BROADBAND OVER POWER LINES.

Running head: BROADBAND OVER POWER LINES
BROADBAND OVER POWER LINES
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BROADBAND OVER POWER LINES1
Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction..........................................................................................................................2
2.0 Working Principle of BPL...................................................................................................2
2.1 The Power Line Communication (PLC) Technology......................................................3
2.2 Reason for OFDM Modulation........................................................................................4
2.3 BPL Architecture.............................................................................................................5
3.0 Forward Error Code Correction...........................................................................................5
4.0 International Standardization...............................................................................................6
5.0 Advantages of BPL..............................................................................................................7
6.0 Drawbacks and Issues of BPL..............................................................................................8
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
References:...............................................................................................................................11

BROADBAND OVER POWER LINES2
1.0 Introduction
The Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) is a technology which allows the
transmission of internet and broadband through existing power lines. It allows relatively high
speed digital data transmission through the electric power distribution line (Held 2016). With
the broadband over power line anyone can plug their PC and other internet based devices and
get access to the internet instantly. BPL uses very high low band frequencies, medium waves
and operate at a speed similar to that of digital subscriber line (DSL) (Dash and Panda 2016).
Despite of the rapid increase in the use of broadband technology, there are still huge part of
the world do not have access to the use of high speed internet. While serving internet to the
small number of users would be a great initiative but the cost of laying cables and
constructing the necessary infrastructure in rural areas is also expensive. However, if the
broadband would be served through the power lines then no additional infrastructure is
required to be build, which would save a large expense (Lazaropoulos 2018). The internet
could be served anywhere with electricity power lines. The broadband connective can be
implemented by marginally adjusting the current power grid with specialized components by
superimposing the high frequency internet bandwidth with respect to the frequency of the
electric signal because the broadband signal traverse at a high frequency. This report
discusses about the working principle of BPL along with the power line communication and
the modulation technique used in BPL. In addition to that the error code correction,
international standardization, advantages and disadvantages of the BPL discussed properly.
2.0 Working Principle of BPL
The Broadband over power lines uses the power line communication technology to
access the internet broadband connection over ordinary power lines (Gankov 2018). A

BROADBAND OVER POWER LINES3
computer or any other devices would need to plug to a BPL modem connected with the
electrical outlet equipped in a building.
The internet signals are released at the medium voltage power line using a device
called head end with the help of fiber cables. After successfully dropping the data over the
power lines it cannot travels far distant to the end user as the signal attenuates. To avoid
attenuation of the signal of the signal, a repeaters are installed at the power lines to avoid the
attenuation of the signal and enables a smooth transmission of the signal. Finally by plugging
in the devices into the BPL modem the users can get access over the internet.
2.1 The Power Line Communication (PLC) Technology
The BPL system functions by combining the radio frequency with the existing
electrical medium voltage power lines. In order to deliver a quality communication at high
speed data rate to the customers, a high density modulation technique is used called
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). To ensure high speed data
transmission the upload and download speeds are as per the requirements of the customers
accordingly and with configurable data transmission (Doshi 2016). The system has the
capacity to work in the frequency range of 10-30 MHz, hence the distortion can be avoided in
the signal quality. The signal strength is kept more than 30dB throughout the network by
optimizing the usage of the repeaters throughout the network.
The OFDM bundles data and transmits in parallel at different frequencies over the
narrowband carriers. The 1536 sub carriers by it which is highest with compare to any other
technology used in the wired communication at each possible mode of operation between 10-
30MHz (Marey and Dobre 2016). In this technology an approx. of 2 to 10 bits per sub
carriers is added for the communication. Even in the phase of interference, this technology
ensures the highest quality of communication. To obtain high reliability and maximum