ISP Review - Powerline Interview

ISPr Interviews Keith MacLean Over Powerline Broadband

Powerline Interview
By Mark 'Winter' Jackson : Feb 24th-2003 : Page 2 of 5

"So far, despite hundreds of thousands of buildings covered by PLC in Europe, some of these in concentrated city environments, there have been no cases of interference."


3) What was the biggest technical hurdle you experienced while developing Powerline?

We have not developed the technology ourselves but adapted the equipment of various manufacturers to use on the UK power network. The main difference to Europe is that, generally, only one of the three phases of the supply goes into an individual property. Repeater deployment has had to be modified to take this into account.

4) You're currently running a trial of the technology, how is this going and when do you expect it to complete?

The current trials have been part financed by the DTI Broadband fund and this is for a period of 18 months. Because we have been very pleased with the results, we will not wait till the end of this period before deciding on any follow up and, as long as demand is still there at the end of the period, anticipate the continuing provision to our trial customers who have supported us in the development.

5) Previously Powerline has had to deal with a lot of regulatory concerns, how have you managed to overcome these?

Regulatory concerns centre on the potential for PLC, or any source of radio emissions like DSL or Ethernet, to interfere with other spectrum users - in the case of PLC, in the short wave band. Early systems operated at very high power levels and triggered a number of objections.

Modern systems not only operate at significantly lower power levels but also have advanced management systems which mean that particular frequencies can be notched out to deal with any problems, were they to occur. This can be done at the level of an individual user modem through to a regional, national or even international scale.

So far, despite hundreds of thousands of buildings covered by PLC in Europe, some of these in concentrated city environments, there have been no cases of interference. The European utilities now believe that the probability of interference is very low and the probability of being able to deal with any if they do occur is very high.

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