Martins Store Substation BPL Update : 3.13.09

Nelson County, Virginia

The latest BPL email blast update from IBEC as of Friday evening 3.13.09.

From: “IBEC Customer Service”
Date: March 13, 2009 5:27:02 PM EDT
To: “info”
Subject: Martins Store Broadband over Powerline Update March 13, 2009

Martins Store Substation BPL Update

March 13, 2009

This week the crews returned and we were able to continue troubleshooting deployment issues and deploy some new BPL backbone. The BPL equipment has also been helpful in identifying loose or broken electrical equipment such as insulators and crossarm supports.

We have made significant progress in clearing up some noise issues that were preventing some customers from coming online in all regions of the deployment. We have almost completed the installation at Afton 3 and are currently focusing on finishing up the installations at Woodsmill 2 and 3 and Afton 2. IBEC was able to bring online over 50 BRUs and over 30 CAUs this week.

The major issue we are currently facing is dealing with more electrical noise than expected. This noise affects the BPL signal and makes it difficult to get good connections between the units. This issue is correctable, but requires more time and resources to repair as the noise signatures are identified and then located to match the noise pattern with the actual source of the noise in the power grid. We are also adjusting our network design in some areas to gain more consistent throughput and to bring you a more reliable network. We would like to reiterate that these processes normally occur during the initial deployment and typically happen as each unit is originally hung. However, due to the issues Verizon had with activating our data circuits, we were forced to hang the equipment blindly and come back afterwards to mitigate these issues.

IBEC has dispatched additional field support for the next three weeks to help any customers who are having issues connecting the modems in their homes to the network.

If you are contacted by IBEC by telephone, please get back in touch with us, so that we can activate your modem and ensure that you have an optimized configuration. at 888-IBEC-BPL or 888-423-2275. We have had many good reports from people whose service has been activated in the past few weeks and hope that others will send their comments to service@ibec.net.

Thanks again for your patience,
IBEC Customer Service