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BPL trials
This page considers overseas trials of internet-over-powerline.
It covers -
introduction
It is clear that internet traffic can be sent over powerlines,
whether within an individual building (eg an office or
a house) or to multiple urban and rural sites (eg to all
households within a city or suburb, to farms and to telemetric
devices).
Technical aspects of that communication have been explored
in a range of non-commercial trials in Australia and overseas.
Such exploration, with research by individual organisations
and through projects such as Opera,
is likely to continue, although some work appears to involve
government-funded reinvention of the wheel (or investigation
of telemetrics and notions such as the smart home in the
guise of inhome BPL) rather than significant extension
of existing knowledge.
There have been fewer commercial trials, ie explorations
of BPL business models encompassing -
- large
numbers of users in environments that are representative
of 'real world' conditions (eg where buildings/precincts
have not been newly rewired)
- inclusion
of hardware maintenance costs
- inclusion
of realistic ISP costs (eg billing system, helpdesk
and user set-up charges)
- inclusion
of other connectivity charges (eg fees to operators
of other networks for telephone traffic)
- pricing
of equipment at realistic rates (eg addressing criticisms
that distortions have been introduced by some equipment
developers/venders providing gear on a heavily subsidised
basis or at what it might cost in future)
- measures
of customer satisfaction and service
- comparisons
with commercial provision of other technologies, including
ADSL over traditional copper phone networks, wireless,
cable and fibre-to-the-home
- inclusion
of costs for fixing existing powerlines to address interference
problems (ie the cost of hardware and labour involved
in its installation)
That
is of concern, given claims by enthusiasts that BPL is
"in use across the world", is "commercially
successful" or is "clearly competitive".
Essentially, those claims have not been substantiated.
As noted on the preceding page, it is possible to find
media releases and (generally naive) media coverage about
the initiation of technical trials and forecasts that
access BPL will deliver substantial benefits in the near
future to both utilities and consumers. Those trials have
typically been small scale and short term. As with much
exploratory work the conclusion of a technical trial has
rarely been marked by a media release or a detailed public
report from the individual utility. It is clear from media
coverage and from examination of corporate annual reports
that many utilities have been disappointed, choosing to
curtail a technical trial or not to proceed to a real
world commercial exploration.
One example is the Nor.Web joint venture formed by Nortel
Networks and British energy company United Utilities in
1997. Technical problems in its access BPL trial in Manchester
(UK) - famously involving street lights near the test
site acting as antennas for the 2-10 MHz band with interference
to the BBC's World Service, Civil Aviation Authority and
GCHQ - and the expense of the joint venture led to closure
of Nor.Web in 1999. Across the Channel German equipment
giant Siemens abandoned the BPL business in 2001.
Proponents of access BPL have thus had difficulty in pointing
to a large scale implementation that appears to be commercially
viable and that addresses interference concerns.
Enthusiasts have tended to 'spin' some technical exploration
as commercial trials or to fudge specific aspects.
Claims about the economics of BPL for example often assume
there is no need to address interference concerns and
that maintenance of equipment housed in substations will
be low. That is unsurprising, given the potential to boost
the share price of a utility or a partner, gain favourable
media attention or merely justify a particular R&D
project. It is however problematical, with Aurora in Tasmania
and Country Energy in NSW admitting to concerns about
high temperatures; Country Energy commented that it "had
had to customise the cabinets enclosing the Mitsubishi
hardware to include 24-hour rotating fans as overheating
could be a problem".
Others have conflated figures for buildings that could
potentially access BPL (for example over 20,000 in the
Endesa trial in Barcelona) with substantially lower figures
for households/offices that have chosen to use the technology.
The Fribourg (Switzerland) trial has thus sometimes been
characterised as covering 250,000 households but in fact
only a fraction of 1% of that figure subscribed, the federal
regulator has criticised consistent breaches of standards
and the operator appears to lost substantially.
New Zealand BPL trials
BPL in New Zealand has followed the same trajectory as
overseas, with initial hoopla, small-scale trials and
little follow-up.
The trial in Auckland by UnitedNetworks and Vector ceased
after it "failed to produce commercial results",
with Vector commenting that
we
haven't been able to get anything commercially viable
... We can't get enough distance and the equipment is
a bit expensive.
overseas
The Canadian government's 2005 consultation paper on BPL
(PDF)
comments that
A
number of foreign governments including Australia, Austria,
China, Finland, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Italy,
Korea, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, and Switzerland are
currently studying BPL technology or have permitted
equipment trials. The outcomes have shown mixed results
and have led some administrations to ban BPL systems
while other administrations have allowed deployment
under various conditions. A number of administrations
have suspended BPL trials pending international
developments
Access
BPL trials have included -
- Iowa,
US (2004) Alliant trial: abandoned
- North
Carolina, US (2004) PECC trial: no further action
- Penn
Yann, US (2004) Data Ventures trial: NFA because "not
commercially deployable"
- Vantaa,
Finland (2001) Vantaa Power trial in apartment block:
abandoned after regulator says interference too severe
- Tirol,
Austria (2002) TIWAG trial: abandoned
- Saragoza,
Spain (2003) Endesa trial
- Manchester,
UK (1997) United Energy trial: abandoned
- Madrid,
Spain (2003) Iberdrola trial
- Neuenkirchen,
Austria (2002) EVN trial: abandoned
- Linz,
Austria (2003) Linzstrom trial: litigation by regulator
- Cincinatti,
US (2004) Cinergy: BPL partnership with Current Technologies
2001, test deployment to 100 customers in 2002, 'commercial
deployment' in 2004/5 to 5,000 homes
-
Crieff, UK (2005) Scottish Power trial: regulator OFCOM
says "is not and cannot be ... compliant"
- Arnhem,
The Netherlands (2001) Nuon trial: Dutch utility Nuon
ceases access BPL trial in 2003 as "uncompetitive",
with no further action
- Mexican
state power utility CFE trials in Mérida, Monterrey
and Mexico City (2001)
- Mannheim,
Germany (2002) PowerPlus Communications trial: primarily
underground lines
- Singapore
(2003): no further action as "uneconomic"
after three pilots
- LeHigh
Valley, US (2003): abandoned by PPL as uneconomic
- Manassas,
US (2003) municipal system: proprietary technology,
predominantly fibre rather than BPL
- Solothurn,
Switzerland (2004) inhouse BPL: regulator OFCOM says
interference is outside acceptable limits
- Manassas,
US (2004): original solution vendor (Prospect Street
Broadband) replaced by municipal government, ComsTek
announces "first commercial, non-pilot deployment"
in US
- Potomac,
US (2004) PEPCO trial: 115 households
-
Dresden, Germany (2002)
- Paris,
France (2003) Electricite de France
- Dusseldorf,
Germany (2002) E.ON trial: abandoned, with E.ON commenting
"the technology is too complicated and costly to
deploy"
- Offenbach,
Germany (2002)
- Barcelona,
Spain (2003): Endesa trial
- California,
US (2004): AT&T ends BPL pilot
- Monroeville,
US (2005): Duquesne Broadband joint venture - WiFi over
last mile
- California,
US (2005): San Diego Gas & Electric launches BPL
pilot
- Long
Island Power Authority announces plans to test BPL with
105 homes in Hauppauge/Commack area
recent developments
In September 2005 Tasmanian utility Aurora Energy launched
what was variously characterised as Australia's first
commercial BPL-to-the-home trial or even "The world's
first large-scale trial".
The exercise - involving Mitsubishi, AAPT and Datafast
- initially involves 500 households in an upmarket part
of the city. A spokesman stated
I
believe that it's probably the first time we'll see
broadband delivered to the masses .... We'll be able
to provide a whole range of new services. Broadband
will be a real option that customers have. As the new
player we do definitely have to provide very competitive
pricing and no doubt we'll raise the bar on both pricing
and capacity.
Aurora's
partner Datafast said
This
is not a technical trial - the technology works. This
is the first stage of a commercial roll-out. ... The
commercial trial launched today will run for approximately
nine months - initially with customers in Hobart and
then extending to other parts of the state
Immediate
responses were underwhelming, with criticisms that the
offering was overpriced rather than competively priced
and was subject to unusually low traffic limits.
Tim Gaden for example commented
TasTel
claims the new BPL technology can offer Internet access
at up to 200Mbit/s, significantly faster than the speeds
reached by ADSL2 and 2+ technology. However, the actual
speeds offered during the trial are much slower. The
fastest priced BPL plan offered by TasTel is only 4Mbit/s
and includes only 2GB of data for $79.95/month. (It
offers a 12Mbit/s plan, "price on application").
The slowest plan is 256/64 and includes an astoundingly
small 20MB of data, which includes uploads. An additional
network access charge will also be levied, although
it is being waived for the trial, which could last twelve
months
Others claimed that the technology was flawed, pointing
to an audio recording
that elegantly demonstrated RF interference problems with
access BPL in Tasmania. (Links to overseas recordings
are here).
Some forecast greater interference problems as the trial
progressed, expanding from a precinct where much of the
powerline was underground.
Others simply questioned
the business case, commenting that while the technology
can be made to work there are uncertainties about competitiveness
of a large-scale implementation on a commercial basis.
Aurora shortly thereafter announced it would be concurrently
trialling other technologies, with for example fibre-to-the-home.
The Aurora BPL announcement was followed shortly by news
that major US utility PPL had abandoned its LeHigh Valley
BPL trial as uncompetitive, reportedly because its pool
of potential customers — 1.3 million Pennsylvania
electricity customers — was "too small".
Elsewhere in the US TXU announced
"an agreement to transform TXU Electric Delivery's
power distribution network into the nation's first broadband-enabled
Smart Grid". The background brief for that announcement
claims that the technology has "No Potential for
Interference" and features a quote by Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission Pat Wood:
It's
my hope that a year from now boards of directors and
shareholders and customers are all asking utilities,
'Why aren't you in BPL?'
We will be discussing the Aurora exercise in a forthcoming
research paper.
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