Smart Grid Brings Powerline Broadband Back?

judgecorp writes "The UK is giving powerline broadband a serious trial once again, in up to 1000 homes in Liverpool. The technology was once hailed as an alternative to ADSL, delivered over the electricity mains, but lost out because of radio interference and price. The UK government is backing the installation of smart meters across the country, and it seems a new generation of 200Mbps powerline broadband could ride on that, cutting the installation costs. What about the interference issues? A recent FAQ from the regulator, Ofcom, says it has not found any evidence of a breach of EMC rules, but is keeping an eye on it."

Comments

Summary goodness

[jaymzter]

sed 's/eficdence/evidence/' summary

So wrong it's not even right. Can we get wiki style volunteer editors?

Re:Summary goodness

[julesh]

eficdence n. inf. Evidence that is entirely fictitious.

(Maybe I just made this up. I only have eficdence that this is a word in actual use.)

eficdence?

[wowbagger]

All this summary needs is "Posted from my iPhone"...

Re:200 Mbps

[the linux geek]

Like ham radio operators. You know we're secretly controlling the world.

A slight order of magnitude problem

[vlm]

UK government is backing the installation of smart meters across the country, and it seems a new generation of 200Mbps powerline broadband could ride on that

OK so lets take a look at a typical smart meter, how bout a PCR423 from nationpower.

It has to be mounted inside the building (which probably pisses off the fire department to no end) and runs at 1200 baud IR, 2400 baud RS485 (for an external modem), a mysterious RF link, and a GPRS/CDMA interface that is probably vaguely Kindle/whispernet like. No options for commo over power lines, but we can guess "somewhere around a K/s" since thats all thats required and all the other interfaces run about that fast, more or less.

And we'll run 200 M/s over that size of link, what, using compression or something?

I'm just saying there's got to be more to the story, as the app that fractional gig internet access is supposedly going to "piggyback" is probably (and appropriately) running about 1980's phone modem speed.

Re:A slight order of magnitude problem

[bickerdyke]

It has to be mounted inside the building (which probably pisses off the fire department to no end)

I know thats different in other places, but I never saw a power meter OUTSIDE a house over here and no firefighter is pissed of about that fact.

Power cables run directly from the main branch below the street into the basements along with water, phone and cable tv.

This never has been an issue with the firefighters I know of. They are more concerned with the rising numbers of photovoltaic cells and are suggesting easily accessible breakers for them.

Re:A slight order of magnitude problem

[vlm]

I know thats different in other places, but I never saw a power meter OUTSIDE a house over here and no firefighter is pissed of about that fact.

Power cables run directly from the main branch below the street into the basements along with water, phone and cable tv.

This never has been an issue with the firefighters I know of.

Oh they're probably pissed, but even if they change the building code its not going to fix itself instantly so, don't worry be happy.

The logic is, if the house is on fire and you intend to fill it with water and firemen, by far the fastest and safest way to pull electrical power to the site is to pull the meter. Every other option, like giant fiberglass bolt cutters, calling a lineman, etc, is slower, more expensive, less safe...

Re:A slight order of magnitude problem

[icebraining]

We have the meters inside, but a box with a fuse per household outside. You can cut the power to any floor by taking the fuse out.

Re:A slight order of magnitude problem

[julesh]

It has to be mounted inside the building (which probably pisses off the fire department to no end)

Here in the UK it's usual to have your meter inside the building, and I've never heard the fire services complain about it. Gas meters are sometimes located outside in newer buildings, but I've never seen electricity anywhere other than inside.

I'm just saying there's got to be more to the story, as the app that fractional gig internet access is supposedly going to "piggyback" is probably (and appropriately) running about 1980's phone modem speed.

You're missing the point, which is dual:

1. The electricity company's are going to be digging up every road, replacing all their existing equipment, and generally overhauling their entire consumer distribution network anyway, so adding a new capability to it at the same time will be less expensive than doing so separately.

2. The UK parliament will be handling legislation to specify how the smart metering rollout will work, so it will be easy for the government (who have expressed an interest in the past in finding a way of increasing broadband availability other than paying off BT to provide it to everyone) to add a section to the bill that will require them to provide the infrastructure for broadband at the same time.

Nobody's saying that this is going to be a free consequence of the switch to smart meters, just that doing both at the same time is a better idea than doing either individually.

Re:Smart meters are a scam!

[vlm]

They cost a fortune to install & maintain, much more than any reduced electrical consumption.

The real scam of it, is the purpose is to create a confuseopoly in the billing department.

Rather than $X per month for a meter, and $Y/KWH, the want all the customer friendly transparency of a cell phone contract.

"OH I'm sorry sir, your monthly contract is $200 for 2000 prime KWH and every KWH over that is charged at a very reasonable $50/KWH. I'm sorry your bill is $2000 this month. Would you like to sign a new 5 year contract for more KWH, perhaps $400 for 4100 KWH?"

"I'm in a friends and family electrical contract, so only one of us can run our air conditioner at any instant, or else they bill all of us triple rates"

"Why am I running my space heater on the patio? Well, I've got a 1000 KHW contract, its the end of the month and I've only used 950 KWH, so I figured no sense wasting my money"

F those money grubing scum.

Re:You know that Internet 2 that everyone wanted?

[NevarMore]

Its not a cure, but its a start.

I'm not sure how the UK is, but here in the US:
Comcast has an interest in blocking Netflix so they can sell me cable and Vonage so they can sell me phone service.
ATT has an interest in blocking Netflix so they can sell me cable (UVerse) Vonage so they can sell me phone service.
Eon has an interest in blocking ????? so they can sell me electricity.

Power companies main advantage is that they're another wire to the home, they have the infrastructure already. They'll have to overcome some hurdles since their current network engineers are in a classic internal support role, that is they have computer networks to support their main power delivery operations rather than supporting routing bits and bytes to the actual customers. The advantage to the consumer is that the power company is used to providing a (metered) pipe and thats about it. They have no other competitive issues because you can't power your house with an internet connection.

Re:200 Mbps

[oldspewey]

Like ham radio operators. You know we're secretly controlling the world.

You could.

Re:Electricity usage monitoring

[vlm]

Here in Houston, CenterPoint Energy provides the utility. As of a few weeks ago, I've noticed that my energy provider keeps a record of how much energy I've used each day on the hour. It's pretty damned cool that I can review this data. I can even spot the areas where I've cooked (electric, no gas) at that time of day. What I'm must curious about is *how* each meter uploads the data.

I've been informed by others that maybe it uses a form of powerline broadband with the new meters. Is this true?

The term you don't know to google for is "Zigbee". Google for "Zigbee Houston CenterPoint Energy" and you'll pages of links explaining how there is a zigbee (which is vaguely like long distance bluetooth) link from many meters to a poletop device that connects via some vaguely wifi-ish radios and/or GSM/CDMA cellular data service (like a kindle whispernet) back to the office. You can find the resume of the guy whom set up the cellular side links, if you search carefully.

Not exactly powerline broadband. More like somewhat slow radio.

Re:Smart meters are a scam!

[DigiShaman]

In Houston, TX I have (as of this moment in my ZIP code) 259 service providers to contract out my electricity. Price per kWh ranges from 6.9 cents to 15.3 cents. I seriously doubt all 259 will work together to screw customers over with shady contracts. This isn't the cell phone industry were talking about.

http://www.powertochoose.org/

Re:interference

[vlm]

Sooooooo, what exactly will Ofcoms explanation be when all of a sudden ....
And every HAM in Britain's equipment suddenly broke due to magic?...

I am not sure of your regulations, but here the line will be "And every facebook / youtube / netflix couch potatoe in the neighborhood screams when I key my 1500 watt legal limit ham radio amplifier (now required to be heard over the noise, I used to do 5 watts QRP)"

Causes interference to licensed spectrum users

[LaissezFaire]

Groups like the American Radio Relay League have fought against this for a long time, as well as recently, too. There's talk of notching the BPL, and is done some places, but not everywhere. Since the feds took over the developing ownership rights of the spectrum with the FCC, it's their responsibility to ensure BPL providers aren't interfering with licensed spectrum users.

Re:You know that Internet 2 that everyone wanted?

[vlm]

The advantage to the consumer is that the power company is used to providing a (metered) pipe and thats about it. They have no other competitive issues because you can't power your house with an internet connection.

Today, sure. Back in 1984 when I got my first modem AT&T had no residential video service to compete with me.

It only takes a few months for, say, General Electric/NBC to buy my local power company, and then guess what happens to my netflix access?

Re:Who cares about radio?

[JimMcc]

I know. I know. Don't feed the trolls. But...

In some areas, at least in the USA, the infrastructure is not thoroughly built out. We live in a rural area. Recently the EMTs tried to call for a Life Flight for the victim of a serious auto accident. Turns out that the telephone company had taken down the long distance phone link for scheduled maintenance. Cell phones were of no use because the cell tower sends the signal via copper out of the area for switching, then back into the area for connection to the dialed party. Without a switched local copper phone line, the cell system was useless.

If it were not for the ability of the emergency dispatcher to contact the state EOC via RADIO (yes that old fashion technology) the accident victim would most likely have died.

So, yes, radio technology is "old school". But it is an important means of communications, especially in the case of emergencies. That's why the ARRL motto is "When all else fails".

How the system will work.

[odin84gk]

Lets assume they are using the +20MHz spectrum. There are a few installations in the US (I believe one is in Colorado). Essentially, a collector is installed on the LV side of a power line transformer. (The transformer acts like a filter to the signal, isolating the connection from other neighborhoods.) This collector is typically connected to another technology as the backhaul. In Europe, it is reasonable to expect 200 homes on a single transformer, so it is very cost-effective for this kind of utilization. In the US, you get only 1-8 homes per transformer, so the cost is fairly large. If you really need to, you can use the MV line to transmit this PLC as a backhaul.

200Mbps is the Maximum amount, used for marketing purposes. In Europe, they can have a couple hundred houses connected to the same LV transformer. This means that you are sharing a 200 Mbps connection with the neighborhood. If you assume 100 homes for one transformer and 50% utilization, a home can get a maximum of 2Mbps (assuming an ideal backhaul). As you all know, this is an "ideal" number. If they try to use PLC as the backhaul (instead of fiber), then you share the bandwidth with other neighborhoods, reducing your datarate well below 1Mbps.

Other considerations: Repeaters.
Underground wiring is another filter. This kind of technology will require a repeater every 100 meters for a full underground installation. Overhead wires need a repeater every 500 meters or so. If you are in a high-noise environment (as in, there is a factory connected to your substation), datarates are decreased and more repeaters are required.

Simply put, the final system will look closer to 500Kbps per home and it will cost a significant amount of money to the homeowner, either through taxes or through required rate hikes on your utility bill.)

So if you want to use PLC to help solve the ISP monopoly, you are looking in the wrong place.

Signed,
A Smart-Grid researcher and designer for the US market

Re:How does the data get around the transformers?

[htdrifter]

This has been "going to happen" since, at least, the 1940s. At least once a decade someone reinvents the idea and creates a lot of interest. Then it dies again for a while.

The entire power grid is an RF choke. RF over the power lines works until it gets to a transformer. That's a good thing because it reduces impulse noise which can play havoc with electronic equipment. Fast rise time impulse noise on power lines is a problem in electronic equipment and instrumentation.

Re:You know that Internet 2 that everyone wanted?

[zach_the_lizard]

Here in the US, virtually every consumer has to deal with a power company monopoly. I'm not sure that running into the arms of another monopoly is really going to save us from limited competition.

Re:200 Mbps

[The Altruist]

KE5VEU checking in. Here in the States, giving up the Hams isn't an easy thing to do. When another Katrina/Ike/YourNameHere strikes, who still owns the air? We do. Phone lines are dead. Power is out. Who's still on? We are.