15 May 2006
Putting South Africa’s power lines to good use
Since the company’s inception in 2004, Goal Technology Solutions (GTS) has striven to develop a cost-effective and reliable means of getting broadband internet into and around the home and the office.
Over the past few years, the wireless internet industry has also made various attempts to accomplish this, but reliability in the required bandwith has not yet managed to satisfy users’ requirements.
However, Engineering News can today report that Sandton-based GTS believes to have solved this problem by offering what CEO Adrian Maguire labels power-line communication, or PLC.
“PLC’s development has reached the stage where it has become extremely viable,” Maguire cites.
“It now offers highly affordable and high- quality broadband connections.” GTS specialises in delivering broadband services over power lines, including high-speed internet and VoIP, and Maguire boasts that the company has excelled in solving what he dubs broadband internet’s ‘last mile riddle’.
He points out that the problem has always been that although there are ample fibre cables and large networks all around us, most locations do not have access to them as the cables are not allowed to interfere with infrastructure such as roads.
“The only two organisations that have fixed access to South African homes without having to traverse roads with cables are Telkom and Eskom,” he points out.
“Even the long-awaited second network oper- ator will have to use Telkom’s infrastructure.” And, he adds, current legislation limits the use of wireless connections like WiFi and WiMax to very small areas.
Further, Maguire emphasises that the need for development in this field is strongly driven by the monopolisation of South Africa’s fixed-line communication market.
Thus, GTS realised that ingenious innovation would be required to solve this conundrum, which resulted in the company’s creating a PLC solution that utilises municipalities’ electricity grids to deliver broadband internet services.
Maguire argues that the reason for VoIP’s not being as widely accepted as it should be is that there is a vast shortage of reliable bandwith.
But he states that PLC is still in its infant stages and GTS is currently educating the industry about PLC and its advantages.
“Because of the vast capabilities of providing broadband over power line, the African continent has shown immense interest,” he enthuses. “We have signed a contract with Uganda Telecoms to be the coutry’s broadband-access provider through PLC, and we are installing our system at a hotel in Rwanda and have a representative in Zambia.” GTS has reportedly based its entire network on IP, and as VoIP and other services inevitably improve, the network will be able to support them.
The possibilities that PLC affords are incred- ible, including high-speed Internet, high-resolution picture sharing and video streaming, VoIP and security cameras – all this currently avail- able from GTS.
He stresses that GTS has been closely monitoring the international market and has managed to maintain pace with European and American companies.
“The test phase of the product is now complete and it has entered mass production,” Maguire says.
GTS’s PLC solution is also substantially cheaper than other systems that offer broadband internet. “Fibre cables cost up to 60% more than our system, and don’t offer the same flexibility,” he says.
Harnessing the hidden power of our electricity grid Maguire recounts that power-line communication has been around for many years – since the 1960’s in fact – only, before, it was mainly used for telemetry purposes (the sending of signals to test whether the circuit is open or closed).
Between 1980 and 2000 scientists realised that power lines could be used for true communication, but in 2000 VoIP was still new, and there was scepticism as to whether it offers an effective communication solution.
“VoIP drove many of PLC’s developments from 2000 to 2003,” he notes.
“This was because narrowband internet limited the quality and reliability of VoIP, but in 2003 a completely new technology was developed – a 45-megabit first-generation system that offered quality and reliability for voice communication.
When GTS deployed its first system in 2003, the pricing was steep, but Maguire reports that the company introduced its second generation system in 2005, which had an improved bandwidth of up to 200 megabits, and the price of the system had been drastically decreased.
It was developed with a strong focus on VoIP and GTS began producing CPE modems that have VoIP integrated codecs, which can convert an analogue phone into a VoIP phone, connect it with the PLC network and establish communication with a remote location within less than twenty milliseconds.
When the systems head-end unit is connected to the electrical power grid, it turns the grid into a local area network or a wireless area network.
The company offers two types of CPE modems: one that processes ordinary data as well as VoIP data, and another that just processes data.
All GTS’s services are IP-based, so it does not limit anyone that is connected to the network.
Maguire emphasises that the PLC system does not only offer VoIP services, however. Also at customers fingertips are services including video phones, video streaming, data sharing, real interactive TV, security and monitoring, network gaming and high-speed internet – all with the flexibility of wireless and the reli- ability of wireline.
And Maguire enthuses that this can be done anywhere that an electrical socket is available.
He says that this technological breakthrough will allow the GTS to service a variety of locations, including hotels, office blocks and, ultimately, entire cities.
All this is possible through building a full broadband network over PLC.
Through this network, the company can also offer telemetry services such as utility meter reading.
Maguire adds that a further benefit to PLC is that GTS replaces numerous voice and data cables with a single electrical plug point.
This helps to alleviate the inevitable confusion incurred by companies that wish to upgrade networks to VoIP “They simply install the relevant software and plug in the CPE modem,” he states.
The system has already been tested by Rooi-wal, a small community north of Pretoria, where GTS supplied 130 houses with CPE modems and guarenteed each household a bandwidth of four to six megabits, but actualy delivered bandwidths closer to 30 megabits.
“The households also enjoy free community voice calls,” Maguire reports. “And external VoIP calls plus high-speed internet are offered at extremely competitive rates.” He explains that customers have the option of either hiring the equipment from GTS and paying for the amount of bandwith they use, or buying the equipment for a once-off fee.
“We are looking to reduce telephony costs by a minimum of 25%, but this can increase to 50% in some cases,” Maguire asserts. “And we are not only focusing on cost reduction, but are also improving service quality.” He clarifies that free community calls are limited by legislation and are dependant on whether they are made within a public or private domain. The fastest uptake of GTS’s technology has been found in town-house estates and golf estates. Maguire explains that customers will not be liable to pay for the use of electrical infrastructure, as agreements will be reached between the owners of the relevant power lines and GTS.
He also assures Engineering News that the system is lightning protected by an Opto coupling designed for electrical networks, which, he says, can also be used on low and medium voltage.
The company expects to be servicing some 5 000 clients by the end of the year, and therafter expects exponential year-on-year growth.
GTS started out as a division of Grintek, but was bought out in 2004 to become an independent company.
fyi:
South Africa: An uncapped 3 – 10 Mbps Broadband over Power Lines with 3 commercial pilots in the Eastern suburbs of Tshwane.
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