Broadband over power transmission lines

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: tim finin <finin () cs umbc edu>
Organization: UMBC http://umbc.edu/
Date: Sun, 11 May 2003 21:15:28 -0400
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Broadband over power transmission lines

There is a good full-page feature story on power line
communications in today's Baltimore Sun.  The print version
had some nice diagrams and figures.  The technology is being
tested here in the DC area, though not where I live.  Tim
--

Power talk
Broadband: Utilities are testing a potentially revolutionary new
   system that transmits high-speed data over power lines.
By Dan Thanh Dang, Sun Staff, Originally published May 11, 2003
http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-bz.powerline11may11.story

Power lines aren't just for electricity anymore.  When David Reese
surfs the Web for information on Liberia, sends e-mail to his friend
in San Francisco or compares hundreds of General Tsao's Chicken
recipes from all over the world, all the 74-year-old economist has to
do is plug his computer into any power outlet in his home.

Reese's Potomac home transmits and receives all that data over the
same wires that power his toaster and light his living room. They
provide not only Internet service but also digital movies, telephone
service, satellite radio and video games. There is no fuss with cable
modems or a telephone line.

"I've already gotten addicted to the convenience of this," said Reese,
one of a hundred guinea pigs in a six-month pilot program testing
innovative power line communications (PLC) technology in Potomac. "I'm
always connected. It's fast. There's no dialing, and all I have to do
is plug it into the wall."

Communicating through the electrical power system is an old idea
finding new life in the United States, and elsewhere around the world.
Until recently considered a failed technology that occasionally blew
transformers and blocked broadcast signals during tests in Europe in
the 1990s, PLC seems poised for a commercial launch later this year.

Doubters say sending Internet signals over power lines can be
daunting.  The electrical grid is an extremely hostile environment to
data signals. Transformers can scramble and swallow signals
completely. Overhead wires that don't have protective shields can
radiate signals out until they're too weak to detect.  But PLC makers
say they've solved those problems.

In pilot tests across the country, developers have designed equipment
that injects and moves high frequency data signals through medium- and
low-voltage power lines without interrupting the current flow.  The
concept, they say, is simple and potentially lucrative.  There is no
need to spend precious time and money laying thousands of miles of
cable or fiber optics to reach into each home. The infrastructure is
already in place.

... http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-bz.powerline11may11.story ...

Copyright © 2003, The Baltimore Sun


------ End of Forwarded Message

-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com
To manage your subscription, go to
  http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/