Project Number: FP6-IST-507554 Project Title: BROADBAND in ...

7.2 ACCESS NETWORK
7.2.1 Power Line Communications
7.2.1.1 Introduction
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FP6-IST-507554/JCP/R/Pub/D2.2-3.2
Europe is delivering today electricity for all, so that all citizens can harness the richness of electronic appliances
to improve the quality life. The next phase of comfort is the provision of universal Internet services. To this
end, the electricity distribution network could be used.
The use of the power grid has been the subject of research over a number of years for provisioning the telecom
services, but so far have not showed the expected success: The compliance to all regulatory requirements (low
electro-magnetic radiations limits), data rate and cost related features.
This market growth of worldwide demand for broadband services is partially met in the 42 most developed
countries of the world. The remaining 150 countries account for only 16% of telephone lines and 10% of
Internet users.
The emerging countries would have an urgent need for PLC technology due the low phone and internet
penetration and the fact that telecommunication companies should make a great investment in infrastructure
where the electricity companies already have their own proprietary electricity grid.
Deregulation is another key factor. Power utilities are looking for ways to become more competitive and to
expand their business. PLC is for them a significant opportunity to increase their revenues through the
introduction of new services such as Internet, telephony and security.
7.2.1.2 State of the Art/ Existing Technologies
PLC uses the low voltage (230 /400 V) mains network for data transmission purposes. The two application
fields for the PLC technology are
• access networks and
• customer premises or home networks.
Figure 7 shows a simplified PLC access and home network. The access (outdoor) part of the network goes from
the service node interface (SNI) up to the user node interface (UNI). The PLC line termination equipment (PLC
LT) is usually collocated with the transformer which is the starting point of the low voltage power line network
(PLN) going up to the demarcation between the utility owned outdoor (access) PLN and the in-house PLN. The
access PLN has a reach of up to several 100 meters and covers up to a few 100 households.
Power Line Communication (PLC) has been around since many decades. The use of the power grid for data
communications was first employed in the so-called CENELEC band. The achievable data rates have been low,
but sufficient for many remote control applications.
Since a few years, high data rate communications are offered in the HF frequency band (from 1.8 MHz to 30
MHz). The data rates of the PLC equipment on the market range from 2 Mbps to 45 Mbps. Higher data rates to
up to 200 Mbps have been announced recently.
The basic problems encountered during the deployment of these PLC equipment, are:
• electro-magnetic radiations,
• interferences in the frequency bands allocated to other users and
• high costs.
The market for broadband communications is growing and broadband over power lines has the promise to offer
low cost broadband communications over the ubiquitous power grid. The technology has a big market potential
and a PLC technology solving the open issues will undoubtedly allow the realization of “Broadband for All”.
The main advantage of PLC over the other broadband technologies is that no extra cables are required as in
every building, be it offices, apartments or houses, the electricity distribution is already installed