Korean telephone engineer Kim Seung-dol has been given a top technology award by the Ministry of Information and Communications for inventing a new modem technology which enables high-speed data transmission along power lines.
The main stumbling block to use of power lines for data transmission has been resistance from electricity preventing data travelling more than a few meters. A ministry official said that major multinational companies have been working on the problem but have been unable to find a way to transmit data more than half a km along power lines at 56Kbps. But Kim is able to transmit multimedia data up to 3km along an electrical line at faster speeds than conventional modems, the official said.
The technology will dramatically change the way we connect to the internet, said Oh Hae-sok who headed the panel of judges for the Infotech Venture Business Project Contest. He said the technology means people will not need to install expensive ADSL or cable modems at home or the office for a fast internet hookup. They will simply have to buy a set of devices to link their modems to the ubiquitous power-line. The networking technology will also allow people to connect consumer devices to the internet, he said.
Oh said the technology will be put to commercial use by early next year once other related devices, such as a new type of router, are developed. He pointed out the technology has great export potential, particularly to vast markets like China where the telecom infrastructure only gets to a minority of homes but where the vast majority are linked to an electric power line.
Kim, previously an engineer with Korea Telecom, plans to launch his own telecom equipment company in Pusan this month to commercialize his technology.
