BPL Spec Advances within IEEE

The IEEE working group devoted to developing a standard for broadband over power lines (BPL) met in Las Vegas in May, where it devoted its attention to the work of its technical subgroups.

The working group is developing a new standard, IEEE P1901, "Standard for Broadband over Power Line Networks: Medium Access Control and Physical Layer Specifications." When completed, the project is intended to present a standard for high-speed (>100 Mbps at the physical layer) communication devices via AC power lines.

Technical Subgroup 2, which is dedicated to FFT and Wavelet MAC/PHY, presented 13 revised chapters of the draft Standard on MAC/PHY layers and security.

Technical Subgroup 4, which is dedicated to coexistence, presented a draft annex describing the Inter-System Protocol (ISP) designed to enable various BPL devices and systems to share communication resources (frequency/time) when installed in a network with common electrical wiring. ISP is intended to allow P1901-compliant devices and ITU-T G.hn-compliant devices to co-exist. The protocol provides configurable frequency division for access and time division for in-home with a granularity compatible with the QoS requirements of audio and video applications.

The Working Group approved TSG2’s revisions by an 83 percent majority, and unanimously approved TSG4’s ISP annex.

The technical subgroups continue to hold weekly teleconferences as they further develop the first official draft of the P1901 standard. TSG2 will also hold a face-to-face meeting during the week of 15-19 June in Fukuoka, Japan.