Italy Explores Internet via Electrical Circuits

Imagine plugging your laptop or PC into an electrical socket and immediately being linked to the World Wide Web. No modems, telephone connections, per minute charges, or hotel phone bills. Sound impossible?

Recent experiments by Citytel, a telecommunications group under the Italian energy company, AEM, illustrated the realistic potential for Internet
accessibility through electricity networks, completely bypassing traditional
telephone links.

“The Citytel tests in Milan,” reported the Italian daily newspaper La
Repubblica, “appeared like a mirage–a possibility to throw off local
telephone charges and travel without time limits or fees in the vast
universe of the Internet.”

Inasmuch as Milan was the first city to test electricity network links in
Italy, the technology was developed in England by Nor.Web, a joint venture
of Canada’s, Nortel, and the Manchester-based public utilities company
Norweb. The Digital PowerLine, as it is called, transmits data via
electricity lines at 1 million bits per second–17 times faster than
contemporary modem capability–transforming domestic power systems into local
area networks.

In 1995 the Italy’s national electrical company, ENEL, began testing digital
transmission in the city of Rome. While not connected to Internet usage,
ENEL has succeeded in offering customers access to their electricity
accounts through television and decoder connections.

Nor.Web, in recent months, has been testing the new system in the
Manchester area with, according to one report, major success and customer
satisfaction. There are still, however, technical difficulties to overcome
before the system will allow the ease required for mass marketing of
electrical access.

Currently, two boxes–one connected to the PC and a
second directly liked to the power counter–are required. These boxes must
also be connected which often causes major problems in Italy since most electrical boxes are situation in basements while users may be on
the sixth or seventh floor.

“Vast rewiring of domestic homes would be required before most users could
easily access electrical networks,” said a representative of ENEL. In the
meantime, however, AEM, ENEL, and Nortel are expanding their tests of
Nor.Web technology in hopes of offering Internet access without telephone
lines or connections in the not-to-distant future.