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Power line communication: An overview

Article  in  IEEE Potentials · November 2004

DOI: 10.1109/MP.2004.1343222 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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Power lines were originally devised to
transmit electric power from a small
number of sources (the generators) to a
large number of sinks (the consumers)
in the frequency range of 50-60 Hz.
Initially, the first data transmissions over
power lines were primarily done only
to protect sections of the power distrib-
ution system in case of faults. (In fact,
power line protection remains one of
the primary functions of power line
communications.) In such an event, the
fast exchange of information is neces-
sary between power plants, substations
Power line communications : an
and distribution centers so as to mini-
mize their detrimental effects.
The logic included the fact that power
transmission towers are some of the most
robust structures ever built. Thus, from a
reliability perspective, any protection sig-
naling scheme would be best served on
such networks. Moreover, many remote
locations were not hooked up to tele-
phone networks. Thus, it was deter-
mined that signaling and exchanging
information for power system protection
purposes over the existing power lines
was the optimal solution.
In the past, for protection and tele-
metering, the largest portions of data
were transmitted analogously to voice
data using analog telephony. However,
in time, automatic telemetering and
remote monitoring of status parameters
without operators has become increas-
ingly common. So today telephony plays
a rather subordinate role to digital com-
munications even on the power lines.
So why power line
communications?
Considering that data transmission
over power lines has been around for
sometime, one might wonder why it is
receiving such renewed attention now?
Especially considering, the data rate for
protection and telemetering purposes is at
most a few kb/sec and is not comparable
to the mb/sec data that needs to be sup-
ported for multimedia applications. The
answer is a combination of effects that
took place during the mid thru late 1990s.
The most prominent one is, of course, the
unparalleled growth of the Internet. This
growth was fueled with the technological
advancements of very large scale integra-
tion (VLSI) and digital signal processing
4 0278-6648/04/$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
(DSP). The final piece was the telecom-
munications market deregulation, first in
the US and then in Europe and Asia. All
these events have made power line com-
munications a viable technology for high
©DIGITALVISION COMPOSITE: MKC
overview
speed home networking as well as
being a possible solution for the
“last mile” problem.
The market for power line communi-
cations (PLC) is two-fold: to the home,
or “last mile” access; and in the home, or
“last inch” access. According to the
study, “Jumping on the Broadband
Wagon” (a Morgan Stanley Dean Witter
industry report in April, 2000) power line
communications could be better than the
other last-inch access technologies such
as cable, wireless and HomePNA.
Residential
Gateway
PLC Transceiver
Personal
Computer
Fig. 1 The “last-inch”
or in-home
networking
PLC
Transceiver
Phone-line networking most commonly
referred to as HomePNA is based on the
specifications developed by Home
Phone Networking Alliance. It is ubiqui-
tous—multiple sockets in each room
provide considerable and dispersed
capacity—and no new wiring is neces-
sary. The development of the “last inch”
by Home-networking companies in the
form wireless network adapters and
power-line adapters is gradually leading
to widespread home networking; i.e., a
wide array of devices connected inside
the home in a intra-home network. This
“in-home networking” could transform
all power outlets in the household into
broadband connections for PCs, tele-
phones and their accessories, as well as
other ‘enabled’ electric appliances.
Figure 1 illustrates the concept of “last
inch” or in-home networking, while Fig.
2 illustrates the “last mile” concept.
For the “last mile” access, power line
communications is one of the several
possible technologies that include cable
modem, and different
types of Digital subscriber
Anindya Majumder lines (xDSL) and broad-
and band wireless. PLC is not
James Caffery, Jr. widely thought to be
superior to other tech-
nologies, nor are the
other technologies without problems or
clearly superior to PLC in all respects.
The major attraction of PLC is that
the power lines often already exist.
Hence, they would be the preferred
medium for providing broadband con-
nection to rural or remote areas where
telephone and cable connections may
not exist. However, it suffers from a
number of problems.
Desktop
Personal Computer
PLC Transceiver
PLC
Transceiver
PLC Telephone
Transceiver
Scanner
Laptop
Printer
IEEE POTENTIALS
The power line channel as a
transmission medium
First off, the power line carrier was
not specifically designed for data trans-
mission and provides a harsh environ-
ment for it. Varying impedance, consid-
erable noise that is not white in nature
and high levels of frequency-dependent
attenuation are the main issues.
The channel between any two out-
lets in a home has the transfer function
of an extremely complicated line net-
work. Many stubs have transmission
loads of various impedances. Over such
a transmission medium, the amplitude
and phase response may vary widely
with frequency. While the signal may
arrive at the receiver with very little loss
over some frequencies, it may be com-
pletely indistinguishable over other fre-
quencies. Worse, the channel transfer
function itself is time varying since
plugging in or switching off of devices
connected to the network would
change the network topology.
The location of the transmitter or the
receiver (in this case the power outlet)
could also have a serious effect on trans-
mission error rates. For example, a
receiver close to a noise source would
have a poor signal to noise ratio (SNR)
compared to one further away from the
noise source. The noise sources could be
home devices plugged into the network.
Just like a wireless channel, signal
propagation does not take place between
the transmitter and the receiver along a
line-of-sight path. As a result, additional
echoes must be considered. This echoing
occurs because a number of propagation
paths exist between the transmitter and
the receiver. Reflection of the signal often
occurs due to the various impedance mis-
matches in the electric network.
Each multi-path would have a certain
weight factor attributed to it to account
for the reflection and transmission losses.
All reflection and transmission parame-
ters in a power line channel may be
assumed to be less than one. The num-
ber of dominant multi-paths to be con-
sidered (N) is often not more than five or
six since additional multi-paths are usual-
ly too weak to be of any significance.
This is because the more transitions and
reflections that occur along a path, the
smaller its weighting factor would be.
It has been observed from channel
measurements that at higher frequencies
the channel attenuation increases.
Hence, the channel may be described as
random and time varying with a fre-
quency dependent signal to noise ratio
(SNR) over the transmission bandwidth.
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2004
Figure 3 depicts a generalized channel
model for the power line physical layer.
In Fig. 4, the generalized channel model
has been simulated between the fre-
quency ranges 200 Khz to 22 Mhz. The
channel exhibits a high level of attenua-
tion with an increasing frequency.
Noise
Noise in power lines is a significant
problem for data transmission. This is
because it rarely has properties similar to detrimental type of noise for data trans-
the easily analyzed white Gaussian noise
of the receiver front ends.
Typical sources of noise
are brush motors, fluores-
cent and halogen lamps,
switching power supplies To Medium Voltage Network
and dimmer switches.
The noise in power lines
can be impulsive or fre-
quency selective in nature
and, sometimes, both.
Several studies on the
noise characteristics of
power lines have been
conducted. Recent papers
have discussed not only
the type of noise encoun-
tered but, also, the distrib-
ution of duration, ampli-
tude and inter-arrival time
of impulse noise encoun-
tered in power lines.
According to them,
the noise in power lines can be classi-
fied into four categories:
Narrow-Band Asynchronous
Noise Impulse Noise
Background Synchronous
Noise Impulse Noise
S(t) H(t,τ) + R(t)
Fig. 3 The generalized channel model
1. Colored noise: This type of noise
has relatively low power spectral densi-
ty (psd) which decreases with increas-
ing frequency. It is considered to be the
sum of all low power noise sources and
may be time varying.
2. Narrowband background noise:
This noise is mainly due to amplitude
modulated sinusoidal signals. This kind
of interference is from broadcast sta-
tions in the medium and short wave
bands. The interference level varies
during different times of the day.
3. Impulse noise that is synchronous
with the generator’s actual supply fre-
quency: This type of impulse noise usu-
ally repeats at multiples of the supply
frequency of 60/50Hz. It has a short
duration of about a few microseconds
and a psd that decreases with increasing
frequency. The noise is caused from
power supplies operating synchronously
to the main’s frequency.
4. Impulse noise asynchronous with
the main’s frequency: This is the most
mission. Its duration varies from a few
Substation
Local Loop Distribution Center
Speech/Data
Links to
PSTN/WAN
Low Voltage Network (230/115V)
Fig. 2 The “last mile” broadband
access to homes from the local
distribution center
microseconds to milliseconds and has a
random inter-arrival time. The psd of
such impulse noise may be as much as
50dB above the background noise
spectrum. Hence, it is capable of wip-
ing out blocks of data symbols during
high data transmission at certain fre-
quencies. It is caused from switching
transients in the system network.
Communicating at the PLC
Physical Layer
Modulation techniques such as fre-
quency shift keying (FSK), code-division
multiple access (CDMA) and orthogonal
frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)
have been discussed as appropriate
modulation schemes for PLC. For low
cost, low data rate applications, such as
power line protection and telemetering,
FSK is seen as a good solution. For data
rates up to 1Mbps, the CDMA technique
may provide an effective solution.
However, for high data applications
beyond that, OFDM is the technology of
choice for PLC.
5
 Frequency selective fading as experi-
enced by the power line channel
severely impairs the capacity of FSK for
data rates beyond a few kilobytes per
second. A high degree of error control
coding would be needed. Combined
with the low spectral efficiency of FSK,
it would limit the data rate achieved.
For CDMA, the signal of each user is
spread using a spreading code at the
transmitter. It is recovered at the receiv-
er by de-spreading using the same
code. CDMA provides robustness
against narrowband noise and other
forms of interference. Therefore, it
seems to be an attractive candidate for
PLC. However, in CDMA systems, the
processing gain needs to be high to
effectively counter narrowband noise
and interference from other users. With
low processing gain, the robustness
against interference and noise is lost
and the signal quality may deteriorate
to unacceptable levels for all users. The
processing gain (PG) of a CDMA system
may be expressed as:
Bt
PG = Bd (1)
Where, B+ denotes the transmission
bandwidth and B d denotes the data
bandwidth. It is quite evident that for
high data rates and for a reasonably
high PG, the transmission bandwidth B+
would have to be very high.
Unfortunately, this is where the prob-
lem lies. The fissured spectrum for
transmission—due to frequency selec-
tive fading—does not provide large
contiguous bands for data transmission.
Hence, the main advantage of CDMA
cannot be fully exploited for PLC.
Since the symbol time is inversely
proportional to the data rate, as the
data rate increases the symbol duration
correspondingly decreases. While trans-
mitting over the power line channel at
high data rates, the symbol duration is
so small that delayed versions of one
symbol—due to multi-paths—gets
smeared over a large number of other
symbols. This makes the detection
process complicated since it requires
complex equalization techniques to
counter the inter-symbol interference
(ISI). Despite equalization at the receiv-
er, the bit error rate may still be unac-
ceptably high for high data rates over
harsh channels with multi-paths.
In the case of OFDM modulation,
the serial data of a traffic channel is
passed through a serial-to-parallel con-
verter. It splits the data into a number
6 IEEE POTENTIALS
Simulated Power Line Channel
10
0
SNR in dB
−10
−20
−30
−40
−50
−60
200
150
Tim 100
e 50
les
cy Samp
0 0 200
Frequen z to 22mhz
0 kh
From 20
Fig. 4 Simulated Power line channel model
of parallel channels. The data in each
channel is applied to a modulator, such
that for N channels there are N modula-
tors whose carrier frequencies are f0,
f1,…., fN-1. These N carriers are referred
to as sub-carriers in the literature. This
is because they split the work of a sin-
gle carrier amongst themselves. This
scheme offers various advantages.
With OFDM, since the data is split
among N sub-carriers, each sub-carrier
carries 1/Nth of the original data rate. This
means that the symbol duration for each
sub-carrier increases N times. Moreover,
a part of the end of a symbol is append-
ed at its beginning in what forms the
“cyclic prefix.” The length of the cyclic
prefix is made longer than the longest
delay path. This solves the inter-symbol
interference (ISI) problem to a large
extent. As a result, a simple linear equal-
izer may be enough to remove the ISI.
Another significant advantage of
OFDM, while transmitting over a fre-
quency selective fading channel, is that
is allows us to adopt adaptive schemes
so we can avoid transmitting at fre-
quencies in deep fade. Sub-carriers in
which the signal to noise ratio (SNR)
drops below a certain threshold are
switched off. Sub-carriers with high SNR
are made to carry more bits; i.e., they
are modulated to a higher-level constel-
lation. This is known as a bit loading
technique and is illustrated in Fig. 5.
The application of OFDM with bit load-
ing for a wired channel such as the
power line is widely known as Discrete
Multi-tone (DMT).
Channel estimation is necessary for
the bit loading technique to work. The
transmitter has to know the noise vari-
ance and the attenuation being experi-
enced by each sub-carrier. DMT trans-
ceivers use pilot signals for channel
estimation. For time varying channels
such as the PLC, the pilot signal is
repeated periodically for dynamic chan-
nel estimation. In general, bit loading
algorithms may be classified as margin-
adaptive or rate-adaptive algorithms.
In margin-adaptive algorithms, the
objective is to minimize the bit error
rate while keeping the data transmis-
sion rate constant. For rate-adaptive
algorithms, the data rate is maximized
while maintaining a constant error rate.
In PLC standards, rate-adaptive algo-
1000
1200
rithms have been adopted. This is
600
800
400
because the power line channel can be
too harsh at times to guarantee a con-
stant data rate that the margin-adaptive
algorithms required.
Channel coding plays an important
role for maintaining a constant error
rate. The input bitstream is encoded
using Reed-Solomon coding followed
by interleaving and trellis coded modu-
lation. The complete functional block
diagram of the DMT transceiver as
implemented on the power line physi-
cal layer is shown in Fig. 6.
The PLC Medium Access
Control (MAC) Layer
A MAC protocol specifies a resource
sharing strategy: the access of multiple
users to the network transmission
capacity based on a fixed resource shar-
ing protocol. Generally, there are two
categories of access schemes:
• Fixed access
• Dynamic access
Transmissions using fixed access
schemes assign to each user a predeter-
mined or fixed channel capacity irre-
spective of whether the user needs to
transmit data at that time. Such schemes
are not suitable for bursty traffic such as
data transmission that is provided by
PLC. Hence, dynamic access is provided
for power line communication.
Dynamic access protocols may be clas-
sified into two separate categories:
1. Contention based protocols: colli-
sions occur.
2. Arbitration protocols: collision
free.
Contention protocols may not be
able to guarantee a quality of service
(QOS), especially for time critical appli-
cations, since collisions might occur
and data might have to be retransmit-
ted. Arbitration based protocols are
more capable of guaranteeing a certain
QOS. However, contention based pro-
tocols may actually provide higher data
rates in applications which do not have
stringent QOS requirements (e.g.,
Internet applications). This is because
they require much less overhead com-
pared to arbitration protocols (polling,
reservation, token passing).
Polling and Aloha are the two most
studied protocols for medium access.
Polling is a primary/secondary access
method in which the primary station
asks the secondary station if it has any
data to send. Aloha is a random access
protocol in which a user accesses a
channel as soon as it has data to send.
The transmitter waits for an acknowl-
edgement from the receiver for a ran-
dom period of time. It retransmits if it
does not receive one. The main disad-
vantage of Aloha is the low throughput
as the load increases as well as the lack
of QOS.
Arbitration based polling can handle
heavy traffic and does provide QOS
guarantees. However, polling can be
inefficient under light or highly asym-
metric traffic patterns or when polling
lists need to be updated frequently as
network terminals are added or
removed. Similarly, token passing
schemes (e.g., token ring, token bus)
are efficient under heavy symmetric
loads. However, they can be expensive
to implement and serious problems can
arise with lost tokens on noisy unreli-
able channels such as power lines.
Carrier Sense Multiple Access
(CSMA) with overload detection has
been proposed for PLC. CSMA is a con-
tention based access method in which
each station listens to the line before
transmitting data. CSMA is efficient
under light to medium traffic loads and
for many low-duty-cycle bursty termi-
nals (e.g. Internet browsing). The pri-
mary advantage of CSMA is its low
implementation cost. This is due to the
fact that it is the dominant technique in
today’s wired data networks.
Collision detection (CSMA/CD) sens-
es the channel for a collision after trans-
mitting. When it senses a collision, it
waits a random amount of time before
retransmitting again. CSMA/CD used in
Ethernet networks does enhance the
performance of CSMA. But on power
lines the wide variation of the received
signal and noise levels make collision
detection difficult and unreliable.
An alternative to collision detection
that can be easily employed in case of
PLC is collision avoidance (CSMA/CA).
As in the CSMA/CD method, each
device listens to the signal level to
determine when the channel is idle.
Unlike CSMA/CD, it then waits for a
random amount of time before trying to
send a packet. Packet size is kept small
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2004
due to the PLC’s hostile channel charac-
teristics. Though this means more over-
head, overall data rate is improved
since it means less retransmission.
CSMA/CA is the chosen medium access
protocol for the Homeplug standard
that has been developed for in-home
networking using power lines.
Perspective/applications/
standards
The PLC market is expanding
dynamically. Some applications and
research developments are reported in
the International Symposium for Power-
line Communications and its
Applications (ISPLC) conferences each
year. Advanced energy services include
applications such as automatic meter
reading, programmable controllers and
demand supply management.
Traditionally, this application area has
been pushed by energy companies and
related manufacturers. PLC networking
in the home would be serving two
goals: 1) providing a local home net-
work with the advantages of the power
line, and 2) combining access and in-
home network capabilities for service
and system integration. There are sever-
al applications for a PLC network in the
home: shared Internet, printers, files,
home control, games, distributed video
and remote monitoring/security.
The key asset here is “no new
wires.” In the United States, the
Homeplug Powerline Alliance was
founded by Cogency, Conexant, Enikia,
Intellon, Netgear, RadioShack Co.,
Sharp, Panasonic, Cisco systems,
Motorola and Texas Instruments, togeth-
er with several other participants and
adopters <http://www.homeplug.org>.
The Homeplug Powerline Alliance is a
non-profit corporation formed to pro-
vide a forum for creating open specifica-
tions for high-speed home power line
networking products and services.
Adopters of the Homeplug 1.0 stan-
dard have developed products for in-
home networking reaching data rates
up to 14Mb/s. The Homeplug standard
uses OFDM in a burst mode as the
physical layer modulation. The
Homeplug technology contains a com-
bination of sophisticated forward error
correction (FEC), interleaving, error
detection and automatic repeat request
(ARQ) to ensure that the channel
appears completely reliable to the net-
work layer protocols. The MAC proto-
col for the Homeplug standard is the
CSMA/CA protocol described earlier.
The European Home System (EHS)
consortium <www.ehsa.com> defines a
bus and a communication protocol for
communication between appliances
and the central processing unit in the
home. The EHS specification, EHS 1.3,
covers several medium types to trans-
port control data, power and informa-
tion. All share the logical link control
(LLC) sublayer. For the moment, the
supported medium types are Power
Line Carrier (230 Vac + data, 2.4 kbps,
CSMA/ack, topology free) and Low
Speed Twisted Pair (15 VDC, 48 kbps,
CSMA/CA, topology free).
One major issue under considerable
debate for the PLC local loop distribution
network is the radiation emission of
power lines and its effect on other fre-
quency bands for communication.
Another area of concern is security and
privacy. The networking signals generated
in one home may show up (albeit attenu-
ated) on the power line in another home.
This creates urgent concerns about priva-
cy similar to those encountered in wireless
systems. Right now, the Homeplug stan-
dard uses Data Encryption Standard (DES)
encryption technology as a solution.
Bt
 H(f)
Bits/Sub-Carrier
f1 f2 f3 fN f
Frequency
Bt
Bits/Sub-Carrier
f1 f2 f3 fN
Frequency
Fig. 5 The concept of bit loading in
which higher bits are allotted to
sub-carriers which have higher
SNR, and lower number of bits
are allotted to sub-carriers
experiencing attenuation.
7

Coding Interleaving
Mapping
Decosing Deinterleaving
Demapping
Fig. 6 The functional block diagram of DMT as implemented in
the PLC physical layer using the Homeplug standard
Conclusion
The power line communication field
still constitutes an open research area
even though successful standards have
been adopted in recent years. Many
more studies are needed to better
understand and improve the perfor-
mance of power lines for high bit rate
applications. DMT (defined earlier,
Discrete Multi-tone) technology as
adopted by the Homeplug standard can
theoretically provide data rates of
100Mb/s. However, products based on
the standard only have achieved data
rates up to 14Mb/s. The theoretical data
rate here indicates the raw physical
layer data rate. To protect against the
severe noisy conditions and fading in
the powerline channel, very high levels
of error control coding need to be pro-
vided. Hence, the data rate as seen by
the upper layers is much less. The
efforts of the Homeplug Alliance and
home networking technology’s growth
in the US portend a very bright future
for DMT-based PLC home networking.
Don’t
delay...
Renew
your
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today.
8 IEEE POTENTIALS
QAM Pilot Serial to
Insertion Parallel
IFFT (TX)
FFT (RX)
QAM Channel Parallel to
Correction Serial
RF RX
Read more about it
• Klaus Dostert, Powerline Commun-
ications, 2001 Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle
River, NJ07458. ISBN: 0-13-029342-3
• Niovi Pavlidou, A.J. Han Vinck,
Javad Yazdani, “Power Line Commun-
ications: State of the Art and Future
Trends,” IEEE Communications Maga-
zine, April 2003, pg 34-40.
• Sobia Baig, N.D. Gohar, “A
Discrete Multitone Transceiver at the
heart of the PHY layer of an In-Home
Power Line Communication Local Area
Network,” IEEE Communications
Magazine, April 2003, pg 48-53.
• Olaf G. Hooijen, “Channel Model
for the Residential Power Circuit used
as a Digital Communications Medium,”
IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic
Compatibility, Vol. 40, No.4, Novem-
ber 1998.
• M. Zimmermann, Klaus Dostert,
“An Analysis of the Broadband Noise
Scenario in Powerline networks.”
Proceedings of International Sym-
posium of Power-line Communications
and its applications, 5-7th April, 2000,
Limerick, Ireland
• Halid Hrasnica, Abdelfatteh
Haidine, ‘Modeling MAC Layer for
Powerline Communications Net-
works’.Internet, Performance and Con-
trol network systems, part of SPIE’s sym-
posium on Information Technologies, 5-
8th November,2000, Boston, MA, USA/
• Majumder, “Performance Analysis
of M-tone coded frequency hopping sig-
naling over Power line transmission chan-
nel,” Master’s thesis, Southern Illinois
University, Carbondale, August 2001.
• Papaleonidopoulos, I.C.; Capsalis,
C.N.; Karagiannopoulos, C.G.; Theo-
dorou, N.J., “Statistical analysis and
simulation of indoor single-phase low
RF TX DAC
Parallel Add Cyclic
Extension &
to Serial
Windowing
Serial to Remove
Parallel Cyclic
Extension
Timing &
Frequency
ADC
Synchronization
voltage power-line communication
channels on the basis of multi-path
propagation,” IEEE Transactions on
Consumer Electronics, Vol. 49, No.1,
Feb.2003.
About the authors
Anindya Majumder obtained his BE
in Electronics and Power engineering
from Nagpur University, India, in 1998
and Master’s degree in Electrical engi-
neering from Southern Illinois
University, Carbondale in 2001. During
1998-99, he was employed in BPL
Telecom Ltd. at Kolkata, India. He has
been pursuing his Ph.D. in Electrical
engineering under the guidance of Dr.
James Caffery Jr., in the Electrical &
Computer Engineering and Computer
Science department of University of
Cincinnati since September, 2001. His
research interests include Wireless
Communications, Digital signal process-
ing, Power line Communications and
the application of signal processing and
data analysis techniques in the area of
medical sciences.
Dr. James Caffery received his
B.S.E.E. (summa cum laude) from
Bradley University in 1992. He com-
pleted the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in
electrical engineering from the Georgia
Institute of Technology in 1993 and
1998, respectively. In 1999, he joined
the Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering and Computer
Science at the University of Cincinnati
where he is currently an assistant pro-
fessor. His research interests focus on
geolocation technology and many
aspects of wireless communication sys-
tems, including CDMA systems, multi-
user transmission/detection and space-
time signal processing.
The Private Branch eXchange (also
called the PBX or the Private Business
Exchange) is a telephone-switching cen-
ter that is owned by a private business.
This switching center is exclusive to one
company rather than owned by a com-
mon carrier or telephone company.
Even so, companies still need their
employees to be able call each other at
different locations (if need be), call out-
side phone numbers (the public tele-
phone network or PSTN), and receive
calls from the outside.
PBXs are distinguished from smaller
“key systems” by the fact that external
lines are not normally indicated and
selectable from an individual extension.
From a user’s point of view, calls on a
key system are made by selecting a line
and dialing the external number; calls
on a PBX are made by dialing 9 then
the external number.
Another alternative is to connect all
the telephone sets to the PSTN. But the
major disadvantage is that every exten-
sion requires its own line (usually with
a monthly recurring line charge); also,
“internal” calls would be dialed exter-
nally and charged for. The main pur-
pose of a PBX is to save the cost of
requiring a line for each user to the
telephone company’s central office.
Thus, most local phone companies
offer Centrex or “Virtual PBX” service.
That is each extension has a trunk line
that is connected to the telephone com-
pany’s Central Office (CO), where soft-
ware on the CO switch enables PBX-
like functionality.
Functionally, the PBX performs three
main duties:
Establishing connections (circuits)
between the telephone sets of two
users. Note that fax, modems and many
communication devices can often be
connected to the PBX (although the
PBX may degrade line quality for
modems). Therefore, telephone sets are
referred to as extensions.
Maintaining such connections as
long as the users require them.
Providing information for the
Accounting Department (e.g. metering
calls)
PBXs offer many capabilities,
although each manufacturer may have a
different name for each capability. Here
is a short list of common capabilities:
• Direct Dialing (DDD or DDI), also
called Direct Inward Dialing (DID)
• Customized Abbreviated dialing
(Speed Dialing)
• Follow-me
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2004
• Call forwarding on absence
• Call forwarding on busy
• Call transfer
• Music on hold
• Automatic ring back
• Night service
• Call distribution (Automatic
Call Distribution, fixed sequences)
The extension interface can be:
Azim A. Samjani, with a unique and constant
• Proprietary: the manufac- Rahul R. Shetty
turer has defined a protocol.
One can only connect the man- Rohit George
Mathew
Wireless PBX :
ufacturer’s sets on the PBX
• Standard interfaces: any device sup-
porting the standard can be connected
Wireless PBX
Wireless PBX (WPBX) is defined as
the privately owned and operated wire-
less telephone equipment, including
base stations and handsets, used to con-
nect users to PBX systems or Centrex
trunks using unlicensed spectrum.
WPBX private wireless networks operate
similarly to today’s cellular networks
except the WPBX networks are privately
owned and usually exist within the walls
of a business. The WPBX application
generally consists of WPBX handsets that
use unlicensed spectrum and special
WPBX air interfaces to communicate to
the nearest private WPBX base station
(BS). The base stations are located
throughout a work environment to pro-
vide the desired coverage. The capacity
of the base station may vary depending
upon the type of wireless technology
used for communication, the backbone
network and the devices’ applications.
In wireless PBX, the PBX system is
implemented by deploying some wire-
0278-6648/04/$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
less technology. This can be a cordless
system, a small Wireless Local Loop
(WLL), Wireless LAN or some cellular
technology. The goal is to provide con-
venience to the workers at a corporate
site, so as to achieve in-house mobility
and continuous attachment
among co-workers and clients
contact number. This set up
and provides a good amount of
scalability, since there is no
hindrance of laying extra
cables. Also, users can be
added without any major modification.
©DIGITALVISION COMPOSITE: MKC
using 3G over a wireless LAN
Existing implementations
Wireless PBX exists in a variety of
ways. Each way has some advantages
and disadvantages.
Wired LAN: This is one of the most
common approaches used by corpora-
tions. Here the PBX switch/machine is
connected to a central LAN server. Also,
a Base Station (BS) is connected to
every PC, via a Universal Service Bus
(USB) port. When the PBX wants to
contact a particular number, the num-
ber is broadcasted on the LAN. If the BS
on the USB identifies the number, it
responds to the PBX switch. Then the
PBX switch identifies the machine, con-
nects it with the user at the calling end
and sends voice packets over the net-
work. It is affordable on a LAN, since it
provides reasonable bandwidth for such
applications. The identification is nor-
mally IP-based. The BS then connects
to the wireless phone and the user can
talk. Typically, a BS can support more
than one user. In such cases, it identi-
fies more than one calling number. But
when the network is busy or when
employees have long calls, then the
quality of service is not good. Hence, it
is best used for short conversations.
Also the computer would be loaded
when voice calls are activated.
Cordless phones: A cordless phone
has a base station and one or more
phones connected to it. The base sta-
tion is connected to the PBX switch
with a wire. When a call is to be made,
the PBX contacts the correct base sta-
tion and the call is put through. This is
one of the cheapest and easiest systems
9
 IP ny wants to interconnect more such • Scalability. This feature ensures
Upper Layer IP components or increase the user base, the flexible addition of users without
PPP Protocols
it is expensive and sometimes impossi- any major changes in the network infra-
LLC LLC LLC ble (if the technology is old and no structure. With a wired PBX, the extra
MAC MAC MAC
more in use). cables required would be result in a
2. These systems are not standard- installation cost proportional to the
Physical Physical Physical ized and, hence, may at times be inse- amount of infrastructural changes made.
MS AP LAN Server cure. Since it is not a generic technolo- • Interoperability with other systems.
gy, companies may have to implement This capability lets the company’s wire-
3G over WLAN Protocol Stack their own security policies. This can less PBX network connect to client net-
Fig. 1 prove expensive. Also, since it’s not works, other commercial networks or
tested by others, there is no guarantee the company’s own network at some
to implement. Different cordless tech- the system will be completely secure. other location.
nologies can be applied depending 3. When the LAN is used, the net- • Security. Since we are using a cus-
upon the type of service desired. work may be heavily loaded when tomized system, it is still more vulnera-
Walkie-talkie sets: These are simple voice packets are passed on to it. This ble to attacks. In such cases, the organi-
and common devices often used to can affect the performance of some zation has to implement their own
implement wireless PBX. They can be data intensive applications. security policy. Since this may not be
automated systems or there can be a 4. Suppose a company has offices well known, no guarantee about the
manual switching from PSTN to the that are geographically dispersed. If an privacy is justified.
internal PBX. These are one of the old- employee moves to another office, his • Standardized technology. Using
est wireless systems and they have a or her number is changed. This creates widely accepted standard components
variety of applications apart from wire- confusion and, sometimes, connectivity makes maintenance and upgrades easi-
less PBX. with the person is lost. er. Also, support from different vendors
5. Since these implementations can is provided.
Motivation be proprietary for a particular corpora- • Always connected. Lastly, an
So what are the problems in the tion, interfacing such a system with employee is “always connected to his
existing wireless PBX? There are many clients or other organizations can be or her corporate network” irrespective
technical issues that are inherent with difficult at times, and doable only with of his or her location.
the technology deployed. They are… major modifications.
1. The company can implement a A cellular based system
private protocol or use customized Wireless PBX using We propose a cellular system based
components that are incompatible with 3G over WLAN wireless PBX using commercial wireless
other products of the same or different Using third generation (3G) wireless technical standards. This system sup-
technology. This increases the cost and systems over the Wireless LAN (WLAN), ports voice, data and other telephony
decreases the scalability. If the compa- these main problems can be solved: applications. The data applications
• Cost of the sys- involve paging, Short Message Service
tem. Users subscrib- (SMS), email and such. The telephony
Corporate Network-3G over WLAN PSTN ing to commercial applications include caller ID, call for-
cellular operators warding, call waiting and call blocking.
3G Switch can use their hand- For this system, we divide the office
sets both outside as into small cells also known as micro
well as inside the cells. For example, every floor in the
organization’s net- office could be a cell or a big hall or a
LAN Server
work. This setup shop floor could be a cell. The cell’s
eliminates the need size depends upon the size of the office
for cordless and and may vary from one implementation
3G
land line phones. to another. Every cell has a base sta-
Distribution Network The network com- tion. In turn, every base station is con-
System ponents being used nected to a central switching center,
are standardized which is the PBX switch.
thus far less costly So what cellular technology is incor-
AP
AP than customized porated? Any cellular system such as
ones. Also, the sup- TDMA or CDMA can be used. But we
External
Networks porting software is chose a 3G cellular network because:
BSS BSS readily available. • It can operate in an unlicensed 2.4
Hence, the mainte- GHz frequency same as a WLAN.
nance and upgrade Therefore, no FCC regulations apply
of such systems is and many network products are avail-
3G Phones relatively easy com- able which are WLAN enabled.
3G Phones pared to using a • It can support both voice and data
proprietary PBX due to the considerable increase in
Fig. 2 Network Architecture of 3G over WLAN system. bandwidth compared to other cellular

10 IEEE POTENTIALS
technologies. So it can work on WLAN,
which offers a bandwidth of 11 Mbps.
• These systems are more secure.
• 3G supports IP and, hence, can
interface with other network devices.
Thus, the standard 3G protocols are
implemented with no modifications. We
connect our Mobile Terminal Switching
Office (MTSO), which is the 3G
switch/wireless PBX switching box, to
other commercial MTSO’s such as AT&T
or Verizon. The precise handshaking
protocols and security features are dis-
cussed in subsequently.
This system is convenient for
employees, clients or consultants of this
organization since it offers seamless
integration into the corporate network
without changing instruments. Thus, it
keeps them “connected at all times.”
Also, with simple “touch” procedures,
they can switch between networks.
The architecture
This network topology depicts the
integration of 3G wireless systems and
802.11 WLAN. The function of the
WLAN is to keep the 3G devices con-
nected to the other various networks.
They can be LANs, data networks,
PSTNs or other 3G networks. The way
this network system works is shown in
the Fig. 1 protocol stack.
Here the LAN server is the interface
between the corporate network and the
external public network. Actually, there
is a small element that directly interacts
with the outside world. It is the switch
(discussed in the next section). The
LAN server handles the data coming
Table 1
ID Cell Phone No.
989721003 215-001-009
187352920 543-976-275
from the outside network and interprets
it into the format of the corporate net-
work. Since 3G devices are IP–based,
the external data in converted to Voice
Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) packets.
In this format, the end devices can
access the data, i.e. voice.
3G devices are used as the end system
because they can operate on the unli-
censed 2.4 GHz frequency used by the
WLAN. Also, since they are IP enabled,
they are compatible with the TCP/IP net-
work stack. The bandwidth requirements
of WLAN and 3G are also compatible,
since 802.11b assures a maximum band-
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2004
width of 11 Mbps and can support data
rates of 5.5, 2 and 1 Mbps which is still
acceptable to the 3G system.
The main components in this archi-
tecture (see Fig. 2) are the 3G
switch/PBX, the LAN Server, the WLAN
and the 3G devices.
3G switch/PBX: This is the outer-
most component of the network. It
interfaces with the PSTN and the exter-
nal commercial 3G network. It accepts
input from these sources in the form of
voice or IP packets respectively and
then switches them to the LAN server.
Also, data from the LAN server, which
might be voice or data, is sent over to
the outbound interface on to their
respective networks.
LAN server: This server converts the
data from the 3G switch to VOIP pack-
ets. It also forms the Ethernet frames.
When the 3G device gets attached to the
corporate network, authentication and
other validation procedures are done on
this server. A special customized
authentication is to be installed which
will verify the validity of the user to use
the network resources. It also contains
the database, which has a map of the
telephone numbers to the IP addresses.
WLAN: It includes the LAN interface
with the access points and the distribu-
tion system. It implements the standard
CSMA/CD protocol. Here we assume
that we have dedicated access points for
the 3G devices to carry voice and data.
3G devices: These can be any
IP–enabled 3G systems such as cell
phones, PDAs, etc. But for this discus-
sion, we mainly focus on cell phones.
Office No. IP address
654-129-4533 192.168.0.99
654-129-4534 192.168.0.100
These phones are registered on the cor-
porate network by some authorized
entity; e.g., the system administrator.
They communicate with the Access
Point (AP) over the radio interface.
Basic operations
There are three basic operations that
occur very frequently and are important
to the operation of 3G phones over the
WLAN. They are:
1. Association—getting connected to
the corporate network
2. Registration with Home
Network—registering the cell phone on
the external network
3. Call setup—setting up the calls to
and from the cell phone
Association: This is a process by
which the cell phone gets associated
with the Corporate Network (CN). The
AP has two channels of communication.
One is the control channel and the other
one is the data or traffic channel. It
always broadcasts control information on
the control channel.
When the cell phone is switched
“ON,” it accepts the control information.
It realizes that it is in the CN and sends
a request for association. It sends its ID
to the AP. The ID can be an Electronic
Serial Number (ESN) or some other
identification.
The AP forwards the request to the
LAN server through the switch. The
LAN server interprets the request and
checks if there is an entry for the
phone; i.e., it checks whether the ID of
the phone is present in the database. If
it’s a valid ID, the cell phone is given
an IP address. If not, the cell phone is
denied association. The database stored
on the LAN server contains four entries.
They are:
1. Cell phone ID
2. Cell phone number given by the
commercial service provider
3. Office number mapped on to this
device
4. IP address
The database has the format shown
in Table 1. The location of the user in
the CN—which cell the user belongs
to—is also updated. This information is
not stored in this database but in a sep-
arate management database.
The structure of the database can vary
and is implementation dependent. We
show an example of how such a data-
base may look. Every corporate network
can add more details for security and/or
can integrate these details in already
existing management databases.
Registration with the Home Network:
After the cell phone gets associated with
the CN, it must register the change in its
location and IP address to the home net-
work. This has to be done so that calls
for the subscriber are directed towards
the CN. One very important note, we
assume that the 3G switch can interface
with the commercial 3G service provider.
That is, there is an agreed upon collabo-
ration between the two switching centers
to send updates of user information.
The switch then makes a session
with the external switching center and
informs it that their subscriber is in the
11
CN with some IP address. If it is the
home agent, then it will update its data-
base as the subscriber’s foreign network.
If it is the foreign network, then it will
forward the request to the home net-
work to update its database.
Example: Assume that a subscriber is
a customer of ABC telecom systems. It
gets an IP address from its home net-
work. If the subscriber moves to a for-
eign network, the home network is
made aware of this venture. This for-
eign network is directly connected to
the CN’s 3G switch. When this customer
gets associated with the CN, then the
request is sent to the foreign agent,
which in turn forwards to the home
agent in the home network the cus-
tomer’s new network.
When the subscriber leaves the cor-
porate network, the PBX informs the
MTSO that the user has changed net-
works. The MTSO then might restore
the state of the user to what he or she
held prior to joining the corporate net-
work. Even if the subscriber switches
OFF the cell phone, the same proce-
dure is applied since the neither the AP
nor the PBX can distinguish this situa-
tion: whether the user is outside the
network or the cell phone is OFF.
Call setup: When a call comes at the
inbound interface of the switch, the
data is switched over to the LAN server.
The LAN server checks the data. This
can be voice or an IP packet. From the
data, it authenticates the data by check-
ing the destination telephone number.
The number is searched in the database
with the cell phone number, telephone
number or the IP address. If it matches
with any one of these, then a VOIP
packet is formed and sent back to the
switch. The switch then forwards it to
the appropriate AP. The AP forwards
the packet to the cell phone. If the cell
phone is already engaged, then a call
waiting or a engaged message is sent
back to the caller through the switch.
When a user wants to make a call, the
voice packet containing the destination
details is sent to the LAN server. The user
is authenticated (in the case of error the
user is ignored). The state of the user is
changed to “engaged” so that no other
person can connect to the user. Thus, the
user is in a locked state, and only the
called person can respond to the user.
For valid users, the VOIP packet is
converted to voice and sent to the PBX.
The PBX then connects the PSTN net-
work to the central office to make a call
setup. When the person at the other
12
3G to PSTN (Outgoing Call)
3G Cell Phone LAN Server
Request for Call Setup
Error: Ignore
Authentication
Make Call
PSTN to 3G (Incoming Call)
PSTN PBX
Request for Call Setup
Forward Request
Response for Call Setup
Fig. 3
end replies, he or she is authenticated
to confirm his or her identity.
Please note that the PSTN network is
used to make an outgoing call, since
the cost of using a PSTN network is
much less than the 3G network. Once
the call is setup, the conversion to
VOIP packets is done. The sequence of
operation for incoming and outgoing
calls in shown in Fig. 3.
Data interchange: When data arrives
from the PBX to the LAN Server the fol-
lowing steps are carried out.
1. The data is checked to distinguish
whether it is a voice or an IP packet.
Next, the destination ID is extracted. This
can be a telephone number or the IP des-
tination address.
2. With this information, the user is
authenticated and his or her identity is
stored in the database. If it is an invalid
user, then the call is ignored.
3. After validation, if it is voice then a
VOIP packet is formed. This VOIP packet
is then sent to the AP. If it is a data pack-
et then it is simply forwarded to the 3G
device.
When data arrives at the LAN Server
from the WLAN, the following steps are
taken.
1. The VOIP packet is opened and the
PBX/3G Switch
Authentication
To PSTN
Forward Request to PBX
From PSTN
Forward to LAN Server
Error: Ignore
LAN Server
Check
Data/Integrity
Error: Ignore
Authentication
Error: Ignore To 3G Phone
From 3G Phone
Authentication
Error: Ignore
Forward Reply
user is authenticated. If the user is invalid,
then the packet is simply dropped.
2. Upon validation, the outgoing net-
work information is retrieved. If it is the
PSTN network, then the voice is sent to
the PBX, which in turn forwards it to the
telephone network.
3. If an IP packet is to be formed, then
this packet is simply forwarded to the 3G
network through the PBX.
These procedures are done at a very
high speed, so the user in the corporate
network thinks he or she is having a con-
tinuous conversation with the person out-
side the network. Thus, software is need-
ed for authentication and data conver-
sion, to avoid all the processing delays.
Also, the network hardware and the LAN
server must be fast enough to carry out
the processing at high speed. This
process is shown in Fig. 4
A billing system
Before the deployment of such a
system, one question that arises, “How
would the cell phone get billed?”
The answer to this is simple and
straightforward. The cell phone has two
numbers: one is the number obtained
from the commercial service provider,
and the other is the office number that
IEEE POTENTIALS
 is mapped onto it. If the user in not in
the CN, then the service provider han-
dles the billing cycle. But if the user is
now registered to the CN, then some
issues are to be noted. If he or she gets
a call on the number provided by the
cell phone operator, then the user will
be billed by this provider. (He or she
can get calls on this number, since the
PBX informs the commercial MTSO
about the presence of the user in the
CN.) But if the user gets a call on his or
her office number, then he or she is not
billed by the provider, since it is like
someone calling him or her on his or
her office land line.
When the user is making an outgo-
ing call, then the number would be the
office number. Hence, the office will be
billed for this call, since all outgoing
calls from the office PBX is going
through the PSTN network.
Drawbacks of the
proposed solution
With the proliferation of wireless gad-
gets and applications in our daily lives,
there is an increasing tendency to desire
being connected to public and private
networks – both voice and data. We have
proposed a new method of using 3G
phones in public and private networks
due to their inherent ability to mesh with
standard networking technologies. But
with this method comes a price tag in
terms of monetary resources as well as
changes in infrastructure. Apart from
these material investments, social issues
could arise since we envision a different
way of human – machine interaction.
Technical issues. First of all, it is nec-
essary to use 3G phones. We have
designed this system keeping in mind
the facilities offered by 3G systems. As
of today, 3G phones are in testing
mode or being used only by private
firms. Hence, it will be awhile before
the masses use it.
The LAN server is one of the most
important components of this system.
The efficiency of the entire system
depends on it. This server can act as a
bottleneck for the entire system, if not
well configured and designed to accu-
rately meet desired needs. Normally,
simple LAN servers come with dual
processors that have more than 2 GHz
that is powerful enough to handle voice
– data operations. But, again, the load
on the server depends on the number of
users, other applications running on it
and also the amount of memory avail-
able. More servers can be deployed if
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2004
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usage warrants it and for load balancing. obtain interconnection of their offices
Also, protocol converters need to be without any change in infrastructure.
extremely efficient for audible conversa-
tion. A one-way delay of more than 100 Read more about it
ms makes it difficult for end users to • Wireless Communication and
converse. Hence, protocol converters Networks – 2nd Edition William
must not cause a delay of more than 20 Stallings
ms, since there are other transportation • IEEE 802.11 WLAN Specification -
overheads involved. http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/11/
Cost. If the existing wireless LAN is • 3rd Generation Partnership Project
loaded, then some new access points 2 – Wireless IP Network Standard -
probably would be needed to cater to 3GPP2 P.S0001-B - Version 1.0.0 -
the needs of the voice calls. But for most Version Date: October 25, 2002
of the corporate networks, the existing • Wireless LAN Access Network
infrastructure would be suitable for this Architecture for Mobile Operators –
system. Designing or buying protocol Juha Ala-Laurila et. al. , Nokia Mobile
converters for the LAN server can add to Phones, IEEE Communications
the cost. Users need 3G phones, but Magazine, November 2001
they would already have them from their • WLAN as a Complement to GPRS
commercial service providers. Mainten- and 3G Services - Dr Mario Davoli
ance of servers, wireless phones and Ericsson Australia, White Paper -
ensuring security policies is an important Doc. Reference No: EPA/B 2223 158, 27
aspect and must be taken care of for a June 2002
smooth running system.
About the authors
Conclusion Azim A. Samjani received his
We have proposed a new solution for Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) in
integration of 3G and Wireless LAN. This Computer Engineering from University
architecture and recommendations have of Pune, India in August 2001 and his
not been tested in the real world. But, Master of Science in Engineering (M.S.E.)
with the available network components in Telecommunications and Networking
and standards available, a feasibility test from the University of Pennsylvania in
was performed to ensure the implemen- May 2004. Contact: azim@computer.org
tation. (Ericsson is working towards a Rahul R. Shetty, Contact: shettre@
similar implementation, but using all hotmail.com
together different technologies.) With Rohit George Mathew, Contact:
this method, we achieved a reduction in rohitgmathew@yahoo.com
the cost of deployment and scalability,
and the employee was “always connect-
ed” with the same identification and
Acronym glossary
3G 3rd Generation Wireless
standardized technology. Also, this sys-
Systems
tem refrains from legal issues, since it
AP Access Point
uses unlicensed frequency band. Hence,
corporations can deploy this system and BS Base Station
BSS Basic Service Set
CN Corporate Network
CO Central Office
Voice / IP DS Distribution System
Packets MTSO Mobile Terminal Switching
Office
PBX Private Branch eXchange
PSTN Public Switched Telephone
Authentication Data Base Network
TCP/IP Transmission Control
Protocol/ Internet Protocol
VOIP Packets
USB Universal Serial Bus
Data Voice
VOIP Voice over Internet Protocol
IP Packet (IP)
WLAN Wireless Local Area Network
(802.11)
To / From 3G WPBX Wireless Private Branch
LAN Server eXchange
Fig. 4
13