Zhuhai Skyray Electrical Power Technology Co., Ltd.

Low-voltage PLC Application

Powerline Communications Provide Affordable Internet

Access and Online Education for Rural School Children

- Our experience in China

Gordon Wang, Tianrui Electrical Technology Co., LTD, Zhuhai, Guangdong, China

Powerline communication (PLC) technology has changed the playfield of Internet access. The relatively lower cost and higher speed Internet access through electrical network rather than other means of connections, such as telephone line, twisted pair and TV cable, have shown to be most economical. One particular area of interest is to provide affordable Internet access to school children in developing countries.

In 2003, the Department of Modern Education Research of China National Center of Electronic Teaching (NCET) initiated a testing project experiment the PLC Internet application in rural schools. The project spot is located on the outskirt of Weifang city, Shandong Province, including two elementary and one middle school which represent a majority of rural schools in China. My technical team carried out this successful experience in implementing PLC based school network. Before we doing it, though these schools were connected wirelessly to the Long Distance Education Network (LDEN), but, due to the high cost in cabling networking, none of the classroom had access to the signal sent from the LDEN. The project team connected the signal from LDEN and used the only power plug to access it in each room. The power plug could provide Internet signal speed at 8MHz. Students could view Internet broadcasted classes. In less than two hours for each school, the project team completed the project and provided the connections for the entire school, and providing Internet access to every class.

To promote the project, my team finally persuaded the Guizhou Provincial Power Company donating 900,000 yuan (RMB) in 2006 to implement PLC based school network in all middle schools of Majiang County, Guizhou Province, one of 100 poorest counties in China. Still, my team carried out the project successfully and now the Internet online education via PLC network has been established in all 15 middle schools in the county.

Our effort has gained the great attention and recognition of the National Ministry of Education as well as the local provincial government. Now the authorities decide to expend the PLC based school network to 7 provinces in Middle West area of China, led by the NCET. At the first stage, the Education Department of Guizhou Province will make an investment of 10-million yuan in implementing the PLC based school network in 50 elementary and 100 middle schools and schools in the rural district, starting from the last month of 2007.

Except the basic PLC products we are manufacturing and providing to the project for the PLC networking, we also designed the mobile teaching desk for classrooms which integrating the computer, monitor/projector, DVD player and other educational equipments together. The desk may move to the any classroom needed on the same floor of the building, and the teacher just plug in the PLC modem to connect the desk and the school PLC network.

In conclusions, our direct experience proved that it is feasible technically and affordable economically for elementary and middle schools in rural areas of the developing country, while DSL or Cable based on LAN or wireless LAN is beyond the affordability of these areas. Based on PLC technology, we will be successfully to build a building LAN in a school, to expand the LAN to the whole school, and to offer a LAN in student dormitories without laying cable and digging holes. We also discovered that unlike industrial environment, the schools in the countryside usually have straightforward circuitry that is most suitable for PLC applications. We are glad to share our scheme and hope to expend our experiences to larger areas of the developing country to help more rural children to get modern Internet education.