Aerial MV lines at VHF/UHF: A Versatile Broadband Hybrid Wireless/Wireline Channel

Initial channel modeling and simulation of the Medium Voltage (MV) power lines (11 - 66 KV) in India have indicated very high bandwidths, comparable to Metro fiber. This paper further elucidates this communication channel. We discuss its static variations and its (fading) dynamics. We show how a wide variety of wireline offerings are available - Gigabit scale backbone through broadband access, at a variety of repeater spacings. In addition, we show a unique characteristic of the MV powerline at VHF/UHF, it both radiates as well as transmits - resulting in a hybrid wireless-wireline channel, serving both high speed broadband as well as ubiquitous mobility applications, including 3G/4G. Our results show that rates close to the Shannon bound can be achieved in these applications, using classical transceiver techniques.