Could the UK follow Germany's lead and roll out a broadband service
across the electricity supply network?
The Germans have got in first with their towels again. For the
pool-side read broadband access to homes and small businesses and
for towels look no further than the existing mains electricity
supply. Yes, the German utility companies are using the power grid
to deliver high-bandwidth Internet access without the need to dial
up. The system is expected to be rolled out across the 16 German
states this autumn.
There are at least 17 countries, including Germany, Sweden, Spain,
Israel, Korea and the US, involved in the development and
manufacture of power-line technology, which, after a shaky start in
the 1990s, is regaining momentum as an alternative method of
delivering broadband services over the local loop of copper wires.
However, but for some developments a few years ago, it could have
been the other way round, with the rest of the world looking to the
UK for answers.
Three years ago, UK utility Norweb was developing digital
power-line technology in collaboration with global telecoms
provider Nortel. Their joint venture Nor.Web launched a trial in
Manchester, but after a few rounds of testing, the trials were
dropped. At the time, the director of power systems at Nor.Web DPL
was Paul Brown, now chief executive of research and consultancy
firm White Box Solutions. Brown says a major factor in the failure
of Nor.Web was that it was a 50/50 joint venture between a telecoms
manufacturer and a utility.
"They're opposite cultures," he says. Utilities want a steady
return on their revenue stream. They are not interested in being
leading edge. Brown says that when Nor.Web decided to wind up its
operations, there was a surge of interest among the UK utilities
but, by then, it was too late.
The Nor.Web trials suffered from a lack of investment and because
of the speed at which the company was trying to push the new
technology. "The rate at which power-line technology was taken from
research and development to a field trial was pretty quick," says
Brown.
Nor.Web was only trading from April 1998 to September 1999 and in
that 18-month period it undertook 18 trials in 10 countries. There
were also technical problems such as radiating interference from
street lamps and buildings.
"In fairness, we are talking about this in hindsight," says Brown.
"Nor.Web was doing it first."
This also helps to explain the attitude of the government agency
that oversees the radio spectrum, the Radiocommunications Agency
(RA). Brown feels that the RA was nervous in its approach but
concedes, "It was there to protect the radio spectrum. It didn't
have a book on this." He says many utilities are interested in
power-line technology and there is much work going on in the UK
with standards bodies and regulators. But he believes the utilities
are playing a waiting game. "They want to see the case proven to
them."
Jim Norton, former chief executive of the RA, says the demise of UK
power-line technology in the 1990s was due to the problem of
radiating interference. Norton, now executive chairman at Deutsche
Telekom UK, says that if Nor.Web had used the more expensive
spread-spectrum technology in its trials, radiating interference
could have been avoided. Instead, the company chose to use lower
cost technology.
The only way Nor.Web could alleviate the interference was to fit
every streetlamp with a filter. The labour costs alone would have
been enormous. It was this, not the government agency, that killed
power-line technology in the UK, says Norton.
"The RA took a correct line," he says. "We did trials and measured
the interference and it was awful. It just wasn't viable."
Criticisms of a lack of co-ordination between the RA and the
telecoms watchdog Oftel were "overdone", Norton adds.
He believes power-line technology has missed the boat and
alternatives, such as radio fixed access, are more viable. "There
was a window for doing it which has since passed," he says. "But
you shouldn't bet against it." If a cheaper solution using spread
spectrum technology came along, he believes it could still take off
in the UK.
One UK utility that is taking a close look at using technology that
runs on the mains electricity network is Scottish and Southern
Energy (SSE). It is also the only UK power utility member in the
Powerline Communications Forum, which represents the interests of
the industry worldwide.
"We've been following the progress and now it seems that most
technical and commercial considerations have been sorted out," says
Keith Maclean, general manager of the telecoms arm of SSE. But
there is still a problem with regulation. "At the moment, there are
no suitable guidelines that would allow the use of power lines in
the UK," he says. "That is the main hurdle."
Maclean says SSE is willing to co-operate in any testing but is
unwilling to commit any significant funding to power-line
technology until the regulatory aspect becomes clearer. "The
feeling is that the regulation in the UK is too stringent," he
says.
SSE is primarily looking at power-line technology to provide
business services. It is investigating the use of access technology
- using low- and medium-voltage networks, both overhead and
underground - and "in-house" distribution, using a building's
electricity network to form a local area network within offices and
homes. It hopes the latter will be useful for small- and
medium-sized businesses.
"Anything that is lowering the cost of implementing broadband
services immediately has a benefit for rural areas," says Maclean.
"And the experience of LLU [local loop unbundling] would suggest
that an alternative that wasn't reliant on BT's wires would be
welcomed."
But regulation is the key. "I'm confident that we could, and would,
move forward if this situation was clarified," he says.
In Germany, power-line services are regulated by the
Regulierungsbehoerde fur Telekommunikation und Post (RegTP), a body
similar to Ofcom, the single communications regulator which will
replace the RA and Oftel, possibly as early as 2003. John Ryan, a
protection engineer at the Electricity Association, says that
having separate regulators for both telecoms and the radio spectrum
was another factor in frustrating the roll-out of power-line
technology in the UK. He believes the important step in Germany
came when RegTP's MP30 was made the legal standard for testing
networks this year. "That's what pushed things ahead in Germany,"
he says.
In the UK, the RA has a similar test, the MPT1570, but it has only
addressed the radio frequency band used by power lines. "In the UK
the regulatory problems hadn't been sorted out," says Ryan. "They
couldn't roll it out quickly enough." And this could have grave
implications for the future of the technology.
Ryan feels utilities have been frightened off to a certain extent
by the experiences of the past few years. "The feeling abroad is
that the UK regulator has taken a hard line," he says. "The Germans
have taken a softer line. It appears they allow local variations on
MP30, which gives you a base-level standard but not a compliance
standard."
However, the regulations were strong enough to ensure that Siemens,
for instance, was forced to abandon its trials in Germany because
its equipment would not have complied.
As yet, there is still no common standard for power-line technology
in Europe. However, the European Commission has issued a draft
mandate with a view to establishing pan-European standards for
power-line technology. Developing a standard will help companies to
attract more customers and expand into other countries. It will
also help to speed up the roll-out across the continent.
"The problem is there are so many parties involved and they're in
competition with each other," says Ryan. But getting a standard is
essential because without one, home networking and access
power-line technologies will interfere with each other, he
says.
If the situation in Germany is repeated elsewhere, with utilities
choosing to work with different power-line suppliers, the chances
of achieving compatibility and interoperability could be in doubt.
And it remains to be seen whether widespread power-line-based
systems will interfere with other electrical appliances or the
radio frequencies used by emergency services or the military.
If companies do decide to use the electricity grid in the UK to
provide broadband access, instead of BT's copper wires, the
telecoms giant stands to lose a pretty penny. And, considering the
way the company dragged its feet over the local loop unbundling
process, BT may well do everything it can to stall the acceptance
of power-line technology in the UK.
But this need not be the case. Brown admits that BT would receive
more competition if this technology was adopted but he believes
there are many collaborative issues which could be addressed. For
example, BT could provide communications to the buildings while
another supplier ran the internal distribution.
"I doubt that BT would lobby too furiously against it," adds Mark
Main, a senior analyst at Ovum. "BT would argue that it already has
better technology available."
He also points to the limitations of power-line technology, based
on the fact that electricity cables were not designed to carry data
traffic. "It fills a gap in the market but you have to distinguish
it from ADSL [asymmetric digital subscriber line] and ISDN
[integrated service digital network]," he says.
"It doesn't directly compete with cable modem and DSL because it
hasn't got the bandwidth." With power-line technology, more users
means poorer quality throughput and "lengthy sessions of audio and
video streaming soon start gobbling up the bandwidth".
Because of this limitation, power-line technology will not be able
to deliver interactive TV. Nor will it support voice recognition
services because the reliability isn't there, says Main.
"Power line doesn't have a future story to it," he says. "I doubt
it will be able to keep up with developments in DSL."
Main has no doubt that power-line technology can work but he
questions whether there is a demand for it. "All of these things
are 'do-able'," he says, "It's a case of do people really want it
and is there a market for it?" He thinks home networking is
interesting, "but it's got to be simple and cheap".
Home networking makes use of domestic electricity circuits. At the
forefront of this technology is the HomePlug Powerline Alliance,
which is working to develop a home networking protocol.
The alliance recently concluded its first large-scale field trial,
testing its technology in 500 US and Canadian homes. HomePlug
claims to have achieved a peak data rate of 8.4mbps in the trial,
with throughputs exceeding 5mbps for 80% of the time.
However, although HomePlug is a big player in the powerline
networking sector, it could come unstuck in Europe. It plans to use
the same spectrum for its networking services as the utility
companies want to use to offer broadband access based on power
lines. It is unlikely that the European utilities are going to give
way on this one. HomePlug's technology could also fall foul of
European regulations which are more stringent than in the US.
But home networking is being given a boost by the development of
new components. US home connectivity firm Intellon, a member of the
HomePlug alliance, has developed a 14mbps powerline chipset, the
INT5130, which it claims will remove the final hurdle in the
development of high-speed power-line networking devices.
Looking at the wider perspective, according to figures from the
Powerline Communications Forum, four billion people - almost
two-thirds of the world's population - have access to electricity
supply lines. Meanwhile there are just 788 million telephone
connections worldwide.
If using these power lines to provide broadband access does prove
viable, the global implications could be massive. As telephone
services can also be provided on power lines, developing countries
could use their existing electricity networks to deliver telephone
services as well.
But Brown foresees one major problem - there are no major user
groups pushing for the adoption of power-line technology.
"I don't see huge groups out there saying, 'I need it, where is
it?'" he says.
Without a groundswell of enthusiasm for the new technology, the
second coming of power-line technology could prove to be as much of
a damp squib as the first.
German utilities get on the case
Utility companies in
Germany are far more proactive than their counterparts in the UK,
which explains why Germany is leading the way in the development of
power-line technology.
German utility RWE has formed a joint venture, RWE Powerline, with
Swiss technology firm Ascom. A spokesman for RWE Powerline says
Ascom has solved the problem of radiating interference by sending
an "overhead" - an additional signal - with the normal signal to
correct faults. But RWE Powerline has no plans to expand into the
UK at present.
Power-line trials in Germany have proved more successful than their
predecessors in the UK but have tended to be on a smaller scale.
Power Plus Communications (PPC) - a joint venture between German
utility MVV and Main.net - has already completed a trial involving
200 households. And the company claimed a first with its launch of
a commercial power-line service connecting 3,000 users in Mannheim
this summer. Main.net is also working on providing telephone access
via the power line.
Mannheim is hardly an ordinary city - it has an extensive
fibre-optic network so MVV only had to install inexpensive modems
at outdoor grid substations and equip customers with small, indoor
modems.
But Main.net is also looking to work with utilities in other
European countries and in Brazil, and to enter the US market via
its local joint venture, Powerline Technologies.
Another Germany utility - E.ON - is also looking into the potential
of power-line technology. E.ON has partnered with Finnish telecoms
operator Sonera.
A history of digital power
lines
1998
- Nor.Web begins digital power-line trials in Manchester
1999
- Nor.Web winds up power-line tests
2001
- European Commission passes a draft mandate as a precursor to
drawing up a common standard for power-line technology in
Europe
- German Bundesrat passes the MP30, setting a national standard
for testing power-line technology
- The HomePlug Alliance completes a home networking pilot in the
US involving 500 homes
- German utilities RWE and MVV start testing power-line
technology in Germany
- MVV and its partner Main.net roll out power-line
technology-based services to 3,000 homes in Germany.