Broadband over powerline searches for sanity
Access opportunity is still slow, but smart grid applications are gaining momentum
Sean Buckley
Telecommunicaction Online
April 23, 2009
Once ballyhooed by industry pundits as the third leg in the broadband service delivery stool, broadband over powerline (BPL) technology has continually struggled to gain mainstream acceptance.
But a recent article in The Washington Post called “Manassas Preserved Broadband Program” highlights the challenges BPL has had in gaining this third leg status.
At issue in Manassas, Va. is that the local BPL provider ComTech decided to discontinue its BPL service. From there, the city took over the franchise which serves a small number of only 670 subscribers and is now evaluating whether or not to keep the system running or shut it down altogether.
Proponents say the BPL network provides a more affordable Internet service ($25 per month) to residential customers, while others believe government should let the telecom and cable providers offer service. Not surprisingly, Comcast and Verizon piped up in the article saying they can provide economical broadband service. Verizon said it will extend FiOS to all Manassas residents by 2011, while Comcast said it can provide broadband access to the entire city at prices starting at $25 per month.
Figure 1. BPL is being called the next major Internet pipeline by industry experts. Source: Communication Technologies, Inc.
There has not been a lot to say, really, about BPL’s presence in the broadband arena. Overall, the BPL market in the United States is relatively scant. The FCC reports late last year that there were only about 5,000 BPL subscribers. Not exactly a big market opportunity.
So what’s kept BPL from becoming the mainstream phenomenon that was predicted in the late 1990s?
Since BPL started to percolate with large companies like Nortel, the technology was plagued with interference problems — problems that many like the ham radio guys still say exist even with new modulation techniques.
The most famous documented issue came during Nortel’s BPL trial with United Utilities NorWeb project. After trying to compensate for distortion noise given off by lightbulbs, Nortel decided to up its data signal, and the results weren’t pretty.
Not only did street lights start blinking, but the street lights started acting as antennae and interfering with air traffic and security systems.
Empowering smart grids
Despite setbacks as a wide area broadband connectivity medium, powerline technology is finding a new life to empower smart grid applications. Smart grid consists of a mix of smart meters, wireless technology, sensors and software, which in turn makes provides the utility with better visibility and control on how they deliver energy.
As more electric utilities get interested in smart grid, BPL vendors are responding with new products. What’s interesting is that many of these same surviving companies are that they were the early supporters of using it for broadband access.
Ambient and BelFuse, for instance, announced they would create a mater supply agreement to develop products for smart grid deployments.
Timing could not be better either for utilities or vendors.
In February, the Obama administration announced that $4.5 billion of the $787 billion U.S. stimulus package will address support for utilities to adopt smart grid technology.
A smart grid network will incorporate some form of a smart meter at the consumer's home. Simply put, a smart meter can measure consumption and can then communicate that information via either a powerline or cellular network back to the local utility for billing purposes.
While nothing has been formally established, it looks like Manassas feels the same way.
Already leveraging the BPL network to identify system outages and conduct automated meter reading, the city has approved funding for what it is calling an advanced metering pilot project.
With this metering project, Gregg Paulson, deputy director of Manassas’ Electric Department said that the BPL network could serve as an entrée into new smart metering projects.
This metering project could have two major benefits: it would allow residents to better monitor and track their energy usage, while the city could reduce its overall emissions. But the BPL network already in place, Paulson believes they should just leverage and extend what is already there.
“If we didn’t have the BPL network in place, we would have had to spend more money in deploying the meter program,” he said.
Home sweet home
Complementing the utility grid, powerline technology is increasingly finding a presence in the home to connect various energy devices such as appliances and other energy devices such as thermostats. Users could potentially purchase powerline-based devices that communicate with the utility network.
Rob Ranck, the president of the Home Plug Alliance, believes that while he does see some possible signs of life with BPL as a broadband alternative, in the near-term, he believes powerline will more likely be used to help consumers manage electrical consumption in the home.
Figure 1. Energy management in the home. Source: Southern California Edison
“The other application for powerline is to help utility companies monitor their own grids,” he said. “I think that smart grid is a pretty healthy application and it ties in with our smart energy initiative as well inside of Home Plug.”
In the in-home environment, powerline can be used to communicate with home devices such as thermostats, appliances, and potentially smart meters.
To help drive powerline communications for in-home energy management the HomePlug Forum has aligned their efforts with the Zigbee Alliance’s Smart Energy initiatives.
ZigBee and HomePlug have developed a common application layer that can run on HomePlug technology. This means that a utility can take advantage of either a Home Area Network (HAN) that leverages both wireless (Zigbee) and wired (powerline) technology for their respective AMI programs. (see Zigbee steps into the M2M limelight).
What's even more significant about this alliance launched last summer was that it is being driven by major electric utilities.
Ranck says that he has seen either former utility company members rejoin or new utilities join the alliance.
“The initiative is being driven a lot by utility companies, so we’ve had a lot of utility companies join HomePlug,” he said. “From California this includes PG&E and San Diego Gas and Electric, Duke Energy, American Electric Power from the Midwest and Reliance Energy from Texas has joined HomePlug as part of this whole push.”
Filling the broadband cracks
Just when you think BPL as a broadband service is down, someone always finds a way to bring it back to life.
Although there have been other high profile deployments and interest in recent years from Earthlink and AT&T, there have not been really any big investments in using BPL on a grand scale. Earthlink has been somewhat quiet about its BPL plans, but perhaps that could be due to its own financial trappings.
Home Plug’s Ranck believes that BPL could have some play as a way to fill in the broadband gap in rural areas.
“In the U.S., there are a lot of electric cooperatives, and it’s those companies where their customers may not have access to cable, DSL or a fiber broadband solution,” Ranck said.
One company that thinks BPL could have a big effect in rural areas is IBM.
Big Blue previously put forth an ambitious $9.6 million contract with the International Broadband Electric Communications (IBEC) to basically extend broadband connectivity to mainly rural markets.
Built and managed jointly by IBEC and IBM, the two companies will work with about a dozen electric cooperatives across seven states. Big Blue announced two BPL build out agreements in both Michigan and Wisconsin.
Working with Midwest Energy Cooperative, IBM and IBEC says it's delivering broadband over powerline to area residents and businesses throughout the seven counties the utility serves. In another deployment, IBM is helping Washington Island Electric Cooperative install smart meters to help it understand electricity demands and how to more efficiently manage power.
Given the interference issues and the fact that there are a number of alternative broadband technologies (LMDS spectrum, 4G and WiMAX), BPL may still have some access legs, but it’s still far from the hyped-up promise early pundits thought it would have.
“There are pockets of access opportunity, but I think it would be safe to say people don’t see an explosive opportunity the way they did a number of years back,” Ranck said.