# Performance Comparisons of Broadband Power Line Communication Technologies
## 1 Introduction  
In a smart grid, the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) is responsible for collecting data from consumer utilities and giving commands to them. AMI consists of smart meters, communication networks, and data managing systems [1, 2]. An important challenge in building an AMI is choosing a cost-effective communication network [2, 3, 4]. As a field communication method for AMI, power line communication (PLC) or wireless communication can be considered. PLC deploys a pre-existent transmission medium, represented by the wires where the communication nodes are connected, so deployment and operating costs can be low. PLC technologies can be classified into narrowband and broadband PLC according to the frequency bandwidth used. Narrowband PLC generally provides low data rates due to the narrow bandwidth of 3-500 kHz. To overcome the limitations of low rates and accommodate various service demands for utilities, powerline intelligent metering evolution (PRIME) and G3-PLC based on the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing technology were introduced [5]. These narrowband PLC technologies have been deployed for communication methods for AMI in European countries [5]. Broadband PLC uses a wide frequency bandwidth of 2-30 MHz. ITU-T G.hn, IEEE 1901, and ISO/IEC12139-1 [2, 6] have been established as standards for broadband PLC. The HomePlug Powerline Alliance has also developed the HomePlug Green PHY (HPGP) standard for broadband PLC technology [7]. In Korea, most low-voltage customers are powered by pole-mounted transformers, and, on average, dozens of customers are connected to the transformer. The Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO), a Korean power company, uses the ISO/IEC12139-1 standard PLC as an AMI field communication method in downtown residential areas [2]. The method is also referred to as high-speed (HS) PLC or Korean Industrial Standards (KS) PLC. HPGP is also being used in downtown areas. KEPCO plans to build AMI networks for 22.50 million low-voltage customers by 2020 [2, 8]. In addition, several new services such as load profile (LP) metering and time-of-use (TOU) pricing are planned nationwide using AMI networks. To provide these services properly, more reliable communication is required. Recently, a new broadband PLC technology called IoT PLC [9] has been proposed for robust communication on power line channels. IoT PLC has several features for reliable communication. For example, it provides robustness to intersymbol interference (ISI) using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) with a longer guard interval than other methods, and convolutional turbo code (CTC) is used for forward error correction (FEC). In addition, it has a wide selectable range of repetitions from 1 to 15 for the coded bits, providing flexible transmission modes depending on the channel conditions. Currently, IoT PLC is being tested for deployment in Korea. One of three PLC technologies will be chosen for AMI through a performance competition: HS PLC, HPGP, or IoT PLC. Therefore, it is important to evaluate and compare the performance of these PLC technologies. A PLC signal received through a power line is distorted due to the multipath propagation. Several broadband PLC channel models are available in [10; 11]. One channel model is based on the transmission line (TM) theory and is suitable for the specified PLC network topology [12; 13; 14; 15; 16]. This model is known to have a realistic description of in-home power line topology [17]. Another channel model is obtained by matching the parametric multipath model of the channel frequency response with real data obtained from measurements [18]. This model represents the PLC channel as a finite sum of delayed echoes with different amplitudes [17]. In this paper, a broadband channel model in [18] is used for simulation and performance comparison. It is readily applied to an outdoor power line environment with obtained parameters in [18]. In addition, PLC signals are also corrupted by noise added by the power line channel.