February, 2009
Last version of OPERA final reports available in this website!

All the public information produced by OPERA has been updated with the final results of the Project. This valuable information has been generated due to the effort of all the partners and it covers all the issues that are essential to know how OPERA technology works and how it can be used to convert it into a business.

More information.

The final Press Release and Newsletter of OPERA Project have already been distributed. OPERA says “see you soon” to the PLC community. The Project is finishing but OPERA partners will continue working together to consolidate and to share the results of this successful Project. OPERA spirit will remain in PLC business and its results will contribute to have a PLC technology mature, useful and available in the market.

See Press Release #4
See Newsletter #4

OPERA has participated in the edition, promotion and distribution of a video documentary that shows how PLC technology can help (and is actually helping!) to avoid the digital divide in Brazil. With OPERA experience in Brazil, led by our partner CELG and in collaboration with APTEL (Associação de Empresas Proprietárias de Infraestrutura e de Sistemas Privados de Telecomunicações), our Consortium has contributed to generate added value not only for European citizens but for every country which has to resolve its telecommunications needs.

See video documentary

It is a pleasure to inform about the outcome of the OPERA 2 Second Period Review. This event took place last Monday 2nd of June in Linz (Austria) and it was kindly hosted by the Opera partner Linz AG. The review was attended by our EC Project Officer Mr. Jorge Carvalho plus three external reviewers.

The EC has rated the project during this Period as a "Good to Excellent Project" which is the best possible rating. The project has achieved most of its objectives and technical goals for the period and has even exceeded expectations.

Now the third and last period for the projects begins, which will end on December 2008.

May 6, 2008
Memorandum of Understanding between Opera and Samba project

The parties of this agreement intent to collaborate among each other on relevant topics of common interest for both projects, taking into consideration that PLC technology is the core objective of Opera project and is used by Samba project in order to develop the technical solution.
The following collaboration opportunities have been defined:
- Definition of joint application scenarios with strong social component.
- Services over PLC technology. Definition and testing.
- Discussion of eventual business models for PLC together with iDTV
- Organization of a joint/co-located workshop between both projects.
- Technical support for field trial implementation.
- Technology evolution /Standardization process evolution.
- Planning of eventual future proposal.

Visit Samba project.

April 5, 2008
Successful External Collaborator Event

The event was held succesfully on April the 3rd. Thanks to all the participants: Opera members as well as external collaborators, representatives of universities, public bodies, private companies and other European Projects.
You can download the papers (.PDF):

Conference Call Presentation. Rules (by Javier Simón. W.P.7 Dissemination).
Coordinator Presentation (by Javier Arriola. Project Coordinator).
Technical Commitee presentation (by Jean-Philippe Faure, SEPC for OPERA consortium).
WP 5 presentation (by Laurent Feltin).
Field Trials and Service Testing (by Berthold Haberler).
WP 1 Overview for External Collaborator Event (by Markus Bittner).
Next Steps (by Javier Simón. W.P.7 Dissemination).

March 27, 2008
External Collaborator Event

Finally, the External Collaborator Event will be the 3rd of April (Thursday), 10:00- 11:30 CET. It will be a conference call in which we are going to follow this agenda:

1- Conference call presentation & Rules.
2- Opera presentations:
- Project Presentation (Project Coordinator)
- Opera Technical Aspects and challenges (Technical Coordinator)
- Standardization Activity (WP5 leader)
- Field trials and service testing (WP4 leader)
- Coupling and conditioning devices (WP1 leader)
3- Q&A
4- Next Steps

All the external participants have the possibility of sending written questions that will be answered by Opera leaders (the due date to receive questions is the 28th of March). If you have any question, please send it to info@ist-opera.org.
We will send the presentations we are going to use the 31st of March. This day you will receive also the conference call number.
Having said that, if your company is interested in taking part in this event, please send to us an e-mail.

February 15, 2008
OPERA phase 2 Celebrated its second General Assembly last 22nd of January

The second General Assembly of the project was celebrated the last 22nd of January in Mannheim (Germany) with the participation of representatives of all the consortium partners, gathering around 50 people in total.
At this moment, in which OPERA phase 2 reaches its first half, the General Assembly constituted the perfect opportunity to gather all the consortium members in a face to face meeting and make an overview of the achievements and progress towards its objectives that OPERA 2 is performing. The several Workpackage leaders presented the advances made in each of the fields in which the project is working and presented the very important results delivered by the project up to the moment, such as the full deployment of the field trials running at this moment, the important activities carried out and contributions made to the standardization efforts taking place at the moment and the improvements made to the OPERA Physical and MAC layers and PLC equipment.
At this stage, OPERA 2 has fulfilled all the objectives stated for the first year of the project and the consortium faces the second year of the project with the confidence and satisfaction given by the good results obtained during the first year.

You can download .PDF version.

The aim of this article is to examine, in broad outline, the way forward for parts of the broadband access market in Latin America.
Full story: download .doc (700 KB)

OPERA2 First Period Review took place last Tuesday 17th May in Lisbon attended by EC Project Officer Mr. Jorge Carvalho plus four external reviewers.
The EC has rated Opera 2 for this Period as "Good to Excellent Project" which is the highest possible score. The results expected for this three-month period have been achieved and in some cases exceeded, according to the EC.

Some points specially appreciated are the constitution of a competent Consortium which is working well as a team, the quality of the intermediate deliverables given the tight schedule, the solid position in standardization activities, and excellent field trials deployed to demonstrate scalability of PLC technology.

Congratulations for all the members of Opera 2 for the serious and professional work realized till now. We are sure that we will be able to support the same level of effort and dedication during the whole project.

CELG Company is a Brazilian utility with operations in the state of Goiás, where the Capital city is located. In recent years this region has seen its economy grow at twice the rate of growth of the other regions in Brazil. 1.8 million customers are served within this region.

CELG’s activities are mainly the marketing, production, transport, distribution, trading , commercialisation and other related services. Its revenues last year was approximately 1 billion euros.

CELG has been involved in activities relating to Broadband PLC (Powerline Communications) since 1999 and is activily involve in OPERA phase 2, working in partnership with APTEL, who has brought important benefits for the development and promotion of Broadband PLC in Brazil.

In 2004, the CELG Company and Aptel promoted the V Seminary of the Technology Powerline Communications (V SPLC) in Brazil, with international audience.
CELG wishes to state its continuing interest and utmost commitment with the development of Broadband PLC as a technology which will hopefully play an important role in its future strategy.

The main drivers motivating CELG’s resource dedication to activities related to Broadband PLC specifically include:

The use of Broadband PLC systems for the practical implementations of the Electricity Networks of the Future (SmartGrids), throughout all Europe.

Furthermore, OPERA Phase 2 is seen by CELG as a good opportunity to cooperate with Europeans companies that are involved in achieving common targets on Broadband PLC at a European level for the benefit of its strategy and the technology itself. And CELG is dedicating to complete task allocated within Opera phase 2 to the best of its ability.

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June 15, 2007
Opera 2 in Slovenia

Elektro Ljubljana is the largest Slovenian power distribution company, which is, like all other companies in the EU, subject to constant changes in operation and to adjustments in the sense of open electrical energy market. In accordance with this, the company has been actively analyzing and introducing new technologies for years. New circumstances on the market demand from us the introduction of additional services and activities, which we did not come across in the past.

Thus we are the largest active participators in the subsidiary company, which takes care of the information support of the entire Slovenian distribution. In recent years, we are also becoming more and more important players on the market of telecommunication services, which we implement through the subsidiary company founded for this purpose. Our presence on the telecommunication market and the demands for new services in the field of power supply are the principal reasons why Elektro Ljubljana decided to participate in the OPERA Project. On the one hand, we feel a great opportunity to be in the company of experienced companies and research institutes from different EU countries through this project, and on the other hand, we are naturally very interested in offering our knowledge and experience to other project partners.

To participate in such a technological project supported by the European Commission is after all also an opportunity to get to know a new way of work, to successfully harmonize in extensive team work, which after all demands the use of modern forms of electronic communication due to the location specificities. Meetings of individual work packages are charged with energy and great opportunities of information exchange, all striving for one single aim: successful implementation of tasks assigned to individual consortium members at the start of the project. As the beginner, Elektro Ljubljana does not have such a great role and responsibilities as other members.

However, perhaps this is why we are even more motivated for work in this company. Here, we must certainly express our content regarding the assignment of areas of our co-operation. I believe such an approach of the project co-ordinator is excellent and will surely give good results. Otherwise, the views of Elektro Ljubljana in this project are mainly identical to the views of other members: to contribute through work in the project to the greatest possible success of the project, which will provide for all EU citizens a better and more quality access to new services, which can ensue from broadband connections, and enable the greatest possible utilization of own infrastructure for needs of supervision and energy system management to project partners, whereby I refer mostly to distribution companies. Naturally, our great wish is to include in this project all related technological knowledge successfully created in Slovenia for years.

To be in contact with developers of modern technology is an option for easier survival of a distribution company on the demanding open energy market. If one gets an opportunity to be a part of this team, this signifies a VIP ticket to the club of the most successful.

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February 23, 2007
The first press release of Opera project phase 2 has already been published and sent to the media

Please download .PDF press release.

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January 15, 2007
Opera Project phase 2 initiated its labour on past January, coordinated by Iberdrola

Opera phase 2 Kickoff Meeting.

The EU - sponsored Powerline project (EC/IST FP6 Project No 026920), OPERA – Open PLC European Research Alliance, which is part of the larger broadband project Broadband for All, started work on January 1, 2004 and has recently started its second phase.
The kickoff meeting of phase 2 was celebrated on January 9-10, 2007 in Madrid with the objective of to continue obtaining further enhancements on PLC technology as a natural evolution of phase 1.

The coordinator organized a kick off meeting in Madrid that was inaugurated by Javier Villalba, Iberdrola Director of Electrical Distribution. The meeting was attended by more than 60 persons who took part actively in the first works of definition of aims, assignment of responsibilities and concretion of the plans of work.

Opera project is centred on the creation of an European standard of the PLC technology.

PLC forms a technological alternative to provide communications of broad band across the electrical grids. On one hand, this allows to extend the offer of the services of broad band communications to the general public, with a big potential for regions and countries where other networks of advanced telecommunications have not been developed yet.

On the other hand, requirements of consumption of energy and demand expectation of new services over power lines are growing and the distribution grids have to evolve and adapt to this new situation, and PLC technologies could be the key factor in this evolution.

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