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N2PVP
05-24-2005, 05:12 PM
Motorola’s Commercial Broadband Over Powerline Solution Debuts at “Telecom 2005”

Company Introduces First Powerline LV Utility Customer

LONG BEACH, Ca., – 23 May 2005 – Motorola (NYSE: MOT) today announced the introduction of a wireless to low-voltage Broadband Over Powerline (BPL) solution, Powerline LV (Low Voltage). Powerline LV’s introduction to the utility industry was made during the United Telecom Council’s “Telecom 2005” Expo in Long Beach, Ca.

Powerline LV unites Motorola’s Canopy™ Broadband Internet Platform with enhanced HomePlug™ technology to provide an end-to-end Broadband Over Powerline solution for the utility market. The first wireless to low-voltage solution for widespread commercial use, Powerline LV combines the Canopy platform’s reliable high-speed Internet service with the lower-cost and non-invasive benefits of a low-voltage BPL option.

By operating the Canopy HomePlug system on low-voltage powerlines, Powerline LV is significantly less susceptible to interference. Motorola developed a solution that does not use medium-voltage wiring, greatly reducing high-frequency (HF) interference. Motorola also integrated true radio-frequency (RF) notch filtering, providing additional protection for amateur radio transmissions.

“Motorola created a low-voltage broadband solution that is both economical and extremely easy to install and maintain, enabling an attractive business case for utilities entering this market,” said Chris Banakis, Motorola Vice President and Director of Enterprise Utilities Solutions. “Powerline LV combines the best of both worlds – proven technology with a commercially effective BPL system.”

Powerline LV is an extension of Motorola’s integrated broadband solutions offering, including end-to-end hardware and software to deliver broadband services to telecommunications providers world-wide.

Operating Efficiency for Utilities
With Powerline LV, only three pieces of equipment are needed to connect a customer to the broadband network – the Powerline LV access point cluster, integrated antenna and bridge router and home plug modem. Because no cabling or other wiring is required to bring the broadband signal to service areas, start-up costs and installation requirements are minimal.

“On top of offering significant business expansion opportunities for utilities, Powerline LV supports many of today’s core utility applications, making the solution’s value proposition even stronger,” continued Banakis.

Grid management applications such as Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) and Substation Monitoring can easily be supported by Powerline LV’s Canopy platform. Many of Canopy’s existing utility customers already use the system to successfully support a variety of core business applications.

Broad River Customers Up-to-Speed with Powerline LV
As many as 13 million U.S. households remain unable to receive broadband services from traditional cable modem or DSL providers.[1] Broadband Over Powerline options such as Powerline LV bring the power of broadband to cities and municipalities underserved by current broadband providers.

A distribution cooperative serving approximately 25,000 rural utility customers in upstate South Carolina, Broad River Electric represents one of the nation’s underserved markets. Broad River receives networking communications and project management support from New Horizon Electric Cooperative. Earlier this month, Broad River and New Horizon established a relationship with Motorola to launch Powerline LV within Broad River’s South Carolina service area.

“As an electric cooperative in an area with very limited broadband service options, we were actively seeking ways to bring high-speed Internet to our customers,” said Michael Varner, Vice President for Information Services, New Horizon Electric Cooperative.

“Powerline LV presented a cost-effective approach to serving customer needs within a rural, underserved market, while also satisfying Broad River’s need for managing core business applications on an IP system. As a result, we see return on investment potential in both areas.”

Leveraging the Canopy™ Broadband Internet Platform
Canopy’s point-to-multipoint technology allows utility customers to create a broadband network of virtually any size. Once in place, the Canopy network can serve as a dedicated data link or as a back-up network for the enterprise.

“The Canopy system provides the scalability and control necessary to target specific areas for service delivery without requiring a full buildout,” said Tom Hulsebosch, Global Director of Business Development for Motorola's Canopy Wireless Broadband group. “This level of flexibility is especially important for utilities introducing their customers to the new offering since costs are incurred only as customers are added to the system.”

“With more than 15,000 Canopy sites deployed worldwide, we have worked with customers to implement and support a wide range of wireless broadband networks, and can now bring this expertise to the Powerline LV solution,” said Hulsebosch.

Powerline LV Development Team
Powerline LV was developed through a partnership between Motorola Government and Enterprise Mobility Solutions and the internal commercialization arm of Motorola Labs. “We recognized Broadband Over Powerline as an important emerging technology and were eager to facilitate development of this unique BPL solution,” said Jim O’Connor, vice president, Motorola technology incubation and commercialization. “Ubiquitous broadband will be a key enabler of Seamless Mobility and solutions such as Powerline LV are bringing that vision to life.”

Powerline LV represents the latest addition to the Company’s expanding portfolio of integrated wireless communication solutions for the Enterprise Market. Motorola’s Enterprise Mobility Solutions connect data and decision maker for improved productivity, competitiveness, profitability and differentiated customer service.

Motorola’s end-to-end broadband and wireless technologies for the utility industry, including Powerline LV, will be showcased at Booth #311.

About Motorola’s Canopy™ Broadband Internet Platform
The Canopy system is a scalable, robust, and reliable platform for voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), video and broadband data applications. Its superb performance promises one of the lowest total costs of ownership and can significantly reduce a provider's start-up, maintenance and leased-line costs. Governments, enterprises, carriers and Internet service providers have deployed Canopy wireless broadband products to provide wide-area WiMAX like broadband and VoIP service to hundreds of thousands of subscribers in more than 85 countries worldwide. Please visit our website at www.motorola.com/canopy and the online magazine Connections at www.connectwithcanopy.com

About Motorola
Motorola is a Fortune 100 global communications leader that provides seamless mobility products and solutions across broadband, embedded systems and wireless networks. In your home, auto, workplace and all spaces in between, seamless mobility means you can reach the people, things and information you need, anywhere, anytime. Seamless mobility harnesses the power of technology convergence and enables smarter, faster, cost-effective and flexible communication. Motorola had sales of US $31.3 billion in 2004. For more information: www.motorola.com

# # #

Media Contact:
Heather Robinson
Motorola
+1-847-576-1638 (office)
+1-303-506-0259 (mobile)

MOTOROLA and the Stylized M Logo are registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. All other product or service names are the property of their respective owners. ©Motorola, Inc. 2005.

WA5KRP
05-24-2005, 05:39 PM
The ARRL seems happy with this approach. #I gather Canopy uses WiMax to cover a given area then uses Powerline LV to put the internet on the end-users' wiring. #Apparently past experience with radios also made Motorola engineers very sensitive to RF interference.

I'm sure this is a heck of a lot better than what's been tried so far. #But I still think city-wide WiMax for the masses will win out in the long run. #Who wouldn't like to be able sit down with a laptop anywhere in their hometown and jump on the web?

Waddyamean I've got to plug in? #Plug into what? #I've got WiMax.



WA5KRP
Texas

ka5s
05-24-2005, 10:45 PM
Quote[/b] (wa5krp @ May 24 2005,10:39)]The ARRL seems happy with this approach. #I gather Canopy uses WiMax to cover a given area then uses Powerline LV to put the internet on the end-users' wiring. #Apparently past experience with radios also made Motorola engineers very sensitive to RF interference.
I've noted in other venues that this still uses Homeplug™ technology but I see in one of them that Motorola™ has in addition to the existing software notching also added hardware filters to make it not only quiet in the Amateur bands but also resistant to ingress problems. What it will do to SWL's is still an open question.

Cortland
KA5S

kj5t
05-25-2005, 01:10 AM
If it does not affect amateur radio, I am all for it.

K0RGR
05-25-2005, 08:27 PM
This was the result of cooperation between Motorola and ARRL labs. ARRL is not going to endorse it, but they are obviously pleased that Motorola listened to their advice.

I think we all need to take the position that BPL is still not a great idea, but if you must do it, this looks like it is the best BPL solution, and there is probably no excuse for using a verified polluter like most of the schemes currently out there have proved to be.

This might be a more viable solution in rural areas, because it bypasses the need for a repeater every few hundred feet. But why it would be more attractive than plain WiMax, I could not say, though I suspect the power companies could still use it for their remote monitoring and control functions.

kb2vxa
05-25-2005, 08:35 PM
Hi all,

Yeah yeah, yet another sales pitch. Mucousroller lobbied some big bucks to elbow the better AM stereo systems only to fall flat when stations went talk and the engineers yanked the exciters. They blew even bigger bucks to launch a worlwide sat phone network only to find they priced a horribly flawed system out of reach and it too fell flat. Big bucks lobby rammed the inferior 8VSB HDTV system down our throats only to have it fall flat in the face of the affordable analog sets while Europeans enjoy an affordable system using far superior modulation technology which BTW was invented and developed in the US. Does this track record tell us we're betting on the wrong horse or what?

The clue is in the transmission links. WHY feed LV which supplies an average of 5 houses when the RF can be received in the home only a few hundred feet from the box on the pole? To what advantage a few feet of wire? Smoke screen or red herring, you decide what sort of rotten stench is coming from the state of Denmark.

W0LC
05-31-2005, 05:18 PM
I still ask myself, what is the real need for BPL to begin with? We have access to the internet via dial up modems, DSL, cable, etc. Is there a real market out there for BPL other then the utility companies wanting a piece of that market pie?

I know I won't be using it.

WA3KYY
05-31-2005, 05:26 PM
The "promise" was that because the electric wires are everywhere, BPL would reach areas where DSL or cable would not because of economics. This is rapidly turning into a false promise. Where DSL, cable and now fiber are already entrenched, BPL does not stand much of a chance. For other areas, WiMAX is likely to take hold long before any form of BPL. Most WiMAX access points look like they will have footprints with radii measured in miles or tens of miles. That is quite a bit of rural coverage with affordable deployment costs.

73,
Mike WA3KYY

kj5t
05-31-2005, 06:19 PM
I know here locally Time Warner cable is always expanding to help serve more customers. We live in Town and so we had it long before many people here. Yet they built a lot of new houses over the last few years and Time Warner has been expanding to reach these houses. Sure those way out on farms don't have it YET, but its coming.

WiMax.. great idea indeed Mike. Say there is an area with 3 houses and they sit on a five mile area. Put a WiMax tower up, and I bet you could serve all those houses. Or so I have read.

W0LC
05-31-2005, 06:23 PM
Quote[/b] (WA3KYY @ May 31 2005,10:26)]The "promise" was that because the electric wires are everywhere, BPL would reach areas where DSL or cable would not because of economics. #This is rapidly turning into a false promise. #Where DSL, cable and now fiber are already entrenched, BPL does not stand much of a chance. #For other areas, WiMAX is likely to take hold long before any form of BPL. #Most WiMAX access points look like they will have footprints with radii measured in miles or tens of miles. #That is quite a bit of rural coverage with affordable deployment costs.

73,
Mike WA3KYY
I already knew that. I was being I suppose a bit sarcastic. If this were in the mid 1980's I might agree, but just about everyone has or has access to a computer/internet without coming up additional ways to bring the ISP to your house. To me, it's already there and this is a $$ issue for the utilities. Plain and simple.