EC to fund broadband over powerline development

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 22 February 2007 10:42

Business IT - Technology

The European Commission is to pump Euro 9.6 million into developing the next generation of broadband over powerline technology.

The funding will go to OPERA, the Open PLC European Research Alliance to support extended field deployments of a new generation of powerline communications integrated network technology based on the open specification for access broadband over powerline (BPL) applications, developed and adopted in OPERA Phase 1 and publicly available on the project web site (www.ist-opera.org).

Over the next two years (2007 - 2008), the objective of OPERA Phase II will be to catalyse the deployment of low cost broadband access applications over electricity networks for a wide range of applications that include: broadband internet access; e-learning; telephony (VoIP and TDMoPLC); smart home; new intelligent grid services (ems, amm, etc…);  video on demand; security; e-health

The specification adopted in OPERA phase 1 is based on technology fror\m Spanish BPL chip maker, DS2, and it provides throughput of 200 Mbps. The specification was developed by a consortium of 37 companies that included silicon vendors, equipment vendors, electric utilities, telecom operators and universities from 10 countries.

According to the EC, "this specification, the only open, global specification for access BPL, generated valuable contributions that have been submitted to the powerline standardisation work underway in both the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). The OPERA specification has also been endorsed by the Universal Powerline Association (UPA), the leading powerline communications industry body driving the acceptance of open standards for access BPL and home networking applications over Powerline."

OPERA Phase II will contribute field research to both IEEE and ETSI "confirming the importance of the work undertaken in developing and validating the specification for the deployment of access BPL."

The Consortium supporting OPERA Phase II is made up of 26 partners (including eight universities and research centres) from 11 different countries and is led by the Spanish utility power utility Iberdrola.