Sumitomo Electric to Start Commercial PLC Modem Business in Japan

Sumitomo Electric announced on Tuesday the firm starts commercial production and sales of power line communication (PLC) modem for domestic household and building with probability Japanese Radio Law would be deregulated in near future. PLC technology realizes high speed telecommunication at maximum 200 mega bits per minute using existent power lines in household or building. The technology is expected as a measure to build easy and stable telecom networks with less cost.In Japan high-speed PLC using 2-30 mega hertz of high frequency band is now prohibited. However, Radio Regulatory Council was held on August 13 and partial revision of Radio Law in near future was confirmed along which usage of high-speed PLC would be permitted only for indoors.Sumitomo Electric developed 45-Mbps high speed PLC modem in 2001 and sought commercial use of the products worldwide. In 2004 the firm started to sell 45-Mbps PLC modem to telecom carriers in Spain and Portugal. The firm could develop 200-Mbps modem to clear domestic permissive values, which are severer than Europe and USA, taking advantage of PLC business experiences to develop original filter or to control output level.Sumitomo Electric plans to sell household PLC modem mainly to domestic telecom careers, adopting transmission method of HomePlug Powerline Alliance, the worldwide group of PLC related industries including Intel. As to PLC modem for buildings, Sumitomo Electric adopts telecom method of DS2 of Spain and sell the products to system integrators and telecom network contractors.