Broadband Powerline Communications: Network Design Book

Power Line Communications (PLC)-using the copper wires that carry our electricity for data and other broadband communications has been under development for a long time. It has the potential to be revolutionary, bringing broadband telecom services to homes without the need for and expense of laying new wires to cover the last-mile. However, technological, institutional, and economic problems have, to date, kept PLC from being a practical, widespread last-mile broadband connection. The main idea of PLC is the usage of the electrical grid also for telecommunications. Powerline communications can also be applied within buildings/houses using the house internal electrical installation. There are currently few books/publications considering powerline communications and existing publications cover mainly narrowband PLC and consider only the physical layer. This book considers both protocols in PLC and network planning. PLC is a topic still in development; there are a number of trial networks and commercial operations just beginning, therefore it is essential that information currently in many diverse resources be brought together in one publication. PLC is an alternative technology for the access networks and is very interesting for new providers trying to realise own access networks after the liberalisation of the telecommunications market. The authors are ideally placed being highly involved in the subject area and being actively involved in producing many articles on the topic. This comprehensive   volume considers broadband PLC networks, their protocols, performance evaluation and approaches for the network planning. The broad coverage of PLC makes this a valuable text for researchers, development engineers with equipment manufacturers, network engineers, as well as business managers or policy makers needing an overview of the subject and high-level students (postgraduate, masters) with specific technological interests.Read More