KEJORA One-Planet Broadband THE POWER company.With broadband over Powerlines, or BPL, you can plug your computer into any electrical outlet and instantly have access to high-speed Internet. By combining the technological principles of radio, wireless networking, and modems, developers have created a way to send data over Powerlines and into premises at speeds between 64 kilobits and 224 megabits per second (20 times faster than DSL and cable).
Kejora One-Planet BPL is already being used commercially in several cities around the world and is now available to you right here. In this article, Planet Broadband takes a look at this new service, how it's possible, and what it could mean for the common electrical appliance. We'll also learn about the controversy surrounding BPL
What's the BIG Idea?
Despite the proliferation of broadband technology in the last few years, there are still huge parts of the world that don't have access to high-speed Internet. When weighed against the relatively small number of customers Internet providers would gain, the cost of laying cable and building the necessary infrastructure to provide DSL or cable in rural areas is too great. But if broadband could be served through Powerlines, there would be no need to build a new infrastructure. Anywhere there is electricity there could be broadband.
By slightly modifying the current power grids with specialized equipment, the BPL developers could partner with power companies and Internet service providers to bring broadband to everyone with access to electricity.
At this point, the proposal is for two types of BPL service:
By providing high-speed data transmission between all of the electrical plugs in a house, there is the potential to network all kinds of common appliances in a household. If your alarm clock, light switch and coffee maker could talk each other via a high-speed connection, mornings might look a lot different.
The Old Way
If you've read How Internet Infrastructure Works, then you understand that the Internet is physically a huge network of networks that are connected through cables, computers, and wired and wireless devices worldwide.
Typically, large ISPs lease fiber-optic lines from the phone company to carry the data around the Internet and eventually to another medium (phone, DSL or cable line) and into your home. Trillions of bytes of data a day are transferred on fiber-optic lines because they are a stable way to transmit data without interfering with other types of transmissions.
The idea of using AC (alternating current) power to transfer data is not new. By bundling radio-frequency (RF) energy on the same line with an electric current, data can be transmitted without the need for a separate data line. Because the electric current and RF vibrate at different frequencies, the two don't interfere with each other. Electric companies have used this technology for years to monitor the performance of power grids. There are even networking solutions available today that transfer data using the electrical wiring in a home or business. But this data is fairly simple and the transmission speed is relatively slow.
BPL technology developers Current Communications Group and Enikia are working with power companies like Ameren and EPRI to get BPL off the ground. There are several different approaches to overcoming the hurdles presented when transmitting data through Powerlines. The details of these approaches are still pretty closely guarded secrets as both companies vie for the FCC's and IEEE's blessing for having their method adopted as the standard way to deploy BPL.
Power to the People
Like phone companies, power companies also have lines strung all over the world. The difference is that they have Powerlines in a lot more places than phone companies have fiber optics. This makes Powerlines an obvious vehicle for providing Internet to places where fiber optics have not reached.
These Powerlines are just one component of electric companies' power grids. In addition to lines, power grids use generators, substations, transformers and other distributors that carry electricity from the power plant all the way to a plug in the wall. When power leaves the power plant, it hits a transmission substation and is then distributed to high-voltage transmission lines. When transmitting broadband, these high-voltage lines are the first obstacle.
The power flowing down high-voltage lines is between 155,000 to 765,000 volts. That amount of power is unsuitable for data transmission. It's too "noisy."
As stated before, both electricity and the RF used to transmit data vibrate at certain frequencies. In order for data to transmit cleanly from point to point, it must have a dedicated band of the radio spectrum at which to vibrate without interference from other sources.
Hundreds of thousands of volts of electricity don't vibrate at a consistent frequency. That amount of power jumps all over the spectrum. As it spikes and hums along, it creates all kinds of interference. If it spikes at a frequency that is the same as the RF used to transmit data, then it will cancel out that signal and the data transmission will be dropped or damaged en route.
BPL bypasses this problem by avoiding high-voltage Powerlines all together. The system drops the data off of traditional fiber-optic lines downstream, onto the much more manageable 7,200 volts of medium-voltage Powerlines.
Once dropped on the medium-voltage lines, the data can only travel so far before it degrades. To counter this, special devices are installed on the lines to act as repeaters. The repeaters take in the data and repeat it in a new transmission, amplifying it for the next leg of the journey.
In Planet Broadband's model of BPL, two other devices ride power poles to distribute Internet traffic. The Planet Broadband Coupler allows the data on the line to bypass transformers.
The transformer's
job is to reduce the 7,200 volts down to the 240-volt standard that makes up
normal household electrical service. There is no way for low-power data signals
to pass through a transformer, so you need a coupler to provide a data path
around the transformer. With the coupler, data can move easily from the
7,200-volt line to the 240-volt line and into the house without any degradation.
The Last Mile
The last mile is the final step that carries Internet into the subscriber's home or office.
In the various approaches to last-mile solutions for BPL, some companies carry the signal in with the electricity on the Powerline, while others put wireless links on the poles and send the data wirelessly into homes. The CT Bridge is capable of both.
The Planet Broadband Bridge can also:
The signal is received by a powerline modem that plugs into the wall. The modem sends the signal to your computer. Let's take a look at these modems.
BPL (HomePlug) Modems
BPL modems use silicon chipsets specially designed to handle the work load of pulling data out of an electric current. Using specially developed modulation techniques and adaptive algorithms, BPL modems are capable of handling powerline noise on a wide spectrum.
A BPL modem is plug-and-play and is roughly the size of a common power adapter. It plugs into a common wall socket, and an Ethernet cable running to your computer finishes the connection. Wireless versions are also available.
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