Actusnews le 05/04/2006 17h00
1: Syndicat Intercommunal de la Périphérie de Paris pour l'Electricité et les Réseaux de Communication
The first project in France or worldwide to deploy this technology on such a scale. In the long term the project will affect a total of 86 communes in the inner suburbs ofParis – a potential 1.5 million homes.
1 - Power Line Communications (PLC) (or Broadband over Power Line) : well-established, revolutionary technology bringing broadband Internet and telephone (Voice over IP) via the electric socket and offering new services to private users and local authorities alike.
A - PLC, which only 5 years ago was being seen as a one-day wonder, is now being used commercially in a number of countries such as Germany, Austria, the United States, Spain and Switzerland to connect homes to the Internet and is in direct competition with ADSL technology.
The main advantage of this technology is the very low price to both install and use it. The technology consists in:
using a modem to introduce a signal onto low voltage lines via the low/medium voltage transformers,
using repeaters placed at regular intervals to enhance the signal,
providing users with a receiver modem plugged into a wall-socket.
Several transformers can be coupled by PLC on a medium voltage cable. Using the transformers, the Internet can be accessed via a standard telephone cable, fiber optics, radio relay link or WI-MAX (backhaul network).
A number of companies such as Corinex, Intellon, Main.net, Mitsubishi, Schneider and Sumitomo are developing the necessary equipment which means that performances are improving and costs dropping. In 2005 major players such as Google and IBM decided to invest in PLC technology.
B - PLC technology is also very competitive for a range of community services such as video-surveillance, access-control to buildings, energy management, etc. It is a fact that such applications are currently struggling to develop due to the high cost of the telecommunications networks that have to be built to run them. The very low cost of PLC makes these services available to the largest number of consumers.
With such prospects, PLC will undoubtedly play a major role in telecommunications technology over the next 5 years.
2 – A far-reaching project that will lay the foundations of PLC technology in cities
In 2002 SIPPEREC, in partnership with EDF and several telecommunications operators, launched a program of trials designed to validate the technical and economic relevance of power line carrier (PLC) technology for providing telecommunications services via the public electricity grid.
A first series of trials, conducted in Courbevoie , Levallois-Perret , Nanterre and Rosny sous Bois in partnership with the telecommunications operators was designed to test the use of the local electric loop to introduce broadband Internet access for private individuals and companies. Approximately 1,500 users were thus able to test the service.
In addition, an experiment carried out in partnership with the commune of Villeneuve-la-Garenne is under way to test the use of a video-surveillance system using the local electric loop.
3 – MECELEC wins the Public Service Delegation
At their meeting on 30 March 2006 the SIPPEREC committee awarded the Public Service Delegation to MECELEC.
The concession is awarded for a 15 years period.
MECELEC had bid for this Public Service Delegation in their capacity as suppliers to manufacturers of electrical and telecommunications systems and because two years ago they started investing in PLC technology.
MECELEC's brief is to set up a network of telecommunications access points using the local authority-owned electricity grid, and in particular:
To constitute the PLC network by installing PLC equipment on the transformer substations and risers of buildings, a total of 7,714 transformers to be equipped in 130,000 buildings.
Operating the telecommunications networks thereby constituted.
Marketing this carrier capacity to service providers ( Voice over IP and/or broadband Internet, services for communities).
4 – Fitting starts in 2007 with full deployment in less than 5 years
The schedule of work drawn up by MECELEC consists of several stages:
Selecting suppliers of PLC technology
Acquiring a core group of customer-users
Choosing all the other partners
Start of deployment in 2007
Completion of deployment in 2011 at the latest.
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Jacques Poulet, Chairman of SIPPEREC and Mayor of Villetaneuse, greeted the completion of this procedure launched in July 2004 in these terms:
“ In this project SIPPEREC are adding value to the electricity supply grid owned by the local authorities and operated by ‘EDF réseau de distribution' (ERD). The experiments conducted since 2002 have shown that this service offers high-quality telephone and Internet access while in no way disrupting the electricity supply grid.
The operators, who are MECELEC 's customers, will now be able to offer their subscribers an alternative to the services currently available through unbundling. This offer will be competitive and free of the operational constraints of ADSL and telephone subscriptions.
This alternative local loop has the major advantage of being deployed on the existing grid and therefore of not requiring any civil engineering work.
This offer could be opened out to include new services related to the distribution of electricity. With the deregulation of the electricity market new service needs will emerge. PLC technology should also make it possible to improve the management and safety of the low-voltage grid.”
Bruno Estienne , CEO of MECELEC, added :
“For us this is a wonderful opportunity not only to develop our skills but to show them off on a global scale. We have absolute confidence in the successful completion of this project which will definitively validate a technology that has a great future. Broadband over powerline offer solid technical advantages and will be highly competitive. The other major aspect is the range of other applications this offer makes possible; I am thinking particularly of video-surveillance in cities.”
The new 200 Mbps BROADBAND over POWER LINES Technology
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