Power Line Data Transmission Capacity: Bigger Than DSL Or Cable
Penn State engineers have developed a new model for high-speed broadband transmissions over U.S. overhead electric power lines and estimate that, at full data rate handling capacity, the lines can provide bit rates that far exceed DSL or cable over similar spans.
Source: Science DailyMohsen Kavehrad, the W. L. Weiss professor of electrical engineering and director of the Center for Information and Communications Technology Research, led the investigation. He says, "Although broadband power line (BPL) service trials are now underway on a limited basis in some locations in the U.S., these trials run at DSL- comparable rates of 2 or 3 megabits per second.
"We've run a computer simulation with our new power line model and found that, under ideal conditions, the maximum achievable bit rate was close to a gigabit per second per kilometer on an overhead medium voltage unshielded U.S. electric power line that has been properly conditioned through impedance matching. The gigabit can be shared by a half dozen homes in a neighborhood to provide rates in the hundreds of megabits per second range, much higher than DSL and even cable."
Kavehrad adds, "If you condition those power lines properly, they're an omni-present national treasure waiting to be tapped for broadband Internet service delivery, especially in rural areas where cable or DSL are unavailable."
The researchers say they are the first to evaluate data rate handling capacity for overhead medium voltage unshielded U. S. electric power lines and outlined their findings at the IEEE Consumer Communications & Networking Conference in Las Vegas, Nev., Jan. 5. Their paper is titled, "Transmission Channel Model and Capacity of Overhead Multi-conductor Medium-Voltage Power-lines for Broadband Communications." The authors are Pouyan Amirshahi, a doctoral candidate in electrical engineering, and Kavehrad.
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Tri-PLEX, for those who don't know, is the type of shielded conductor cabling running from the pad-mount (or pole-mount) transformer in your neighbourhood (or on your local utility pole) to the mast (either attached to your roof or running down the side of your house), which connects the Tri-PLEX to the meter.
You can have either 1-Phase or 3-Phase services (3-Phase requires 3-AWT Tri-PLEX cabling, as it uses all 3 conductors to carry large power loads into an area, such as a farm that would pull 400-600 AMPS). 1-Phase can use either 1-AWT or 3-AWT Tri-PLEX cabling, as it only requires 1 conductor to carry up either a 100 AMP or 200 AMP service to your meter.
1-AWT Tri-PLEX is only designed to carry at most a 200 AMP service into your house-hold (1-AWT simply meaning 1-Conductor). Most rural houses (except farms or large energy consumers) are on 100 AMP 1-Phase service on 1-AWT Tri-PLEX. Subdivisions are a different story.
Almost every subdivison house with electric baseboard heat automatically was upgraded to a 200 AMP 1-Phase service on 3-AWT Tri-PLEX conductor at service installation time (if built after during the 1980's or later). Those with central air, depending on the size of the house, can either be 100 AMP or 200 AMP, but they are usually on 3-AWT Tri-PLEX conductor (just 2 conductors are inactive).
Subdivision houses are mostly 100 AMP 1-Phase services, but are 99.5% of the time run on 3-AWT Tri-PLEX so as to allow upgrading to the larger services.
Where am I going with this? I'm on a 400 AMP 3-Phase service here on 3-AWT Tri-PLEX in a subdivision, I'm less than 20ft from my feeder pad-mount transformer and less than 1000 ft from my distribution station. With 3 active conductors (IE 3-Phase service), I'm thinking I'd be able to multiplex the internet connection and run 3 services in here, each on their own dedicated line.
If it can even deliver 4 or 5 Mbps across each phase... DAYMN. 15 Mbps service would be awesome!
Synchronous would be even better. (5000/5000).
I know our researchers at work have been attempting to get BPL to the market for a few years now, and downstream communications work on the high-voltage, high-capacity lines. It's sending back along the conductor that really is the problem. I hope we don't get stuck with having to use dial-up for upstream communications.
Either way, the future of Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) looks promising to delivering high-bandwidth broadband internet services to everyone.
The potential for this technology is wonderful, though. The infrastructure is already there!