Network offers power to compete

By RICHARD WOOD

Buller Electricity is to pump high-speed internet down power lines in Westport - setting the scene for every provincial electricity network to compete, block by block, with Telecom and TelstraClear.

Other electricity companies have been investigating power line carrier (PLC) technology but have held back, waiting for new advances.

Buller Electricity has no such qualms. It has completed in-house testing and begun installation at its first commercial site.

The service will be available in Westport this year.

Chief executive Mike McSherry said the beauty of PLC was that it could be made available to many people quickly and cheaply. The system gives power companies, in effect, an instant customer base for high-speed network services to every home in a region.

Businesses can use this to take on telecommunications companies, which are still offering high-speed services using asymmetric digital subscriber line, wireless, fibre-optics, or satellite technologies.

PLC bandwidth has increased significantly in the past three years and can now support up to 40 megabits per second data speed.

The version being implemented by Buller Electricity supports up to 2Mbps. McSherry said this gave Buller the same speed as Telecom's frame relay circuits. PLC was easy to install, using the building wiring as an instant network.

"You can do a local area network inside a building like a hotel or office block, without running wires."

Another twist is that every electrical appliance in the building is effectively on the network, creating the potential for computer or remote control of appliances and lights.

PLC is most suitable in urban areas where clusters of houses or businesses share the same low-voltage 400 volt circuit.

Regular wired or wireless telecommunication links enable the data stream to cross from low-voltage to high-voltage circuits.

"Long term, the PLC will probably work through the transformers and you will get it onto the 11KV distribution network, which would in effect cover the whole city," said McSherry.

Rural areas will also be waiting for through-transformer technology because customers often have a transformer each.

Other electricity network companies the Business Herald spoke to were more wary of using PLC.

Neil Symonds, chief executive of Counties Power in Pukekohe, said the technology had interesting potential for in-house networks, but he was not yet convinced it would extend beyond that.

"I've been involved in looking at PLC for several years and it has improved dramatically, but so have the other technologies, so I guess there is a race on."

Waikato electricity company WEL is considering PLC, although chief executive Mike Underhill remains unconvinced. "It is a matter of weighing it up against the longer-term broadband vehicles, and at this stage I can't see it being the longer-term broadband vehicle."

A Nelson developer and service provider, e-services, is working with electricity companies. Director Barrie Leay said there would be a significant amount of PLC technology nationwide by Christmas.

He said 40Mbps trials were also about to begin. PLC would have a "very significant impact in provincial areas" because of its high bandwidth and the ease in servicing smaller groups of customers.

Leay said the problems with earlier PLC technology were related to the amount of noise corrupting the data. "However, in the last year there has been a major technological breakthrough in this area and there are now systems being tried which have got past all those problems of noise by going to very high frequencies.

"The technology is now relatively easy. It is no longer an engineering issue, it's now a commercial issue."