaks power lines," he said. "Now, about 1,000 people call and the folks at the utility start using push pins on a map to triangulate and find the possible source."
Once enough pins are on the map, work crews drive around the area to find the break. The extent of the restoration is easier to spot at night because work crew will see the lights inside houses and buildings come on as lines are fixed.
"The utility company doesn't necessarily know the repair has fixed the problem," Mr. Birnbaum said. "The way they confirm that is by driving around to see who's lights are on."
One common problem is not knowing the extent of a power outage, he said. If a storm knocks power out in 10 places, the power company may only be able to physically see and repair eight.
"Nobody ever calls back to say thanks, my lights are on," Mr. Birnbaum said. "The utility company has to guess that's a very inefficient way to do things."
Underground faults in the line are notoriously difficult to spot. Control BPL gives utilities the tools to not only detect the loss of power, but see where and why, Mr. Birnbaum said. As power is restored, the utility can track the progress in real time.
"We can also help determine there is a problem that could result in an outage symptoms of a problem that could mushroom into something bigger that could blow in a few days," he said. "If we can prevent the outages that result from normal wear and tear, it results in a decrease of cost to the utility and an increase in efficiency."