Powerline takes on the last mile

Pamela Whitby examines the much touted Powerline broadband technology

Powerline is being touted by the European Commission as the last-mile technology that will deliver broadband eight times faster than a DSL connection into every home and business in Europe.

It doesn't require any road excavations, nor is it dependent on the phone network. It relies on the existing electricity infrastructure.

But before everybody gets too excited about citizens everywhere plugging into their power sockets for fast broadband access, a number of technical and political requirements must be satisfied before the technology is commercially viable.

"The rollout of Powerline is still rather limited in Europe. Most organisations are still in the pre-commercial stage with only 6,000 to 10,000 operational users, the biggest trial being in Mannheim. That's still peanuts compared with DSL," said Mark Bogers, European Commission, directorate general, Enterprise.

According to researcher IMS, of the 100 million broadband subscribers worldwide, 65 per cent are DSL connections and 33 per cent cable. As this is expected to grow to 285 million subscribers by 2009, there is plenty of room for competition.

In some parts of Europe, telecoms coverage is as low as 20 per cent, but electricity networks run everywhere. Powerline sounds like the obvious solution to close this digital divide. So what's holding it back?

The biggest challenge for proponents of the technology is to allay fears that it will interfere with other spectrum users.

Broadband over Powerline operates in the 1MHz to 30MHz frequency band, but so does the BBC World Service, some safety-related services ð including those of the military, police, airports and ambulances - not to mention radio amateurs.

To further complicate matters, regulators in several countries have called for network emission standards, while telcos, threatened by the possibility of increased competition, hope to see plans for Powerline fail.

SSE Telecom, the telco arm of Scottish & Southern Energy, has been running successful Powerline trials partly financed by the DTI broadband fund.

Director Keith MacClean said that the early systems operated at very high power levels and caused serious interference to radio services. The technology has come along in leaps and bounds since then.

"Modern systems operate at much lower power levels, but also have advanced management systems to deal with any problems should they occur," he said.

There have been few reported cases of interference. "It's probably going to be a bit like what happened with DSL. Plenty of concerns were expressed, but in practice only one complaint of interference has been passed back to that technology," said MacClean.

He also chairs the Powerline Communications Forum, which lobbies for technology-neutral standards. Despite improvements in Powerline over the years, at current levels of deployment it is impossible to say whether claims of interference are justified. Furthermore, without regulatory certainty, mass market penetration is unlikely.

The Open University's John Newbury, a Powerline expert who sits on a number of industry bodies and who also leads the European Commission's research team, insists that regulatory limits need to be set before Powerline is launched extensively.

There must be substantial empirical research measuring radiated emissions levels, the noise floor and so on, he said.

In Europe there are standards governing communications requirements for transmitting and receiving signals over the low-voltage distribution network in the 3KHz to 148.5KHz frequency range.

"But when you start sending high-speed data down a Powerline cable it starts to act like an electrical antenna and there is a possibility of interference," said Newbury. "This is why we need regulation, and to define this, an agreed radiation emission limit needs to be set."

Despite the concerns, there are sufficient vested interests in Europe for Powerline to swim rather than sink. The European Commission has set a 10-year goal for becoming the most dynamic knowledge economy in the world, and Powerline could be its trump card.

Utilities and manufacturers seem set to benefit from new revenue streams, and consumers can look forward to lower prices and faster broadband access. It is little wonder that incumbent telcos are feeling the heat.

The European Commission is committed to levelling the regulatory playing field, but disparate views from interested parties on what is an acceptable emission standard has made the process a bit like shooting at a moving target.

The challenge is to reduce emission levels to the point where there is no interference in the 1MHz to 30MHz band.

"Our policy is to foster competitiveness by being permissive: observing and controlling while taking into account that technologies change all the time," said Bogers.

Although the Commission has put in place the structures to allow businesses to deploy Powerline, the ultimate objective is a harmonised emission standard with which all stakeholders are happy.

"Whether we can get everybody to agree is unlikely," said Newbury. "It will not be as high as the standard set by the US Federal Communications Commission, nor will it be as low that desired by the likes of the BBC and the radio amateurs. It is going to have to be a trade-off."

The battle for broadband subscribers will be hard fought in Europe. New technologies are coming to market daily, and Powerline sounds promising. It is fast, it will in all likelihood undercut DSL in price, and consumers won't have to sit in traffic waiting for it to arrive.

CASE STUDY: Smart Telecom
Smart Telecom recently completed Ireland's first commercial deployment of broadband using Powerline conversion technology in 16 of Dublin's inner city schools. Irish telco Smart Telecom invested €250 000 in the project, which is also supported by Diageo.

By proving that the technology is a viable and effective alternative to piggybacking on the telecoms network, it is hoped that the country's incumbent electricity supplier, ESB, will be compelled to open up its network.

Because ESB has not yet done so, Smart Telecom used a combination of fibre and wireless in the first school trial to beam data to a receptor on the roof. From here the signal was fed into the building's electricity network.

"It's a point to multi-point solution; fibre to wireless to Powerline and all that is needed at the end is a three-pronged plug socket for broadband access that is eight times faster than DSL," said Smart Telecom head of business services Paul Lynch.

The schools are pleased because they no longer need a dedicated computer room. Students and teachers can plug into computers in any classroom and, because the connection is so much faster, less time is wasted while downloading internet pages.

"We see Powerline technology as a macro issue," said Lynch. "Broadband penetration in Ireland is dismal, and this could easily be addressed by using existing infrastructure. No digging up roads, no impact on the environment, no need to lay additional cable."