Mike, you invited to submit local LM information - ok, here's another find on a topic discussed previously: power line communication (PLC). The long and winding road of exploring technological options by trial and error confronts the traveller with surprising bends every now and then. PolyTrax (Munich) will exhibit Net access through power sockets at the CeBIT starting in nine days. Other German utilities are conducting similar pilots, e.g. RWE and EnBW, the latter one in a JV with Siemens. So you see - even if DT is dragging its feet there seem to be "powerful" alternatives...
de.news.yahoo.com
Freitag, 11. Februar 2000, 11:13 Uhr
CeBIT 2000/Power Line Communication/Home Networking/
Internet at a power socket - the reality
Munich (ots) - The Munich company, PolyTrax Information Technology AG, is showing a world first at this year's CeBIT: Internet access through power sockets (hall 17, stand F08, Powerline Center). This entails connecting the phone or ISDN connection to the 220 Volt electricity circuit within a house or flat via a special gateway. In this way, data from the phone line reaches all rooms through every power socket. A second gateway on the computer picks out the data and makes communication with the Internet possible.
The technology developed by PolyTrax is the latest development in the Power Line Communication (PLC) field for home networking. Data transfer rates several times faster than ISDN are achieved. Depending on the respective standards, the rates in Europe are about 155 Kilobits per second, whilst in the USA and Asia data transfer rates of 2.5 Megabits per second are reached due to the wider frequency bands permitted.
polytrax.com
de.biz.yahoo.com
Mittwoch, 9. Februar 2000, 11:48 Uhr
Siemens und EnBW wollen ein Gemeinschaftsunternehmen fr Powerline Communications grnden
international.enbw.com
siemens.com
Three paragraphs from
siemens.de
published in November 1999:
Plugging into the Internet
Experts have dollar signs in their eyes when they talk about PLC. Canada's Nortel and Britain's Norweb were proponents of using electric cable as a conduit for data as early as 1997. RWE AG, a power plant operator in Essen, Germany, and the Swiss telecommunications company Ascom have rushed ahead with their own activities and intend to offer a telephone hookup from the electrical socket before the end of the year.
The practical operation of the new technology was demonstrated for the first time at a small test facility in the German town of Leichlingen. EnBW, a German power company, and partners Tesion and Nortel Dasa are running a longðterm field test in 200 households. The trial also includes testing, evaluating and comparing the suitability of a promising PLC process in the megahertz range under real conditions. The interface, however, is in each case only the end user's own electricity meter. An extra coaxial cable is needed to transmit the data to the terminal. ...
Eventually, in step with the improvements in transmission processes and the continuing advances in highly integrated semiconductor circuits, 6 to 8 Mbps will be possible. At a monthly cost of $30 (flat rate), a private household could have an Internet connection at least ten times faster than ISDN. |
