I was refering to the company that was developing a product to actually bring data into your house on the AC line itself
Charles, I had a feeling that might be the case. There have been many attempts to send data and voice over power lines. I have a trio of intercom boxes from Radio Shack in my home, in fact, that do this very thing.
But there are many problems with deploying these over public facilities, not the least of which are high signal loss per unit of length, noise, and the total absence of privacy for anyone sharing a common branch off the local substation.
The following article from tele.com may interest you.
Enjoy, Frank Coluccio
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"Current Affairs"
By Rachael King, Public Network Editor
Rachael King is public network editor for tele.com. Her
Internet address is .
In Manchester, U.K., a group of six-year-olds have no idea
they're participating in a milestone in the history of the electric
industry. They're surfing the Internet--over power lines, not
phone lines. The kids at Seymour Park Primary School are the
first users of technology developed by Northern Telecom Ltd.
and Norweb Communications, a division of United Utilities
PLC (London), that enables high-speed Internet access over
existing power lines.
Running data over power lines is nothing new, but the
challenge is to create an economical solution that can filter out
enough noise to deliver high-speed service. Nortel and
Norweb--a utility subsidiary that provides advanced voice and
data services to businesses in the U.K.--have invented a
scheme that stops the electrical noise that occurs on power
cables from interfering with communications signals. Because
the noise characteristics of power lines prevent this solution
from offering 99.99 percent availability, it can't guarantee
lifeline service, which means it isn't appropriate for local phone
service. So Norweb plans to offer this solution to its business
customers for second-line applications like Internet access.
The Nortel/Norweb solution works by turning the low-voltage
distribution segment--the part of the electric grid between the
customer and the local substation--into a LAN. In Europe,
each substation supports about 200 homes. To provide
Internet access, each substation would be linked by fiber optic
lines to a central switch that leads to the Internet. By placing a
base station next to the transformer at the substation, radio
frequencies can be injected onto the power network to each
home. At the home, a small device splits off the radio
frequencies from the electricity.
Currently, new coaxial cable wiring must be placed in the
home from the splitter to the PC. Theoretically, though,
existing power wiring could be used in the home if its quality
were high enough. While most in-house wiring can't
accommodate the system right now, a number of companies
are creating adapters that could make existing wiring usable.
Those companies include Intelogis Inc. (American Fork, Utah)
and Tut Systems Inc. (Pleasant Hill, Calif.). "Ideally, you
would like the power socket in the home to have an IP
address," says John Laycock, director of new enterprise
development for Nortel.
It may be a while before the technology makes its way across
the Atlantic to North America. In the U.S., the final drop from
the transformer to the customer premises is much shorter than
in Europe and Asia. In the States, one pole-mounted
transformer serves about 10 homes, rather than 200. That
makes the cost-per-subscriber for such service 20 times
higher. |
