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January 2001 Issue
Powerline Technology Readies for Center Stage
By

Data over powerline technology remains a thorn in the cable industry’s side. But how concerned should operators be that the know-how will become an effective competitor in the transmission of voice, video and data? Powerline’s success or failure depends on the resolve of a handful of entrepreneurs who are trying to turn a dream into reality.

Several years ago, the U.S. military sent William "Luke" Stewart to Europe to determine if data could be transmitted over powerlines. After traveling throughout the continent, the former Navy veteran returned to the United States and told military officials something they weren’t prepared to hear—the technology was feasible and indeed a handful of utility companies were slowly beginning to use it.

Since 1998, Stewart and his company, Media Fusion, have tried to sell U.S. investors, scientists and the telecommunications industry on the idea that data over powerline technology is the wave of the future. He is not alone. Nortel Networks broke ground in 1997 when it showed that its technology, Digital PowerLine (DPL), worked in a controlled environment in Europe and the United States. Ambient Corp., a Massachusetts-based upstart, claims it will roll out technology in the next 18 months that will be commercially viable and provide voice, video and data services.

While utility companies themselves have not pursued research and development of the technology, they are nonetheless watching advances with interest. In an era of deregulation, they need additional sources of revenue. Data over powerlines, also known as powerline technology, could prove to be one such source, while giving utilities a competitive edge over the cable industry because it uses the existing electric power infrastructure.

Even if the technology proves feasible, a host of issues needs to be addressed that could delay the technology’s implementation in the United States for years or negate advances altogether. Access to existing powerlines and utility poles is an overriding issue. Regulations regarding the use of radio frequency technology need to be addressed. Rules that apply to any telecommunications service offering also are of concern. Noise caused by the transformer remains problematic. And then there is the question of what happens to data transmissions when the power goes out.

Still, utilities are intrigued.

"There’s been a lot of activity recently," says Brett Kilbourne, an attorney for United Telecom Council, a Washington, D.C.-based group following the utility industry. "The business case for making this technology is attractive."

The technology: Media Fusion

Companies involved in data over powerline technology have taken radically different approaches in making it a reality. Media Fusion, for instance, is looking at a technology that uses the electromagnetic spectrum that goes from microwave to infrared and sends data quickly across the country. In its trials, Nortel used a complex arrangement that included a communications module similar to a modem, but concentrated on local area networks (LANs). Ambient’s still-developing technology relies on a modem-type box, which may be tailored country to country, depending on the electrical grid.

At its core, Media Fusion’s patented system is based on quantum physics and the quantum well, which is a path defined in traditional optical communications and has the capability of bidirectional communication.

The theory says that in a magnetic field, there are multiple quantum wells, meaning multiple paths by which information, like voice and data, can be transmitted. Supercomputers—three are strategically placed around the United States—would magnetically align the field on the U.S. power grid.

A microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (MASER) device would send a signal with the capability of transmitting data between 30 GHz to 24,000 GHz.

The negative elements in the quantum well are aligned in such a way that they push the position protons, which bump each other along and accelerate the signal over thousands of miles.

The technology uses inductive coupling to receive the transmitted information, detect and convert the electromagnetic field into electrical signals for analysis, verification and distribution to the designated subscribers. Signal processing of information is carried out through a neutral network, such as a reduced coulomb energy (RCE) network. The data signal, transparent to power transformers, may be transmitted over great distances at a high speed without suffering any signal attenuation.

Media Fusion claims signals are relatively unaffected by noise and have no effect on external long-wave radio communications. To that end, MASERs can provide noise figures in microwave and radio frequency ranges that are lower than those for other electric amplifiers at the same frequencies.

To access information in the home, subscribers would use a frequency-dependent polymer, made of electromagnetically coupled material cut into a certain size and shape. Although the initial frequency-dependent polymer would cost millions of dollars to build, the actual chip in the home would cost around two or three dollars, says Media Fusion. The frequency-dependent polymer would be plugged in behind a computer, TV set or other household item, and automatically pull off signals allocated for data, broadband digital video service, telephony or other services in a specific quantum well.

Computer-type controllers would make sure the correct traffic got on and off the grid in each local network. As is the case in all data over powerline technology, customers would still need an Internet service provider (ISP) to access information from the Internet.

On paper, the theory is revolutionary, says Dr. Rickey Luke of Knology Holdings, a Georgia-based broadband service provider.

"It’s the great cornucopia that everybody says, ‘Gee, this would be so fantastic if it could really happen,’" says Luke, who has studied quantum physics and compared it to Media Fusion’s project. "From a practicality standpoint and a reality standpoint, I don’t know that it’s real or not. I can’t find anything that would prove that it can work."

That has been a major stumbling block. Despite repeated promises, Media Fusion still hasn’t provided a proof of concept. The company hasn’t shown it can align the power grid’s magnetic field. In addition, many technical developments regarding how to get data on to the power grid still need to be investigated, and the way the system itself would be controlled remains a question.

Stewart, Media Fusion’s chairman and chief technology officer, appears nonplussed about the questions surrounding his project. He claims that by the end of the year, he’ll prove the system can work. After that, he says, it is up to the utility companies to implement the system.

"It will make Silicon Valley look like 12-year-old kids playing in the sandbox," Stewart says. "When you talk away the bandwidth limitations, imagine the kind of creativity you can have."

Nortel creates groundwork

While many following data over powerline technology often refer to Media Fusion’s theory as being "Star Trekkish," Nortel Networks created a buzz in 1997 when it concluded a trial for Internet access in Manchester, England with Britain’s United Utilities called Nor.Web.

"It looked... almost like a fiber to the curb infrastructure," says Dan Middleton, former director of Digital PowerLine for the Americas and current vice president for Nortel’s Local Internet.

Nortel designed its solution to deliver data over powerlines at 1 megabit per second (Mbps) downstream and upstream. The system consisted of four pieces of equipment—the DPL 1000 mainstation, the DPL 1000 basestation, the DPL 1000 coupling unit and the DPL 1000 communications module.

Similar to a cable modem, the communications module used a 10Base-T Ethernet port and universal serial bus (USB) port connecting to a power line and personal computer. The module transmitted data via RF signaling. The coupling unit was installed on the side of a building and split the RF signal from the electrical current before it reached the electric meter. The base-station at the headend of the network aggregated data from multiple communications modules, and was installed at a substation or with a collection of transformers. These communications modules sent Ethernet signals to the basestation, which transmitted Ethernet to the mainstation using copper, wireless technology or fiber optic cable. The mainstation was a Nortel Passport 160 asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switch, could sit anywhere on a fiber ring, and take Ethernet signaling and convert it into ATM signaling.

The Manchester trial did pinpoint interference problems. Although the transmissions worked, nearby lamp posts acted as antennae, picking up user’s downloads and rebroadcasting the data as radio waves.

Still, Nortel showed it could deliver 10 Mbps over the same infrastructure, Middleton says. The company’s success, however, also proved to be its downfall. It would have taken another year to solidify the 10 Mbps technology, longer than Nortel was willing to wait.

"A lot of utilities wanted to wait for the 10 Mbps solution before deploying the 1 Mbps solution," Middleton says.

Had Nortel waited, its technology could have proven to be economically feasible, industry insiders say. For one, Europe’s voltage is higher than in the United States—230 volts versus 120 volts—and sits on a grid. This means that if a line goes out, it can quickly be rerouted, making power outages less frequent than in the United States. Secondly, anywhere between 300 and 400 homes are connected to a single transformer in Europe, compared to five or six homes in the United States. There is less interference on the lines, and Nortel would have needed less equipment to reach more residences.

Nortel did go on to conduct a 15-home U.S. trial with an undisclosed utility company, Middleton says.

"In the United States, we did a lot of work developing a transformer bypass that allowed a beta signal to go from 25,000 volts down to 120 volts, or 240 volts" for the U.S. power grid, Middleton says.

Nortel’s U.S. prototype established neighborhood area networks of 200-home clusters. The network sent out a backhaul signal to the clusters, much in the way hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) networks work.

"It’s very much in the last half a mile of the network where you’re distributing the signal that you transmit over fiber optics or through wireless out in the neighborhoods," says Middleton. "Powerline technologies can take that signal and band to the network and distribute it very cost-effectively throughout your subdivision."

After its U.S. trial, which went no further than the prototype, Nortel got out of the powerline technology business. The company’s interest began to shift to the Internet, Ethernet and creating new access technologies, Middleton says. Nortel sold its intellectual property to an undisclosed party.

Unlike Media Fusion, Middleton says powerline technology will remain part of LANs, and will have regional, not national, implications.

The LAN "is the only place in the network where powerline is used. It is not used as a national grid kind of communications medium," he says.

... that Ambient hopes to cash in on

If Nortel is now out of the powerline technology business, Ambient hopes to make it an effective competitor to both the cable and telephone industries nationally and abroad.

"This is a true disruptive technology," says CEO Mark Isaacson, who is helping pioneer the new solution.

Ambient’s technology still is under development, although Isaacson maintains it will be available commercially in a year to 18 months.

The company is off to a promising start. It recently entered into an agreement with Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. for a phased-testing program over Con Edison’s powerlines. It also forged an alliance with Japan’s Sumimoto Corp. to test the technology internationally. Undisclosed technology partners are working with Ambient to create the equipment necessary to make the solution work, Isaacson says.

Ambient has been able to raise millions of dollars of financing from Wall Street investment firms like Oscar Capital Management LLC, Seneca Capital Management and the Pequot Group.

Isaacson would not, however, provide many specifics about how his company’s technology will work. He did say that Ambient is developing two systems, one that works on low-voltage, the other on medium-voltage powerlines. The architecture may vary from one utility system to another, but much of the componentry may be managed across many data platforms, like Ethernet LANs and wide area networks (WANs), Isaacson says.

"We have both the backhaul and the entire... system that will take us to the premise. We start from the beginning, from where the feed comes in, whether it’s low voltage [or medium-voltage]. We come to the premise, and we will have a gateway unit in our system."

Ambient has a "multi-megabit scalable platform, which means better than a meg or a meg-and-a-half on a throughput basis with services increasing as the speed increases," Isaacson says. "We have great optimism about how the speeds will increase and how our paradigm of service will increase," along with the speeds.

The company has several patents pending, one of which is an inductive bypass coupler, which receives wanted data off the powerline and is integral to the system. A stand-alone device, the coupler is geared for medium-voltage systems, but may, in some cases, be used on the low-voltage system, Isaacson says.

Ambient will build the system and offer training and support to its partners. The company anticipates that telephony, streaming video, home networking, load management and automatic meter-reading services all will be available.

Ambient’s technology may be tailored to each individual power grid at home and abroad. To that end, Con Edison is providing Ambient with diagrams of how its utility system works.

George Jee, Con Edison’s project manager for corporate planning, says the primary reason his company got involved with powerline technology is because the utility is already connected to the home.

"Right now, we don’t even know if it can work," Jee says. "But there is a tremendous promise. The lines exist, we just need to worry about the interconnection."

Powerline technology may not be for all utility companies, Jee admits. One of the benefits for Con Edison is that New York’s power grid is constructed more similarly to Europe’s, making power outages less prevalent.

Ambient still will need to use an ISP to get Internet access, and will have to use a modem to interface between the two systems, Jee says.

Jee says he doesn’t believe that powerline technology, despite its promise, will be able to compete with fiber optic speed. At the same time, not everyone needs, or wants, high speed, he says.

"What is fast?" Jee asks. "That’s one of the things I’m trying to work out."

Whether you consider it science fiction or the Holy Grail of free Internet access, keep your eye on this potential competitor. Although it’s clearly not ready for prime time, data over powerline proponents have high hopes for the technology.

Natalia A. Feduschak is senior editor of Communications Technology. She may be reached at .

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