I intend with assistance to write a BPL sticky thread which we can hopefully refer people to instead of numerous BPL threads in various forums. What ideas has anyone? Of course I will not even start if no one wants another BPL thread but I would like to confine the queries about BPL to a single thread.
What is BPL? BPL stands for Broadband over PowerLines. How many types of BPL are there? There are two types Access BPL supplied over the power grid powerlines and in building house or in home BPL which may possibly be be used for networking in house items via the internal wiring of the house . What is PLC ? PLCstands for Power Line Communications,PLT stands for Powerline Telecommunications and BPL and stands for Broadband over PowerLines. PLB, PLT and PLC are essentially BPL BPL,BPL is not the narrow band switching signals used by power companies for switching and control purposes. If I am an Australian living in Australia can I get BPL at present? No not unless you are involved in a limited Test. When will I be able to get BPL over powerlines? If the tests presently taking place are sucessful in about three years time according to the ACMA which is the communications regulator,it is expected that a discussion paper about BPL will be released about April 2006. Will BPL be availaable in meteropolitan areas? If BPL is approved it should be available in meteropolitan areas but because of distance considerations will probably not be available in regional areas. Is BPL cheap ? No BPL is not cheap it is the most expensive technology available for the transportation of Broadband signals, this has been proved in other countries, BPL does not seem cost effective. Will I be charged a BPL use fee or a BPL line fee if BPL is approved? Yes you will be charged a BPL data fee as well as your electricity fee if BPL is rolled out, for further information contact your electricity company. What frequencies will BPL use? This is an unknown at present. Existing BPL uses the frequencies from about 3Mhz to 80Mhz, a new technology called Connect Technology uses the frequencies from 30Mhz to 80Mhz.
Does BPL cause interference to any communications services? Yes Existing BPL causes interference to all radiofrequency Spectrum users including Fire,Police,Ambulance and all armed services, although the Connect Technology[which uses the frequencies 30Mhz to 50Mhz] will cause less interference it still cause interference.
Are radio frequency spectrum users protected in any way? Yes licenced radio frequency spectrum users are protected by current leglislation, in Australia licenced radio frequency spectrum users are protected by the Radio Communications Act[Radcomm Act] which will take at least years to change to permit BPL.
Further information about BPL can be found on any good search engine and from the ACMA which has a BPL portal, ACMA home.
www.acma.gov.au/acmainter
Welcome to the Australian Communications & Media Authority (ACMA)
ACMA home:
forum-search.cfm?s=10783&r=8438958
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Please could I have some input from someone else.
BPL has been known to cause cancer, makes your dog bark all night, turns your driveway into a landing place for aircraft...........
So far the only thing it DOES do is cause problems for Amateur radio setups and other radio services that operate on similar frequencies as BPL does.
What is BPL? BPL stands for Broadband over PowerLines. How many types of BPL are there? There are two types Access BPL supplied over the power grid powerlines and in building house or in home BPL which may possibly be be used for networking in house items via the internal wiring of the house . What is PLC ? PLCstands for Power Line Communications,PLT stands for Powerline Telecommunications and BPL and stands for Broadband over PowerLines. PLB, PLT and PLC are essentially BPL BPL,BPL is not the narrow band switching signals used by power companies for switching and control purposes. If I am an Australian living in Australia can I get BPL at present? No not unless you are involved in a limited Test. When will I be able to get BPL over powerlines? If the tests presently taking place are sucessful in about three years time according to the ACMA which is the communications regulator,it is expected that a discussion paper about BPL will be released about April 2006. Will BPL be availaable in meteropolitan areas? If BPL is approved it should be available in meteropolitan areas but because of distance considerations will probably not be available in regional areas. Is BPL cheap ? No BPL is not cheap it is the most expensive technology available for the transportation of Broadband signals, this has been proved in other countries, BPL does not seem cost effective. Will I be charged a BPL use fee or a BPL line fee if BPL is approved? Yes you will be charged a BPL data fee as well as your electricity fee if BPL is rolled out, for further information contact your electricity company. What frequencies will BPL use? This is an unknown at present. Existing BPL uses the frequencies from about 3Mhz to 80Mhz, a new technology called Connect Technology uses the frequencies from 30Mhz to 80Mhz.
Does BPL cause interference to any communications services? Yes Existing BPL causes interference to all radiofrequency Spectrum users including Fire,Police,Ambulance and all armed services, although the Connect Technology[which uses the frequencies 30Mhz to 50Mhz] will cause less interference it still cause interference.
Are radio frequency spectrum users protected in any way? Yes licenced radio frequency spectrum users are protected by current leglislation, in Australia licenced radio frequency spectrum users are protected by the Radio Communications Act[Radcomm Act] which will take at least years to change to permit BPL.
Further information about BPL can be found on any good search engine and from the ACMA which has a BPL portal, ACMA home.
www.acma.gov.au/acmainter
Welcome to the Australian Communications & Media Authority (ACMA)
ACMA home:
forum-search.cfm?s=10783&r=8438958
Forum Search - Whirlpool Broadband Forums
forum-search.cfm?s=44606&r=8068263
Forum Search - Whirlpool Broadband Forums
Please could I have some input from someone else.
mistylane writes...
that operate on similar frequencies as BPL does
the only problem is that farks heaps of freq's...
IMO, FTTN is a better option to give every one fast net...or a radio based delivery system...
sure, them cables are just sitting there, but, it just doesn't look like a go-er....
but i do notice another power company releasing a trial in ACT(iirc) so there may be hope
mistylane writes...
BPL has been known to cause cancer, makes your dog bark all night, turns your driveway into a landing place for aircraft........... So far the only thing it DOES do is cause problems for Amateur radio setups and other radio services that operate on similar frequencies as BPL does.
BPL doesnt make your dog bark or encourage aliens to land in your driveway but does cause sparks off your alfoil beanie
Seriously, other threads about BPL have noted questions by academics, industry economists and regulators regarding the commercial viability of Access BPL. (I will provide links to some of the major documents later today - in the interim you can see some pointers at www.wia.org.au/BPL and www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc and www.caslon.com.au/powerlinenote.htm)
Those questions acknowledge that urban or even regional power grids can be used for broadband connectivity. However, that results in substantial radio-frequency interference [RFI]. That RFI is not trivial. It affects a wide range of current users of spectrum, including commercial broadcasters, police, emergency services, ambulance services, defence agencies. The interference is not restricted to 'hams'. Overseas industry, consumer groups and regulators have noted that Access BPL would also affect Digital Radio Mondiale, which is being pushed by the EU as the preferred digital radio standard
It is possible to substantially reduce RFI through investment in upgrading the grid, often shorthanded as 'notching' the lines. That upgrading is not a matter of a quick fix - an isolated box here or there. It involves systematic deployment of a range of hardware, with substantial equipment, installation and maintenance costs. (The maintenance costs are important because it is generally assumes that much Australian Access BPL gear will operate in hostile environments - lightning strikes, high temperatures and dust in substation boxes)
The cost of making RFI problems go away is large. It appears to make Access BPL commercially uncompetitive. Yes you can do Access BPL, no you probably cant do it on a commercially sustainable basis.
That's one reason why there have been a range of trials overseas but only a handful of implementations. Many major power companies in Europe and North America have looked at Access BPL and decided not to bother with a trial. Others have conducted a small-scale trial (typically under 500 buildings), crunched the numbers and walked away. That's led to the joke that "BPL is the technology of tomorrow ... and always going to be"
As people have recurrently noted in other BPL threads on WP, it is important to look at what companies have actually done, rather than relying on their media releases or uninformed reporting by the mass media. Some companies announce an Access BPL trial with much hoopla but bury the abandonment of the trial or the decision not to proceed in an annual report. Relying on upbeat advertorial in the mass media will give a distorted picture of what's actually happening
mistylane writes...
So far the only thing it DOES do is cause problems for Amateur radio setups
I can only agree with varro and like to add again that BPL causes interference to all licenced radio spectrum users.
Amateur radio operators at present are the most vocal of all licenced radio frequency spectrum users but they are a small number of spectrum users,the key word here is licenced as compared to unlicenced/ illegal. Below is a link to the pdf version of the Radiocommunications Act 1992 which is the controlling Act in Australia. It is rather large to read all at once as it is about 284 pdf pages long but BPL offends against a large number of sections of this Act. This act cannot be rewritten to take into account BPL in much less time than about three years.
www.comlaw.gov.au/ComLaw...nsAct92_WD02.pdf
RadiocommnsAct92_WD02.pdf (application/pdf Object)
Powerlines were designed to carry power and not communications,the ACMA seems to think that the grid is not of communications quality at present. Does anyone want to pay for the upgrading of the grid to communications quality because it will cost?
Ken Richards. writes...
Powerlines were designed to carry power and not communications,the ACMA seems to think that the grid is not of communications quality at present. Does anyone want to pay for the upgrading of the grid to communications quality because it will cost?
To give people some idea of the standard required it would probably be CCS standard{Continous Commercial Service }which is double the ICAS standard{Intermittent Amateur & Commercial Service} After all we don't want a standard of Intermittent Broadband do we?
Ken Richards. writes...
Does anyone want to pay for the upgrading of the grid to communications quality because it will cost?
There are several questions here ...
Is it in fact cheaper to roll out wireless (or even fibre) rather than tweaking - and re-tweaking - the grid.
If utilities want to get into the connectivity business (whether independently or by allowing another entity access to their right of way and their infrastructure) does it make more sense for them to use a technology other than Access BPL?
Can utilities (as distinct from consultants and hardware suppliers) make money from Access BPL?
The pricing in Tasmania doesn't appear to have wowed some consumers. If the utility prices more than its competitors, will it get necessary economies of scale ... and will it walk away from its BPL adventure when it fails to get sufficient revenue and profits? [Remember, we're generally talking a business, rather than a former monopoly saddled with a universal service obligation]
Are utilities merely acting as spoilers?
Should the people who pay for electricity subsidise rollout of Access BPL by their utility, given that in practice utilities still have a natural monopoly in delivering juice to consumers?
I know that there are lots of customers out there that more or less want any sort of broadband that they can get,however because they do not research BPL enough they do not know the problems of BPL, you may wish for BPL but wether you will get it or not is highly problematical.
At present BPL cannot be delivered to a customer base by any Australian Electrical utility. BPL can be delivered on a test basis only and a test is definately not a full rollout.
Why have most if not all the Australian BPL companies suddenly become so quiet they were once very vocal? Is it because they cannot economically deliver BPL on a full roll out basis, is it because BPL companies are unable to deliver BPL on on a full rollout basis within Australia,or is it because the BPL companies really have nothing to celebrate?
Ken Richards. writes...
Is it because they cannot economically deliver BPL on a full roll out basis, is it because BPL companies are unable to deliver BPL on on a full rollout basis within Australia,or is it because the BPL companies really have nothing to celebrate?
Judging by overseas experience - including experience of companies such as E.On (profit of US$8.8 billion on sales of US$67 billion, plenty of loot for experimentation) - that's because BPL doesnt look like a goer :)
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Being the REAST Secretary, I'll take the opportunity to point you to this site:
reast.asn.au/vk7bplwatch.php
Of note are the actual tests and audio soundbites we have with regards to RFI. There is some suggestion and hints the local test down here is moving to a wireless Backhaul, rather than doing backhaul with BPL.
The RFI is mainly a result of the MEN electrical wiring we use here in australia. By having neutral-earth connections, you turn powerlines into great big dipole antennas that radiate all sorts of interference when you start injecting carrier signals :)
Sadly those who would benefit most from it due to their remote locations would be unlikely to recieve BPL, due to the cost-benefit of the underlying infrastructure setup for one or two users in an area.
In earlier posts I've pointed to studies from the finance sector that are sceptical about the commercial viability of Access BPL (one reason why a lot of money isn't going into implementation). A new point of reference is provided in the latest FTTH report from ING Bank, via muniwireless.com/municipal/reports/1097
ING concludes GNA (the entity laying the fiber) is viable with a 40% subscriber take-up and while generating monthly wholesale revenue of €25 per connection, assuming that the fibre investment has a 30-year life span. We note that press reports have stated that CityNet expects to see subscriber take-up of around 50% with each customer spending around €50 per month, implying a monthly gross contribution of €25 per customer for BBned and the service providers. We conclude that GNA and the overall CityNet project can succeed, although there are start-up risks
I'd be interested to see similar independent studies about BPL
Meanwhile Toronto Hydro, the dominant utility in that city, has announced a large-scale wireless rollout micro.newswire.ca/releas...=46250-0&Start=0 ... with one of the justifications being wireless reading of electricity meters (BPL is often justified as enabling reading of meters)
varro writes...
with one of the justifications being wireless reading of electricity meters
This is probably a remote reading function similar to the remote reading of water meters by many water companies in Australia. But the cost ! In round figures the cost in outer east Melbourne is about single meter$400.00,remote reading device about $400.00 for each meter payment of fees for employees using truck,cost of truck and registration etc.
BPL and remote reading has a long way to go if electricity meters at present cannot be read remotely by electricity companies at present.
The same goes for gas meters.
Has anyone heard of meter readers?
Ken Richards. writes...
In round figures the cost in outer east Melbourne is about single meter$400.00,remote reading device about $400.00 for each meter payment of fees for employees using truck,cost of truck and registration etc.
But if an electricity company was already replacing all it's meters with electronic meters that only needed an extra chip then the cost would not be so great!
The same goes for gas meters.
Who's to say when they install remote reading, it won't have external inpuits for your gas & water meters?
Has anyone heard of meter readers?
Yep at the moment, they are the cheapest method of reading meters.
Brian writes...
But if an electricity company was already replacing all it's meters with electronic meters that only needed an extra chip then the cost would not be so great!
Who pays the cost of meter installation the customer perhaps? That is what the Victorian domestic water suppliers demand.
BPL is not needed for simple meter reading it is too broad, such things as switching street lights is done at present without the need for BPL which radiates RFI.
Who's to say when they install remote reading, it won't have external inpuits for your gas & water meters?
My water meter is out the front, my gas meter is beside the unit and my power meter is against another side of the unit which is in a group of units surrounded by thick cement.