Broadband-over-power line services generating some buzz

NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: OPTICAL NETWORKING
09/14/05

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Today's focus: Broadband-over-power line services generating
some buzz

By Jim Duffy

It still registers barely a blip on the broadband radar screen.
But momentum is starting to build behind broadband over
powerline as a viable high-speed Internet access alternative.

In the past three months a handful of significant events have
occurred:

* A $100 million investment in Current Communications, a
Cincinnati BPL service provider, by Google and others.

* IBM's participation in a pilot project with CenterPoint Energy
to offer BPL service to 220 homes in the Houston area.

* And work within the IEEE to create a standard - called P1901 -
to define an efficient BPL channel over AC power lines. The
standard is targeted for completion in early 2007.

These developments follow a ruling by the FCC designed to limit
interference to other radio frequency devices. The FCC's action
requires BPL providers to employ devices that can switch
frequencies if they cause interference and that can be shut down
remotely.

FCC commissioners also will require a national database of BPL
installations for public safety agencies, amateur radio
operators and others.

Taken together, these developments could help drive a compound
annual growth rate in BPL revenue of 90% over the next seven
years, according to Telecom Trends International. The market
watcher says BPL revenue is expected to grow from $57 million in
2004 to $4.4 billion in 2011.

There are 40 BPL deployments across the country in various
stages of trials and commercial service, according to the United
Power Line Council (UPLC). The largest deployment is in
Cincinnati, where BPL service from Cinergy passes 50,000 homes,
according to UPLC.

First-generation equipment can produce throughputs up to 45M
bit/sec but service speeds range from 500K to 3M bit/sec, which
is comparable to DSL. Second-generation equipment will produce
throughput up to 200M bit/sec, according to the UPLC.

Yet BPL currently accounted for less than 2% of the 38 million
200K bit/sec-and-above wireline broadband access lines installed
in the U.S. in 2004, according to the FCC. And significant
business and technical issues remain for the technology.

BPL advocates have been hard-pressed to mold a viable business
model - one that can deliver the throughput and QoS users expect
while driving profits for utilities and other service providers.

And amateur radio operators still assert that, despite the
actions of the FCC, BPL interferes not only with their
transmissions but also air traffic control and other emergency
communications services.

"As soon as you put those kinds of frequencies on there, the
wire turns into an antenna," says Allen Pitts, a spokesman for
the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), the national association
for Amateur Radio. "It both receives and transmits."

Interference issues

There have been recent BPL product developments to mitigate
interference issues. Pitts noted Motorola as one vendor that had
developed a low-voltage system designed to reduce high-frequency
interference with radio transmission through radio frequency
notch filtering.

Other leading BPL vendors, he says, have yet to follow suit.

With regard to the FCC decision in October, ARRL says it
believes the commission acted hastily under pressure from the
Bush administration - which seeks universal broadband
availability by 2007 - to fast-track BPL deployment.

"The interference issues were well known," Pitts says. "But what
they did was allow systems that were unripened technologies to
go ahead and deploy. There was the big push, and it was a
political push. [Former FCC] Chairman Powell was an unabashed
cheerleader for this thing."

Pitts says he hopes interest in BPL by deep-pocketed Google and
IBM will result in more low-voltage/notch filtering devices on
the market. "As far as people like IBM backing [BPL], all I can
do is say, 'Well, now they've got the money. I really hope they
use that money wisely to [overcome] interference issues."

He says Ham radio operators are not opposed to BPL, just the
interference."It's a really neat idea, if it worked."

It is working, according to the UPLC.

"We're the utility industry, we don't play games," says Brett
Kilbourne, UPLC director of regulatory services. "We wouldn't be
deploying this stuff if we weren't absolutely sure it's not
going to cause any interference that can't be mitigated."

Kilbourne says the UPLC hasn't received any interference
complaints from emergency service providers. They tend to
operate at higher power anyway.

Nonetheless, the UPLC has established safeguards to deal with
the probability of interference. The UPLC has an obligation to
notify emergency services institutions before utilities deploy
BPL service, Kilbourne says.

For amateur-radio operators, the UPLC has established a database
of BPL operators they can contact in case of interference.
Kilbourne says the FCC has also mandated a requirement that BPL
equipment be capable of mitigating interference on a dynamic
basis - the operator can notch or shift frequencies from a
remote location.

"That should cure most of the interference," Kilbourne says,
adding that mitigation techniques may be harder to implement if
the BPL or emergency service/amateur-radio operations are
mobile.

Making a business case

Kilbourne says the bigger concern with BPL is making a
compelling business case for utilities to offer the service.
Prices for alternative broadband services, such as DSL, are
dropping precipitously, making it hard to justify turning up BPL
as an adjunct to traditional electrical service if margins are
going to rapidly erode.

Another factor is use of BPL by the utilities themselves for
internal applications, such as automated meter reading, load
management and outage reporting. Utilities are considering ways
to harness the technology for their own benefit while providing
it to their customers as another moneymaking Internet access
service.

"The business case and deciding how these internal applications
get rolled out will be the driving factors going forward,"
Kilbourne says.

The study might include the experiences of PPL Broadband, the
Internet access subsidiary of Allentown, Pa., utility PPL. PPL
Broadband has trials underway in five areas in Pennsylvania's
Lehigh Valley, passing about 20,000 homes, says Al Richenbacher,
chief network architect for the Internet access provider.

The deployments provide BPL directly to the electrical outlet in
the home or business, as backhaul for 802.11b wireless access
and for low-voltage service to schools and multi-dwelling units.

"We're still understanding what technologies are out there, and
how they interact, what is the best to use under what
circumstances in what locations," Richenbacher says. "And also,
not a small part of our trial, is the commercial side - what
customers are willing to pay for what kinds of services."

As for interference, Richenbacher says PPL Broadband has had a
handful of complaints. But they've been easily resolved, he
says, by shifting frequencies, adjusting power levels, or just
staying out of frequency bands populated by emergency services
or amateur-radio enthusiasts.

"Given the very low power levels that we're using and the
availability of spectrum, I think that we can coexist out there
with the vast majority of spectrum users," Richenbacher says.

One PPL Broadband customer says interference issues have
subsided recently since trials began in his community 16 months
ago. Overall, the service seems to be adequate but
unspectacular.

"We've had mixed reactions," says James Sterner, Hanover
Township, Pa., manager. "We have it in here, in our building.
It's like any other Internet provider. There's times when it's
down, but it's not down that long."

The township has no time frame for turning it into a production
deployment.

"We're going to have to see what the results are here," Sterner
says.

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_______________________________________________________________
To contact: Jim Duffy

Jim Duffy is managing editor of Network World's service provider
equipment coverage
<http://www.networkworld.com/topics/service-providers.html>. He
has 18 years of high-tech reporting experience, including over
12 years at Network World. Previously, he was senior editor at
Computer Systems News and associate editor/reporter at
Electronic News and MIS Week. He can be reached at
<mailto:jduffy@nww.com>.
_______________________________________________________________
This newsletter is sponsored by Ciena
Network World Executive Guide: Compliance can be an opportunity
for Network Improvements

Federal regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act are driving
increased corporate spending on key IT areas such as security,
authentication, access control and document management. Get
advice from experts. Read about real-world tactics. Learn about
the dark side of compliance: what happens when thing wrong. And,
how mandates are affecting IT budgets.
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=114112
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