LONDON — The European Commission has approved Euros 9.6 million funding to the Open PLC European Research Alliance (OPERA) to aid extended field deployments based on the open specification for broadband access over powerline developed by the Alliance over the past few years.

The next phase of the project — which is supported by 26 partners covering chip suppliers such as DS2 of Spain, electricity utilities in several European countries, communications network operators, OEMs and universities — is to test deployments and monitor the use of powerline communications for applications such as high data rate broadband access, VoIP, intelligent grid services, Video over IP, and security.

The specification adopted in OPERA Phase 1 is available on the project web site .

The specification covers the PHY, MAC and equipment for broadband PLC (or Powerline Communications, as the technology is better known in Europe), and is based on DS2's 200Mbit/s technology.

The OPERA group has already received about Euros 20 million of funding to help develop the specification and the chips and equipment, as part of the EU's efforts to push the use of broadband over powerlines on the continent.

The group suggests its specification will be the only really open PLC system that ensures full interoperability for broadband access and in-building distribution systems without recourse to proprietary technologies.

It has been submitted to the powerline standardization work underway in both the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).

However, there are other industry and standards groups looking into broadband over powerline. For instance the IEEE has also defined a new standardization program in its P1901 effort.

And the HomePlug Powerline Alliance already has defined physical-layer (PHY) and media-access control-layer (MAC) chips for the 200Mbit/second extension to the in-building networking standard, HomePlug 1.0 + AV. The alliance has recommended using the same PHY and MAC for the BPL solution.

The OPERA group, led by Spanish electricity utility Iberdrola, suggests Phase II will contribute the necessary field research to both IEEE and ETSI confirming the importance of the work undertaken in developing and validating the specification.

The OPERA specification has also been endorsed by the Universal Powerline Association (UPA), the leading Powerline Communications industry body driving the acceptance of open standards for access BPL and home networking applications over Powerline.