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Electric Company Using Power Lines for Data 164

Posted by timothy from the different-priorties-and-agendas dept.
Snags writes: "The local electric company PPL Utilities is testing a system to send electricity usage readings back to the company over its own power lines. According to a local newspaper article, they are using the TWACS system made by DSCI. I'm just hoping this doesn't interfere with other ideas for sending data over power lines."
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Electric Company Using Power Lines for Data More

Electric Company Using Power Lines for Data

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  • Hack your utility bill! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Quixadhal ( 45024 ) on Monday February 11, 2002 @11:43AM (#2987014) Homepage Journal
    Boy, I can't wait for the first time I can take a tcpdump of my electrical wiring in to dispute my bill...

    And how about a DDOS attack? Do I have to firewall off my toaster now? :)

    • Re:Hack your utility bill! (Score:4, Funny)

      by plover ( 150551 ) on Monday February 11, 2002 @12:34PM (#2987307) Homepage Journal
      If this system interferes with X-10, does that mean the end of their stinking pop-under ads for X-10 cameras?

      Sign me up!

      Either that, or this system may be inadvertently bridging X-10 signals, so we get to watch our neighbors X-10 cameras. Hmm... choices.

      • so we get to watch our neighbors X-10 cameras.

        Hell, that might work for you if you live next to a model or movie star. I live next to a slaughterhouse and proctologist. Where does that leave me? ;)
        • > > so we get to watch our neighbors X-10 cameras.
          >
          > Hell, that might work for you if you live next to a model or movie star. I live next to a slaughterhouse and proctologist. Where does that leave me? ;)

          ...overdue for a Slashdotting as the next goatse.cx fad?

  • Havent then BEEN doing this? (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I seem to remember that power companies were doing this way back in 1998... Am I wrong? or do I just need to put down the pipe?
    • This has been done for a number of years (~20) by several companies, most notably GE.
      My company, Cannon Technologies (www.cannontech.com), is also a supplier of Distribution Line Carrier systems, and has been doing it longer than TWACS.
      I'm actually programming protocols for several power line carrier meters.
      • Yes, they have been doing that for quite a while. I looked at the board design for a meter like that maybe 8 years ago, although finally the job of producing them went to the Tampa plant, since the customer was a Florida utility...

        And this is redundant, but dozens of idiots still haven't got the message: It's NOT an internet connection. It's not even a 300bps teletype connection! Power lines are not built to carry signals -- but you can sort of make it work if you send just a few bits per second, with lots of error detection and correction coding, and ask for a repeat whenever a switch flips somewhere and drowns out a packet.
        • Yeah, the data rate is quite slow. I just got back from the lab where I was reading 13 byte data chunks from a meter via DLC/PLC - each message took about 3 seconds to send, including header and CRC info.

          Definitely not on par with my cable modem. :)
    • Outside the Seattle area, the primary electric utility is Puget Sound Energy [pse.com]. About a year ago, they received approval from the Washington State Utilities Commission to implement time-sensitive rates. In essence, they charge a higher rate when consumption is higher, and a lower rate when consumption is lower.

      Since it is supposed to be most cost effective to produce electricity at a constant rate, rather than larger fluctuations, this was an attempt to do "traffic shaping".

      Despite some initial misgivings about the unknowns, it has worked pretty well so far. Lots of folks (my family included) now make it a habit to delay starting the laundry or dishwasher until after 9pm to get the better rate.

      I am not sure exactly which technology Puget Sound Energy is using to transmit the readings back to the home office. On each monthly bill, they have a bar graph indicating how much electricity was consumed in each of the rate periods.

      -Steve

      • About a year ago, they received approval from the Washington State Utilities Commission to implement time-sensitive rates. In essence, they charge a higher rate when consumption is higher, and a lower rate when consumption is lower.
        Time of use (TOU) pricing has been in use since the earliest days of the utility industry (1880's) for large and commerical customers. Nothing a utility likes better than a big customer that cranks up at 7 PM. What is happening today is that advances in metering and RF control are allowing these pricing schemes to be pushed down to smaller customers. At the same time average household electricity use continues to rise so today's "small" customer is as big as a commercial customer of the 1940's.

        sPh

  • &nbsp&nbspWell my power doesn't go out half as much as my DSL connection, I wonder if soon I could get Xcel as my ISP... hmmm
  • This would be a great way to bring high speed Internet connections to cities with large populations. By high speed I mean higher speed than current Cable/DSL connections. This would take us a step closer to being able to pipe audio/tv signals over the Internet.
    • This article gives no indication that signals over power lines could acheive any reasonable amount of bandwidth. Power lines simply aren't designed to carry information, and I'd bet there would have to be a lot of upgrading of the electric company's equipment to enable this sort of thing.

      I would compare this technology to that of x10.com's wireless devices [x10.com], which send very small amounts of data over house power lines. There's a lot of limitations to it... flourescent lights don't work with them, and the lack of shielding on power wiring sometimes causes devices to spontaneously turn on or off. (this happened to me with my bedroom light....it would turn itself on at 3am, very annoying).

      When you hit the button to turn on a light, there is about a two-second delay. Considering that the remote is transmitting approximately 12 bits of data (4b house code, 4b device code, control bits), the data rate seems to be on the order of a few bits per second.

      I'm assuming the power company is using a similar form of technology for data transfer. By the time (e.g. years down the road) a system could be set up to transfer a reasonable amount of data over a power line, access to cable/dsl/wireless internet should be advanced and widespread enough such that trying to transmit over power lines shouldn't even be worth the effort.

      Of course....the concept of sending data where data shouldn't go is still pretty damn cool... 8-)
      • Our local (that's Norway) power-company has advertised this since september, and it's supposed to hit customers approximatly now. They're saying 10Mbit. That's what I call broadband.. AND, it's pretty cheap. 350NOK (around 40$) a month.

        Bark at me if someone else has pointed this out already.. I haven't read the whole discussion (-8

        BTW, love your smileys..
    • This would be a great way to bring high speed Internet connections to cities with large populations. By high speed I mean higher speed than current Cable/DSL connections. This would take us a step closer to being able to pipe audio/tv signals over the Internet.

      What article did you read... this has nothing to do with High-speed access. What speed do you think is need to read a few digits from the meter.. Even the article about interfering with other data services is about local in-house LAN, not internet access...

    • Hmmm... How much data can you cram onto a 60Hz wave? My guess: Not much.

  • Of course, (Score:4, Funny)

    by base3 ( 539820 ) on Monday February 11, 2002 @11:46AM (#2987030)
    this idea has the potential (get it?) to make a short in your network card a little more hazardous. This is a BOFH moment waiting to happen.

  • Power Line Interference with HF Radio (Score:4, Informative)

    by MightyMicro ( 111816 ) on Monday February 11, 2002 @11:47AM (#2987033)
    A proposal to use power lines in the UK for data transmission was dropped because of a number of difficulties, most notably the fact that HF radio (about 2MHz to 30MHz) would have been rendered unusable in urban areas. Street lamps made great quarter-wave antennas.

  • This is good (Score:2, Funny)

    by red_dragon ( 1761 )

    Now I'll be able to send a hojillion volts down the wire to those 5kr1p7 k1dd13 1337 h4x0r5 that keep DDoS'ing me off of Efnet. Well, I hope.

  • In Ohio, better yet... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CDWert ( 450988 ) on Monday February 11, 2002 @11:47AM (#2987041) Homepage
    In ohio, they are doing this in several place,

    In a small town (where I work) they have pretty progrewssive ideas on power and communications,

    First they have community power, almost 1/2 the cost of Ohio Edison in the next town over. Second is community cable, once again much cheaper, third is cable internet access, $20 a month compared to Time Warners, which you can still get here,

    NOW about a year ago Wadsworth put FIBER to every home in wadsworth, long term plans include long distance. AND the ability to selcetivly shut down electical stuff on peak demand, (just your air conditioner, etc) to avoid brownout, because of the above reasons , and one of the best public school systems in the country, population is exploding.

    Wadsworth is a great town and I lived there during my high school years, BUT If i lived here again an axe and cutters would hit that fiber so fast it'd make your head spin. Shutting down services on your panel selectivly MY ASS.

    • Re:In Ohio, better yet... (Score:3, Informative)

      by swb ( 14022 )
      Shutting down services on your panel selectivly MY ASS.

      Its not that bad, really - Xcel Energy in Minnesota has a summertime power saver option which is basically a box that attaches to your central AC compressor power tap and control line. It listens for a "shut off" signal from the power company and cuts the control line which actually switches the compressor.

      The advantage is they promise a minimum amount of downtime (like 15-20 minutes per) and only during peak energy hours (8-5 or something). I've been home when they've done this and unless its the hottest day of the year (high humidity, lots of sun) you don't even notice -- the blower on your AC keeps running inside air past the condensor coil, so it feels "on" even though its not. I've heard some people say that notice a slight uptick in internal temperature, but I haven't.

      The major bonus is a 15% discount on ALL electrical power for the summer months. That's like getting free AC as infrequently as I use it, or an excuse to run it twice as often for the same money.

      It'd suck to have your dryer or something else shut down at random, but AC during the day is not a big deal, trust me.
      • The key word here is "option". I live in CO and we have the same option. I'm not opposed to it, I'm actually thinking about signing up. I'm already on the wind power thing, which given these last few days, XCel should have a bumper crop of THAT.

        But what if this "feature" was included whether you wanted it or not? It would not be as popular...

        • But what if this "feature" was included whether you wanted it or not? It would not be as popular...

          I only do it because I get discounted electricity and because it happens when I'm not home. If it was a manditory 24x7 thing to combat electricity shortages, I'd be unhappy -- we're talking my air conditioning here, fer chrissakes.

          I would do it for other incentives though -- if they were giving out 5KVa utility-provided UPS systems or something I'd consider it as well.
    • Didn't you expect this kind of control and disregard for your rights as a consumer when you signed up for a "public" utility like this? Wasn't it clear that any kind of socialized product like this was destined to become a clash of some vs. others? This is the old "frog carrying the scorpion over the river" analogy all over again, except this time, you're the frog.

      When will people realize that there's no such thing as a free lunch, and communism DOESN'T WORK?
      • What the hell are you talking about?

        Utility rates have soared because deregulation allowed companies like Enron to purchase stable utility companies and run them into the ground.

        I'll take heavily regulated or co-op utilities any day.
        • What the hell are you talking about? Utility rates have soared because deregulation allowed companies like Enron to purchase stable utility companies and run them into the ground. I'll take heavily regulated or co-op utilities any day.

          Well in PA rates didn't skyrocket....perhaps Cali should have done it right...

          • Well in PA rates didn't skyrocket....perhaps Cali should have done it right...

            Absolutely. But California politicians didn't mind when the big players like Enron played the major part in writing California's deregulation legislation. Want to fix it? Call your purchased senator or congressman and urge them to vote for the McCain-Feingold bill.
      • First time I've heard a scheme for moving pricing closer to the microeconomic ideal called "communism"!

        sPh
    • an axe and cutters would hit that fiber so fast it'd make your head spin. Shutting down services on your panel selectivly MY ASS.

      Me to! No way I'm going to let them use this new IP over 480V to stop power to my house! Soon as I see them put a kill switch onto my compressor, I walk out back and axe that line. Oh wait.

      OK OK, I'll have to figure out how to fake out the black box. Sooner or later, they will make a black box that can't be fooled and throw you in jail for trying.

      These brown out intiatives are pure evil. Let the freaking power companies build new plants, people! They have been telling you about impending shortages for 20 years. The bad economics of the early to mid 80's then the 90's and some power saving devices helped forstall the crunch, but you can't expect that to last forever. We can have boxes or we can just make more power for ourselves and keep things nice cheap and regulated.

  • Network over the powerlines: not going to happen (Score:3, Interesting)

    by zaqattack911 ( 532040 ) on Monday February 11, 2002 @11:50AM (#2987055) Journal
    Basically it's very unlikely you'll see internet over the powerlines in the near future.

    I read in this article (Wired magazine... not on the web), the total corporate history and research of this project idea.
    Basically, big ass companies like AT&T etc.. did a lot of testing and decided that it was just too expensive to offer net over the powerlines. The main problem was that although one could effectively transmit data over the powerline.. once it hits a transformer the data is lost, and the only solution that 3 big companies could come up with was a device installed on each transformer to carry the signal, which is completely uneconomical and defeats the whole purpose of using the existing powergrid.

    There is even a big scandal with another company that claimed they could overcome this problem.. and it turned out to be a total fake, and lawsuits galore occured.

    Of course there is no problem with using the powerlines in your house to network... so Rock on Lan parties!

    • I suspect taht the major cost of providing wired Internet access is the rights-of-way. I don't think that routing data around transformers, even at a cost of a few hundred dollars per transformer, would be a big deal in comparison. Those transformers probably require more maintenance than that over a few years.
    • That's exactly the point of the article... they are going to transmit data over the powerlines. It's a done deal.

      Apparently they've overcome the transformer problem.

  • Incompatible with X-10? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Black Perl ( 12686 ) on Monday February 11, 2002 @11:50AM (#2987057)
    The communication uses the zero crossings of the 60Hz waveform--same as X-10. Last thing I'd want is my lights turning on and off when they do meter readings.

  • If they get the last mile working.... (Score:3, Informative)

    by baptiste ( 256004 ) <{su.etsitpab} {ta} {ekim}> on Monday February 11, 2002 @11:50AM (#2987059) Homepage Journal
    Many power companies have fiber up on the high voltage towers - which generally terminate in metro areas and rural areas at power stations - they use it now mostly for substation monitoring and internal networking. However, given the bandwidth potential of this fiber - they've got the ultimate backbone available. They just need to get that last mile figured out - no easy task!
  • I love these kind [go.com] of articles [peopledaily.com.cn].

    I'm just a little bitter though because I submitted a similar story a week or so ago and was rejected. :o

  • It sounds like a neat idea, but I just hope it doesn't interfere with all my X10 [x10.com] stuff. The protocol is unreliable enough already, we don't need more problems !

    I don't think I could live without it now

  • Not a new idea (Score:5, Informative)

    by MouseR ( 3264 ) on Monday February 11, 2002 @11:52AM (#2987074) Homepage
    HydroQuebec, in the provinde of Quebec (duh!) tried this a few years ago (circa '97).

    At the time, there were a number of obstacles that made this technology unworkable. If I remember correctly it had something to do with electromagnetic field sensitivity. The earth's EM and solar flares made the whole system too error prone, at the time.

    This brings up another memory. A company, 10 years ago, had a cheap office wiring system that used the ground outlet as a network transport. With their adapter, any machine plugged (quite literally) was on the same network.

    What made that idea (and company, I think) fold was the lack of security. Anyone could connect to your house's power outlet and get connected. Furthermore, there were no filtering devices that served as "firewall" between your house and the external power grid.
    • At the time, there were a number of obstacles that made this technology unworkable. If I remember correctly it had something to do with electromagnetic field sensitivity. The earth's EM and solar flares made the whole system too error prone, at the time.
      The Canadian utilities are hit harder by geomagnetic storms and disturbences than other North American utilities due to their northing and having a lot of long HV lines that cross geomagnetic field lines. Upstate New York can get hit also.

      sPh

    • They were at least planning to try it in Nova Scotia, too.

      Supposedly Nova Scotia Power had a division set up to get bandwidth rolling over the power lines. But the division was bought by MT&T (the phone company, and biggest province-wide ISP) and shut down. Somewhat anti-competitive, really.

      -me
    • What made that idea (and company, I think) fold was the lack of security. Anyone could connect to your house's power outlet and get connected. Furthermore, there were no filtering devices that served as "firewall" between your house and the external power grid.

      Your ground wires shouldn't be connected to the power grid, to the best of my knowledge anyway. They should be connected to, um, the ground. Even if someone were to stick a pole in the ground next to your house, I doubt they could get the connectivity needed to tap your net.
      • Your ground wires shouldn't be connected to the power grid, to the best of my knowledge anyway. They should be connected to, um, the ground. Even if someone were to stick a pole in the ground next to your house, I doubt they could get the connectivity needed to tap your net.
        Your household ground is tied to neutral at the service entrance, and your local distribution transformer is, well, grounded to the same Earth as your house. So with the appropriate equipment it would be quite feasible to snoop. That's how utilities detect ground faults, after all.

        So if you see any guys in ninja suits burying copper plates in your rose bushes, be alarmed.

        sPh

    • When I was a kid (early 70s) the local utility used to use audio tones imposed on the local power to switch on and off street lights and to switch on off-peak rate appliances in people's homes (storage heaters, water heaters etc). They were decoded with a low-tech reed relay tuned to the right freq. It was really annoying because the sounds came thru a lot of stereos.



      A friend of mine had the great idea of building his own tone generator and a few times sent morse across town in the early hours by switching on and off his suburb's street lights.



      Some years later they built an aluminium smelter a couple of hundred miles away ... when they brought pot lines on and off it would put enough crud on the wires to turn stuff on accidentally

  • Like I need lag on my power, and lets not forget the script kiddies, this gives "ping of death" a whole new meaning.

    "Hey I wanna watch tv!"

    "Well, we have to wait until 3AM when every sane person is sleeping so we can have enough power..."

  • BPS (Score:5, Informative)

    by Random Feature ( 84958 ) on Monday February 11, 2002 @11:55AM (#2987088) Homepage
    TWACS currently reads at 300bps. There's technology out there that will up that, but it isn't going to get anywhere near what's needed for a decent Internet connection anytime soon.

    My husband has been working with DCSI for about 2 years on the system in NE WI and there have been a few issues with interference, but not with homes and shit. The pulses aren't strong enough to interfere with normal shit, though there was one incident of a substation - which sends time synch pulses out to individual meters - setting off the railroad crossing alarms every 15 minutes.

    It's a better solution than using RF to transmit the readings back to the sub - most of those are using 900MHz to transmi and you can imagine what kind of problems THAT causes.

    • TWACS runs at 15 bps/phase, not 300. It may not sound like a lot, but it is enough to read every meter several times a day.

      As far as interference goes, the system has a very good comm performance, and it very rarely interferes with other equipment.

  • RWE Powerline have been offering 2Mbit/s down your powerline in certain areas of Germany for the best part of a year. Damn good idea!

  • One phrase - Return on Investment (Score:5, Informative)

    by sphealey ( 2855 ) on Monday February 11, 2002 @11:58AM (#2987107)
    A few years ago I was working for a large energy utility. One of our competitors (different form of energy) went hell-bent-for-leather into wireless/remote meter reading. Cost per house: $300. Our cost to read meters via shoeleather: $5/meter/year, dog bites, workmans comp, and credits for misreads included. Simple payback on a $300 investment: 60 years.

    Our competitor got their hands slapped pretty bad by the public utility commission for that one and had to eat the entire investment. There was just no justification for such fancy toys to handle such a low-tech task.

    sPh

    • That's about 50 cents per meter read, or are you running an estimate for two months and only reading four times a year? Seems way too low.

      We've found that the real cost of minimum wage factory labor is about $20/hr, including wages, taxes, benefits, insurance, and the in-door workspace. I'd think that outdoors work would be even costlier (probably includes costs of a vehicle, insurance costs are higher since car crashes, dog-bite, pneumonia, and muggings are now work-related). Anyway, labor costs are thus $0.33/minute, so your meter readers must be reading one every minute and a half. I believe that only if it's in an urban area, and all meters are positioned to be visible from the sidewalk.

      Right now I own two houses. One is in a small town (actually on Main Street!), but to reach the meter you have to walk 50 feet across the back yard. In summertime, it's going to take longer than 1-1/2 minutes, and right now the snow is 18 inches deep. Or maybe they've got binoculars that can make out the numbers from the street? I don't know, but last time I looked the faceplate was fogged up so it was hard to read at 8 inches... The other one is on 30 acres, and 200 feet from the road, with direct sight blocked. If they were to do actual readings, it would be park the car and walk around the house. However, the co-op trusts us to read the meter ourselves, and we positioned it so we can see it out the window. Good thing right now with 30 mph winds, 0 fahrenheit (-20C) actual temperature, and gigantic snowdrifts.

      So the cost of meter readings and the ROI on remote-reading meters may vary. It does seem like $300 would be hard to justify -- but does it really cost that much? My employer's plant in Tampa makes (or made) meters for a Florida utility that report back their readings over the power line, and I think the electronics is around $50.
      • Anyway, labor costs are thus $0.33/minute, so your meter readers must be reading one every minute and a half. I believe that only if it's in an urban area, and all meters are positioned to be visible from the sidewalk.
        Can't give you more details because (a) I don't have them (b) if I did, they would be secret. However, the number I quoted was valid.

        The utility I worked for had an average mix of urban/surburban/rural for a metropolitian service territory (middle of Wyoming would be a different story). Remember that the meter reader will make up time when he hits an apartment complex and gets 50 meters in 2 minutes. Reading jobs had a piecework bonus for speed and accuracy so I am sure theere are plenty of other tricks to be used as well.

        There is no way for a utility not to have outside people (except Enron I guess) so the costs you mention are already averaged in. And as a manager you tried hard not to take a reader who applied for a posted office job because they would usually drop it before the probationary period and go back outside - they liked the work, even in the winter.

        sPh

    • Don't forget the costs of customer complaints which was one of the reasons cited for the switch. At the very least, you waste customer support and management time dealing with the complaints. Also, if I remember correctly, many homes in that area have indoor meters, which would significantly increase costs.
  • I like the idea of hacking my utility bill.. hAx0r some free internet while your at it.
  • KCPL in Kansas City, MO, [kcpl.com] has had this for years. Remote meter readings save them hundreds of thousands in wages per year.
  • i don't mind as long as they don't try to raise my electric bill because they are running electricity through the lines also...
  • I'm just hoping this doesn't interfere with other ideas for sending data over power lines.

    Trust me, it will. The model will be developed first as a way to read meters, and second (maybe) as a way to provide internet access. EVERYONE needs electricity, only some people can't live without high speed internet. The power company will implement it's meter reading first, and maybe, if you're lucky, implement a web access service, but you can bet that if it interferes at all with power or meter reading, it'll be cut as fast as they can cut it.

  • Expanding their applications.... (Score:3, Informative)

    by RadioheadKid ( 461411 ) on Monday February 11, 2002 @12:12PM (#2987195)
    IIRC from my tour of a substation years ago, electricity suppliers use power line carriers (PLC) to communicate between substations to relay switching information. If you happend to be driving by a substation, look for these large cylinders called wave or line traps, that are used to "capture" the RF signals...Cool stuff especially since they are operating on something like a 500kV line. Probably a much simpler modulation scheme though.

  • Radio (Score:3, Interesting)

    by drwho ( 4190 ) on Monday February 11, 2002 @12:12PM (#2987196) Homepage Journal
    The high speed data over mains, as they are testing in the netherlands, has been shown to create massive disruption to radio services. It would take a real lot of money to bribe (lobby) the FCC/congress to allow this in the US, money which would be hard to raise considering the dismal state of the telecom industry.

    The service indicated here seems appropriate for telemetry. I wonder if they have accounted for security in control situations though. It may be too easy for someone to forge a packet. Still, at 300 baud (or what that bps?) its interference problems maybe be far less.

  • Been there, done that... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Monday February 11, 2002 @12:16PM (#2987221) Homepage
    The company I work for tried this in the UK some time ago for Internet access. It worked, but the big problem was with noise - there were just so many unexplained/untraceable bits of kit fritzing with the signal. Ultimately the signal is going to pass through one or more substations and 33kV or even 133kV AC is *noisy*, especially when some of the kit is getting on for half a century and more old.

    We canned the idea for Internet, but this application sounds ideal; low bandwidth, low contention (presumably), and if it goes wrong, you can always send the legacy meter readers around in a van... Or you could upgrade all your kit, I wonder which one they'll opt for...

    • Yeah, TWACS works really well since it is a low-frequency signal that easily passes through the transformers.

      The signal is generated at the sub-station level, and the system as it is used today is master-slave (sub-station - meter), so there aren't any contention problems.

  • Power Company Manager: Damn that NoMoreNicksLeft!! He's somehow managed to use only 1 microwatt of power again this month. Damn him.

  • I don't understand why this is a big deal... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I was talking to my electrician. He will be updating the electrical input into an old farmhouse from 100 amp to 200 amp (due to increased load from some due future renovations). I asked about some of the new houses in the area getting "400" amp hookups, which, according to him, are technically 2 200s but with the loss become 380s.

    He mentioned that you can go higher than the 400 amp hookups with commercial and industrial hookups, but the electrical company meters all of those automatically. Not only are they metered automatically, they can be boosted or constrained depending on power requirements in the area.

    Given that the water company uses a wireless setup to meter water use in my area, and the power company does the above, I don't see why sending a small bit of information back over the lines is that big of a deal. It's all been done before. Making this a headlining /. article is like writing an article due to an Iron Chef's new use of onion in a dish....

  • Novell patented 2mb/sec over power lines (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Nothing new, this is pretty old technology.

    Novell patented 2mb/sec over power lines like 4 years ago.

    http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20010112S0051

  • Nothing to do with high-speed, folks (Score:4, Informative)

    by tshoppa ( 513863 ) on Monday February 11, 2002 @12:27PM (#2987276)
    Many folks seem to be confusing the TWACS technology [twacs.com] with high-speed Internet access.

    There's very little in common. TWACS works by doing phase-shift modulation on the 60Hz carrier; this is a wonderfully robust method when implemented correctly, but at best you get a bandwidth of a few tens of bits per second. This is great for reading power meters (where a few bits per hour is plenty of bandwidth) but it has nothing to do with high-speed internet connections.

    • why implement TWACS, when you can implement high speed internet over powerlines and have your meters report back over tcp/ip. Of course security is going to be an issue, but that is/will be the case for every node on the network.
      • because you CAN'T implement high speed internet over powerlines.

        As others have pointed out, the main problem is that the power lines are not designed to handle that much bandwidth and sheild it from interference.
  • I wonder if it would work the other way around, using data lines for power ?

    I've always hated the idea of having lots of DC transformers for every bit of electronics equipment I own. It would be much cooler if I could re use my Cat5 cable as a DC power system. Obviously this would need to be thought about carefully, and I would need to make sure I labelled the outlets carefully.

  • Turtle Meters (Score:5, Informative)

    by shagan ( 75951 ) on Monday February 11, 2002 @12:38PM (#2987332)
    I was outside the house the other day and noticed that my electric coop had installed a new meter. Upon closer inspection I noticed a little red light on the meter. Curiousity was peaked so I called up a friend of my that works for the coop and he went into a long explaination about these new meters they are rolling out. He called them Turtle meters and a quick net search turned up http://www.turtletech.com/Products-Sales/standardt urtle.htm

    To quote their website

    It monitors kilowatt-hours and records peak and minimum demand. The data is time-stamped and is continuously transmitted across the utility's own power lines. As long as the meter has power, the Turtle transmitter can provide a count of short outages (blinks) and establish whether the transmitter is in power fail.
    The Standard Turtle transmitter can be programmed to return one of eight different data transmission options. The time needed to transmit a complete packet varies from 13.9 to 27.2 hours depending on the amount of data being transmitted.

    Which falls in line with my friend telling me that it can take a day to get a reading because they are using a super low frequency. So yeah, they can remotely read meters. But they have definite problems with lightning. My friend spends a lot of his time in the summer replacing the Turtle units in the meters because they fry very easily he says. But they are cheap enough that it is still cheaper than sending a meter reader to all the houses.

    Hunt says they've been doing this since 1995, so its not new, but few people have seen it because it has taken a while to get them out.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Sounds like if this works, there'll be no more surfing the web with the good ol' laptop while in the bathtub... You'd be in for a big shock! (I know people who do this!)

  • On Call (Score:3, Informative)

    by scharkalvin ( 72228 ) on Monday February 11, 2002 @12:52PM (#2987423) Homepage
    I think my local power company (FPL) is using a two way version of this for their ON CALL system. This lets them brown out selected appliances in your house (such as your water heater or Air Conditioner) for brief periods during high power demand. You tell them which appliances you will let them control and they install a special box between them and the power line. They only brown 'em out for brief periods (I forget what the max power cycling periods are). For this you get a lower rate on your power bill. Makes sense for some people.
  • Perhaps technology like this can bring about (or widen availability of) varying power rates, i.e. power is actually cheaper at night etc. Right now I've got no incentive not to run all my appliances and AC in the middle of the summer stage X power alert, but if rates were adjusted dynamically based on supply and demand, I bet people would actually wait till nightfall to do their laundry and dishes.
    I understand systems like these are available some places, and to bulk consumers, but it would be cool if everyone had them.

  • The Reykjavík power company (Score:3, Informative)

    by Kafteinn ( 542563 ) on Monday February 11, 2002 @01:03PM (#2987482) Homepage Journal
    I live in Reykjavík Iceland, and the power company here has already implemented internet over powerlines, although only a few people are using it now it seems to work just fine.

    I guess we can use this technology because the entire population is about 280.000 people (and about 260.000 of them use the internet) check out Fjöltengi [fjoltengi.is] even though most of you wont understand a word of that page, you can check out the pic of a chick using the magical-gadget on the main page.
    • I guess we can use this technology because the entire population is about 280.000 people (and about 260.000 of them use the internet) check out
      With a small (by utility standrds), self-contained, bounded system engineered by a single utility (guessing on that last one), they could probably afford to install the repeaters and transformer bypasses need to make high-frequency access work. Just a guess on my part though.

      Thanks for the link. I thought everyone in Iceland was blonde? ;-)

      sPh

  • ...they are using the TWACS system made by DSCI.

    Inside sources report that this service will be followed shortly by delivery of high-speed Internet access over the power-lines, using the TWATS system made by DVDA. Offering 10 times the speed of Cable or DSL providers, power companies expect to be THE providers of streaming Internet video within 5 years.
  • I have two observations. First, electric and gas utilities were the ones that came up with the idea of trading bandwidth. They do not have any clue about the mechanics of high speed internet access, and I see no reason for them to get one any time soon. Furthermore, they are very protective about what happens on their power lines.

    Second, as one in the wholesale side of the Power industry, the first thing that occurred to me on checking the internal website for jobs one day was "Why do we even still have meter readers in this day and age". It may have been a good blue-collar job in the past, but that one must go the way of the dinosaur as better technologies like this are developed.

    • First, electric and gas utilities were the ones that came up with the idea of trading bandwidth. They do not have any clue about the mechanics of high speed internet access, and I see no reason for them to get one any time soon.
      Um, I would have to disagree a bit there. It was Enron, the Enron-wannabes and the California state legislature (and its owners) who came up with the nuttier ideas of the last 10 years concerning the economics of utilities. Those economics were pretty much figured out by 1930 when Sam Insull was sent packing and as far as I know nothing (incuding the Internet) has changed the fundamentals.

      There are some utilities out there who fought like crazy to retain the "old, outmoded dinosaur" model. Those that came closest to succeeding against Ken Lay and the friends he purchased are the ones that are today not scheduling rolling blackouts ala Southern California.

      Given the current state of the economy and the stock market, I personally would be careful about applying "they just dont' get it" type arguments.

      sPh

  • Very low data rate remote meter reading has been around for years. The key property of these systems is that their signals will go through distribution transformers. Thus, it's not necessary to install something at every pole transformer. This is achieved by using a frequency near the power line frequency, which severely limits the data rate.

    Anything that sends high-speed data is going to require some way to get the signal around the pole transformer. For serious data rates (DSL and up), a router on the pole with a fibre-optic uplink to the headend is necessary.

    There's a privacy issue with these things. If you have a receiver for the signals, you can watch the power consumption of everybody in your neighborhood. And if you have a transmitter, you may be able to turn some loads on and off. These things don't seem to have strong crypto.

  • "The Network in Every Room" by Gibbs, W. Wayt, it discusses at length the issue of home broadband over power lines. It suggests the broadband over power lines is unlikely in the US because we have a transformer for every few houses here. Apparently, in Europe they use transformers for large groups of homes. This cuts down on the number of bridges they need to keep the signal strong. This is necessary because the transformer would otherwise erase the signals. Alas, the article is not online. Check it out at your local news stand or library.
  • I'm just wondering what this will do to your radio/computer/TV/... I'm sure all your electrical applicances are safe, but I've never seen anything that says that your electronics are uneffected by putting a signal on your AC current. I guess I'd still go for DSL or cabel.
  • so why does the power company _need_ to know what your power usage is at all times? don't you think the DEA would like to know which residential customers switch 2000 watt loads on an exact 16 hour on / 8 hour off (etc) schedule? of course, power companies would *never* release information like that without a warrant...
  • That's funny, I thought the The Electric Company [wned.org] used television waves for data...
  • More Slashdot stories on internet over power lines:

    High-speed Internet Access: Power Lines For Real [slashdot.org]

    Linksys Incorporates HomePlug Networking [slashdot.org]

  • Our electric company in Denmark, WI USA is moving to this type of scheme
  • Not to be outdone by the electric utilities, the Gas Industry Alliance today announced plans to provide Internet connectivity via their customers' existing gas lines. Researchers discovered that gas lines function as effective acoustic wave guides. The gas utilities plan to provide homeowners with acoustically coupled modems that will transmit sound waves through their gas connections to the central station. An advanced acoustic multiplexing modem at the central station will sort out the incoming bitstreams and route the packets onto the Internet.

    Field tests have demonstrated bit rates in excess of 300 Baud, and an industry spokesman said that they have hopes to get the speed up to 1200 Baud by the time of the official rollout.

    In response to this announcement, the Water Utilities Association issued a press release outlining their plans for a competing acoustic Internet service. They pointed out that sound travels faster in water than in gas, so they will be able to provide lower latencies. Experts remain skeptical, however. They point out that it will take years of additional research to solve the interference problems caused by 'flushing toilet syndrome'.

    There are also rumors of work on a hybrid liquid-gas Internet service via sewer lines.

  • Scientific American has a good article on this technology. The problem in the US is the design of the dirstribution system (that part that gets teh power from the transmission lines to the end user). In the US, their are transformers fro small groups of loads - so every 5 or 6 houses will have their own transformer (Thakes 480 to 220, as I recall), which must be bypassed to transmit data over power lines.

    I see several reasons why twe won't be getting access from our power company anytime soon:

    1. It's unlikely that enough customers will sign in each final node to cover the cost of installing and maintaing a transformer;

    2. Given the variablity in quality, wiring type, grounding, etc, from house to house, the costs of getting and maintaining reliable service could be high;

    3. Given the glut of fiber and the number of companies going under that own fiber, it may be cheaper to buy a provuder than buidout you're own interface.

  • When I was working at Nortel for co-op, circa 1998, they were working on using powerlines for highspeed. This was implemented in the UK, and I recall it being around 1mbit in speed.

    They still use it for schools and stuff, but I recall there was a problem with the modems melting/overheating...

  • Check the National Semiconductor catalog. The LM1893 power line transciever died long ago, and for good reason. It took a team of engineers to install any product using the chips. Thats because the carrier will not traverse power transformers. And what do utilities have a lot of ? Power transformers. You need a repeater to bridge every transformer in the system. Or run fiber or coax to each utility pole. Wasn't feasable in 1986, and I doubt that it is now.

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