Net access on power lines

["Dr John Tankard" <john@xxxxxxx>]

I know this has been talked about by others but I thought thim might be of
interest, got it from www.silicon.com

John


German utility giant RWE said on Monday it had launched its powerline
technology service which delivers high-speed internet access by sending
data
through electricity cables.

RWE hopes for rapid expansion of the new product, called RWE PowerNet, now
that Germany has passed new laws setting out the framework for the use of
the technology.

"We aim t  win 20,000 customers by year-end," Michael Laskowski,
managing
director of RWE Powerline GmbH t ld Reuters in an interview.

He said RWE PowerNet was launched on Sunday in Muehlheim and in RWE's home
town of Essen, in Germany's industrial heartland, or Ruhr region. It would
be offered in more Ruhr cities in the region in the second half of this
year
and in the Bonn area. Besides using existing electric plug sockets,
powerline promises speeds of up to two million bytes per second, or more
than three times the speed of latest phone connections promoted by Deutsche
Telekom.

RWE Powerline, a unit of RWE distribution arm RWE Plus, planned to offer
the
technology over the next three years across its distribution region in west
Germany, Laskowski said.

RWE Powerline spokesman Andreas Preuss said 7,000 customers in Essen and
Muehlheim had already registered their interest and Cologne was the next
city to be targeted.

The company has a target of signing up 100,000 powerline customers in 2002,
he added.

Advances in the technology over the last few years had been slow, yet
analysts think if successful, it might change the telecommunications
landscape t  the benefit of utilities.

Germany's parliament in March approved three laws setting out the
conditions
for powerline operations which come into force 1 July.

They ensure, for example, that the system does not interfere with
electrical
appliances or radio frequencies needed for emergency services.

RWE charges customers according to the amount of data they receive, ranging
between 49 and 249 marks a month.

For the entry level price of 49 marks per month, users may download 250MB
of
data. A typical picture sent via email uses around 0.5MB.

The utility will compete with other high-speed internet connections to the
home such as television cable and super-charged copper telephone wires
known
as asymmetric digital subscriber lines (ADSL).

Deutsche Telekom in March said it had s ld 850,000 broadband ADSL lines and
installed 400,000, with subscribers paying 65 marks a month.

Laskowski dismissed concerns over possible hardware shortages which have
been mentioned by analysts.

Switzerland's Ascom will provide the modem needed inside a consumer's home
to get the signals from the electricity cable into the computer.

Laskowski also said RWE was testing powerline in a field trial in Brazil.





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