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From...
German utility tests Net access via electrical outlets
September 29, 1998
Web posted at: 2:10 PM EDT
by Mary Lisbeth D'Amico
MUNICH (IDG) -- German utility Energie Baden-Wurttemberg (EnBW) has launched a trial for Internet access over electrical power lines.
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EnBW last week said it recently launched a small trial to give 20 users in the German state of Baden-Wurttemburg access to the Internet via their electrical outlets. The trial will be broadened in early 1999 to some 200 users and offered to an even wider group of private and corporate users in the second half of 1999, the company said in a statement.
The trial puts EnBW in the forefront of utilities looking to exploit the opportunity of Internet access over power lines. If utilities can iron out problems such as a transmission standards as well as disturbances during transmission, the technology holds out the promise of providing cheaper and faster Internet access than telephone wires.
EnBW is one of a consortium of power companies committed to using Powerline Technology, which allows voice and data to be sent in both directions over electrical power lines at speeds of up to 1M bit per second.
Powerline Technology was developed by Nor.web, a subsidiary of Nortel and Nor.web Communications, the U.K.-based telecoms arm of United Utilities.
EnBW is working on the trial project with its telecommunications subsidiary, Tesion Communikationsnetze Sudwest, a joint venture with carrier Swisscom, Nortel Dasa, a joint venture between Canada's Northern Telecom and Daimler-Benz Aerospace of Germany, and Nor.web.
To link up to the Internet, customers use an Ethernet network card, which connects to a coaxial cable outfitted with a special modem. From there, data is sent on to a nearby electricity meter.
Besides making possible Internet applications that require high bandwidths such as sending large data files with graphics and video, the technology may also be developed to automatically read users' electricity meters, according to a statement from Tesion.
Mary Lisbeth D'Amico writes for the IDG News Service in Munich.