Utility Communications

ETL600 R4 - Universal Digital Power Line Carrier

ETL600 – the secure communication solution for critical
infrastructure
ETL600 has been designed keeping the customers’
investment protection in mind by ensuring a seamless
transition from today’s to tomorrow’s PLC solutions.
Long-time tradition
Power Line Carrier systems have been used for decades by
Electric Power Utilities to transfer vital information for the
operation and protection of the electric power grid. Despite
the forced deployment of optical fibers in recent years, PLC
systems have continued to be used as a cost efficient and
reliable solution for mission-critical services, either as the
main and only medium where installations of optical fibers are
economically not justified, or as a backup solution for the
most important services that are normally conveyed over
broadband media.
In recent years, technology advances brought about new
opportunities for PLC applications, in particular related to
higher bandwidth provisioning, integration into digital net-
works, combined with functional enhancements as well as
ease and flexibility of use. These new possibilities – together
with economic and reliability considerations which PLC is
known for – have led to a remarkable revival of PLC systems
worldwide.
With ETL600, ABB continues its successful line of PLC equip-
ment, supporting all applications from legacy analog to most
advanced digital solutions with a future-proof concept.
2 | ETL600 R4
ETL600 preserves all of the functionality of the proven ETL500 –
with thousands of units in operation worldwide – and at the
same time offers a range of unprecedented features which
makes ETL600 the perfect fit for demanding communication
infrastructure.
The link to the future
The transition from analog to digital communication needs to
be properly addressed by any new design. Besides concur-
rently supporting legacy and modern applications, existing
PLC terminals themselves must be re-usable and upgradeable
to advanced and future-proof digital PLC technology.
ETL600 has been designed keeping the customers’ invest-
ment protection in mind by ensuring a seamless transition
from today’s to tomorrow’s PLC solutions with a smooth
migration concept. No matter whether analog or digital appli-
cations are in your focus, ETL600 provides the solution to
your operational communication needs with its universal and
flexible system architecture.
Designed for the harsh substation environment
In order to provide the security and reliability that is expected
from PLC, ETL600 incorporates extra measures, which con-
tribute to providing high availability and protection against
electromagnetic interference and damage due to overvoltage
stress. Apart from complying with all relevant EMC/EMI stan-
dards, all interfaces including data ports are electrically
isolated, hence providing additional protection againstover
voltages, ground potential rise and ground loops beyond
standard requirements.
ETL600 – ready for the future

ETL600’s advanced design allows the integration of all No matter whether you are confined to traditional frequency
kinds of analog and digital services via commonly used planning or want to go beyond the typical 64 kbps of today’s
interfaces, based on IEC standards and ITU recommenda- digital PLC, ETL600 provides all the options as on-site pro-
tions. grammable features.

Future-proof concept Multi-service equipment

Bandwidth has always been a scarce resource for PLC. The
need for more communication capacity brought about fre-
quency congestion problems, which made the extension of
the PLC network increasingly difficult.
In order to meet the demands of fitting into existing frequency
plans, or to cope with the need for higher data transmission
speeds as required by data-centric applications, ETL600 offers
a high degree of flexibility with regard to bandwidth selection.
Not only is the available carrier frequency range extended from
500 kHz to 1000 kHz – thus duplicating the number of appli-
cable PLC channels – the transmission bandwidth is also
programmable beyond the traditional 4 kHz or 8 kHz, resulting
in transmission rates as high as 256 kbps. This unprecedented
data rate may be used by a single application from an external
device like a multiplexer, switch or router (using the PLC link as
a pure “high-speed data pipe”) or may be shared between a
number of integrated configurable user data ports that are
time-division multiplexed by the internal adaptive multiplexer
MUX600. If gaps of an existing frequency plan with 4 kHz or
8 kHz nominal bandwidth shall be filled and analog speech is
required, special operating modes with one 2 kHz analog
channel (APLC) and one 2 or 6 kHz digital channel (DPLC) can
be programmed (ensuring maximum data throughput in the
DPLC channel).
ETL600 integrates all the applications that are critical for elec-
trical utilities:
−− Transparent transmission of voice-frequency signals, such
as band limited speech with superimposed teleoperation
− − Digital transmission of compressed voice
− − Fully transparent and/or UART-compliant transmission of
asynchronous data up to 9600 bps with minimum delay
in point-multipoint applications that are typical for polling
SCADA
−− Adaptive multiplexing of data services with traffic flow control
−− Synchronous data transmission from 9.6 kbps to 256 kbps
− − Port and channel sharing for most efficient use of scarce
bandwidth resources
−− Ethernet/IP-forwarding for LAN interconnections and IEC
60870-5-104 TCP/IP-based SCADA
− − Teleprotection for up to 2 x 4 independent and simultane-
ous commands
−− Easy connection of external switches, multiplexers and
routers for network integration, service aggregation and
traffic management via standardized interfaces

ETL600 system overview

Protection Commands
LT LT
PR

RS-232/V.24, X.21/V.11, 4-wire AF

SCADA CC CC
or or
CVT CVT
2-wire FXO, 4-wire FXO

PBX
CD CD
2-wire FXS

ETL600
Ethernet / IP

LAN
RS-232, LAN

Service
PC
PR Protection Relay LT Line Trap (DLTC)
SCADA RTU or Master Station CC Coupling Capacitor
PBX Telephone Exchange CVT Capacitor Voltage Transformer
LAN Local Area Network CD Coupling Device (MCD80)

ETL600 R4 | 3
ETL600 – the future-oriented platform

ETL600 preserves all the functionalities of the proven

ETL500 and at the same time offers a range of unprec-
edented features which makes ETL600 the perfect fit for
demanding communication infrastructure.

Universal architecture
With its universal hardware and software architecture, ETL600
makes the choice between traditional analog and advanced
digital PLC finally pointless and obsolete – in contrast to most
conventional systems where the choice is final and
irreversible. ETL600-050: Compact single rack version, 50 Watts output power,
4 slots for analog voice, digital voice and teleprotection interfaces
(also available: two racks 50 Watts version with 7 slots).
Using the same hardware components, the operating mode
can be selected and changed by the user on site with a few
mouse-clicks only. In addition to user-friendliness and unprec-
edented application flexibility, ETL600 also guarantees
unconditional compatibility with legacy as well as
state-of-the-art digital telecommunication environment.

In line with ABB’s endeavor to protect the customers’ large

investment in PLC technology, it is even possible to upgrade
existing ETL500 equipment to the most advanced ETL600
technology, preserving existing installations to the best possi-
ble extent, therefore considerably extending the lifetime of
past investments.

ETL600 Release 4 – new features at a glance

Increased output power:
− 50 Watts and 100 Watts up to 1 MHz
More compact equipment versions:
− New single rack 50 Watts version for most used
equipment configurations
Enhanced network (LAN) functionality:
ETL600-100: Two racks version, 100 Watts output power, 7 slots
− 4 integrated LAN ports (switching and IP routing, for analog voice, digital voice and teleprotection interfaces.
VLAN support)
− Improved Cyber Security, supporting latest standards
Digital transit of compressed voice channels:
− Reduced delay and unchanged speech quality in
tandem operations
− Interconnection of up to 5 ETL600 terminals in a
substation
Single or redundant power supply for all rack
configurations

HMI600 - configure LAN600

4 | ETL600 R4
ETL600 – the ultimate response to customers’ need
ETL600 automatically copes with difficult situations by
making optimum use of the available spectrum by means
of novel algorithms, based on ABB’s long experience with
digital PLC in real networks.
Your benefits
− − Universal architecture for digital and analog operation in the
same platform
− − Operating mode configurable with a few mouse-clicks
−− Wide range of transmission channel bandwidth, program-
mable without exchanging hardware
− − SSB and Multi-Carrier (OFDM) digital modulation with Trellis
Coding, user programmable on site
−− Extended carrier frequency range up to 1000 kHz, duplicat-
ing the useful frequency band
− − Standard high frequency output power is 50 W, 100 W is
achieved with a second power amplifier stage
−− Single-step frequency conversion and direct digital
frequency synthesis (DDS)
− − Up to 3 analog (APLC) channels in either 8 kHz or 12 kHz
bandwidth for traditional “speech plus” applications
−− Digital high-speed broadband channel (DPLC), user config-
urable with respect to speed and transmission bandwidth
(2 kHz to 32 kHz)
− − Two special operating modes: 2 kHz APLC plus 2 kHz
DPLC in 4 kHz nominal bandwidth, 2 kHz APLC plus 6 kHz
DPLC in 8 kHz nominal bandwidth (for each mode, 1 or 2
additional APLC channels of 4 kHz can be configured)
− − Integrated high-speed broadband modem for up to
256 kbps user data rate
−− Dynamic Speed Adaptation (DSA) for maximum data
throughput and availability
− − Automatic Jammer Suppression (AJS) – increases immunity
to line interferences
Dynamic Speed Adaptation
Dynamic Speed Adaptation (DSA) allows to automatically
adjusting the data rate in 5 user-defined steps according to
the prevailing line condition – a feature introduced by ABB for
digital PLC. DSA increases the availability of critical services
by preventing the collapse of data transmission in case of link
degradation (noise) that is significantly affected by changing
weather conditions.
For example, the transmission of LAN/IP traffic will be contin-
ued at lower speeds in case of a deterioration of the channel
condition (rain, ice), or the internal multiplexer (MUX600) dis-
cards lower priority data channels in favor of higher priority
services – as determined by the user.
Alternatively, DSA will increase the actually transmitted data
rate if the channel conditions permit to do so, hence maximiz-
ing the average data throughput.
− − Integrated adaptive multiplexer for 10 data channels and 16
compressed voice channels
− − Up to 2 internal teleprotection units with 4 independent
commands each
− − Adaptive signal evaluation ensuring shortest possible trans-
mission times for teleprotection
− − Special operating mode for single purpose teleprotection in
2 kHz transmission bandwidth
− − Up to 4 integrated programmable low-delay narrowband
modems, with speeds up to 9600 bps and adaptive equal-
izer for optimum performance
− − Up to 4 LAN ports for Ethernet/IP traffic (VLAN support)
and equipment configuration
− − IP header compression (e.g. of VoIP packets) to make most
efficiently use of the available data rate for LAN traffic over
DPLC
− − Up to 16 digital compressed voice channels for telephony
services (using just 5.3 or 6.3 kbps per channel)
− − Digital transit of compressed voice channels, to reduce the
delay and maintain the speech quality when telephony links
are connected in tandem (up to six ETL600 links in a chain)
− − Up to five ETL600 terminals can be interconnected in a
substation with the digital transit bus, i.e. the compressed
voice channels can be forwarded in one out of four possible
directions
− − Graphical User Interface (GUI) for convenient operation and
maintenance
− − Secure management access, supporting latest cyber secu-
rity measures (authentication, access logging, SSL, etc.)
− − Element Management System (EMS) for supervision and
equipment settings across the entire PLC network via LAN
and Embedded Operations Channel (EOC)
− − SNMP alarm traps for serving a communication network
management system
foul … fair weather
high … low noise
Data rate
(kbps)
SNR (dB)
DSA - the key to high link availability
ETL600 R4 | 5
ETL600 – a step ahead in transmission speed
ETL600’s novel adaptive signal processing algorithms
ensure shortest transmission times for teleprotection,
without compromising the security in any respect.
Reliable teleprotection
The transmission of protection commands is one of the most
important tasks of PLC systems. PLC links have proven their
reliability and security for decades, be it as the main channel or
as backup for broadband systems, keeping in mind that the
robustness of the transmission path is determined by the rug-
gedness of the power line itself – no other wire or fiber-bound
solution can offer the same degree of security.
ETL600 can be equipped with one or two integrated teleprot-
ection units NSD600. Each unit supports the transmission of
up to four simultaneous and individually programmable com-
mands for blocking, permissive tripping and direct tripping.
The commands are transmitted in-band (i.e. within the speech
or data channel), hence no extra bandwidth is consumed by
the teleprotection. During the short time of command transmis-
sion, other services can be disabled allowing to allocate the full
available transmit power to the protection signals (command
level boosting). Novel adaptive signal processing algorithms
ensure shortest transmission times even for direct tripping
applications, without compromising the security in any respect.
Should the transmission of up to 8 simultaneous commands
not be sufficient, external teleprotection equipment – like ABB’s
NSD570 – can be connected in addition to the integrated
NSD600s.
A special ETL600 mode of operation with nominal bandwidth
of 2 kHz offers single purpose teleprotection with 3 indepen-
dent/simultaneous commands and 1 prioritized command
(used in case of multi-phase failures, for example).
Broadband data transmission
The integrated broadband modem (MOD600) supports the
transmission of high-speed data from 9.6 kbps to 256 kbps.
The bandwidth is easily field-programmable and does not
require the exchanging of hardware components.
During teleprotection operation, broadband data transmission
is briefly interrupted (alternate purpose). Special algorithms
ensure that data transmission is resumed immediately after
the fault has been cleared, avoiding a re-synchronization that
would introduce extra delay.
6 | ETL600 R4
Automatic jammer suppression
The wider the transmission bandwidth the more likely it be-
comes that a certain portion of the band is adversely affected
by narrowband interferences.
ETL600 automatically copes with such difficult situations by
making optimum use of the available spectrum by means of
novel algorithm, based on long experience with digital PLC in
real networks.
Integrated multiplexer
The broadband capacity may be used by the internal time
division multiplexer (MUX600) for the transmission of up to 10
synchronous or asynchronous data channels and for up to 16
compressed voice channels, or by a single service, for exam-
ple a LAN interconnection. Alternatively, it may be used by
external networking devices such as multiplexer, switch or
router providing additional service aggregation functions and/
or traffic management facilities. Data rates and/or traffic flow
is controlled by the automatic data speed adaptation algo-
rithm which constitutes a seamless optimization of the overall
system performance for the management of varying and diffi-
cult channel conditions.
Narrowband data transmission
Up to four integrated narrowband modems (NSK600) support
the transmission of unformatted (transparent) data with
speeds up to 1200 bps, or UART compliant data with speeds
up to 9600 bps. Center frequencies are user-programmable in
steps of 60 Hz, transmission bandwidth range from 240 Hz at
100 bps to 3360 Hz at 9600 bps. In particular, these modems
can be operated above the analog speech band (300 Hz to
2000 Hz) at transmission rates as high as 1200 bps transpar-
ent or 2 x 2400 bps or 1 x 4800 bps, compliant with all
commonly used UART data formats. These modems intro-
duce very low delays, their signals can be dropped and
inserted flexibly on analog or digital basis with channel and
port-sharing facilities using standard handshake-control
signals.
An adaptive equalizer can be enabled for each NSK600
modem, which ensures optimum performance by compensat-
ing slowly changing channel characteristics over time. These
features – together with their application flexibility – make the
NSK600 modems ideal for polling SCADA systems using
standard or even proprietary transmission formats – an invalu-
able asset ensuring compliance with legacy environments.
ETL600 – easy to access and to manage
The ETL600 system features a very user-friendly Human
Machine Interface software utility with built-in test func-
tions for easy commissioning and maintenance.
LAN/Ethernet connectivity
The LAN600 service offers either transparent bridging/switch-
ing (including VLAN support) or IP routing (forward all or static
routes), i.e. no external router is required when two LANs shall
be interconnected via an ETL600 link, for example. The
LAN600 can make use of the full broadband capacity or share
it with other services. The Dynamic Speed Adaptation applies
in either case.
It is also possible to configure and monitor the ETL600 locally
or remotely via one of the four available LAN ports. IP header
compression techniques can be enabled in order to consider-
ably reduce the size of the packets, thus using the available
data rate of LAN600 most efficiently (and maximizing the
number of transferable VoIP channels, for example).
Network management
By means of its Embedded Operation Channel (EOC) and
standard graphical user interface HMI600, ETL600 supports
alarm polling and management of all terminals in a network.
Access to any terminal in the network is possible via PC/note-
book from any station, or from remote locations via serial data
links or via an Intranet/Internet connection.
Supervision of a network consisting of ETL600 and/or ETL500
terminals is also possible using SNMP (Simple Network Man-
agement Protocol).
Overlay
Remote Management
Operator System
Working places
MAIN all regions
Virtual Server
Private
Network
Ethernet
Wide Area
ETL 600
Network
System architecture for network management with “FOXMAN”
With ABB’s “FOXMAN” communication network management
system, a geographical map with the network can be dis-
played on screen. A connection to the ETL600 concerned is
established by simply clicking on the icon that changed its
color due to the incoming SNMP alarm trap.
Built in test facilities
The ETL600 features built-in test functions for automatic link
equalization with both graphical and numeric presentation,
which in most instances eliminate the need of costly external
test equipment such as spectrum analyzer and level meter.
Human Machine Interface
The ETL600 system features a user-friendly Human Machine
Interface (HMI600) software utility. It provides for example the
following extended facilities and characteristics:
−− Setting of the operating frequencies and transmission
bandwidth of the link
− − Setting of the modulation type and mode of operation
− − Setting of the user ports for voice, data and teleprotection
with respect to levels, data speed and application
−− Setting of remote terminal parameters via the integrated
service channel (EOC)
− − Polling of alarms and collection of operational status infor-
mation from the network
− − Generation of signals for tuning and testing of the transmit
and receive filters
−− Upload and display of recorded alarm events and teleprot-
ection command events
HMI600 - configure system
ETL600 R4 | 7
Contact us
Americas
ABB Ltda
Av. Monteiro Lobato, 3411
07190-904 - Guarulhos - SP
Brazil
Phone: +55 11 2464 8188
or: +0800 014 9111 (Call Center)
Fax: +55 11 2464 8361
ABB Inc.
Utility Communications
3450 Harvester Road
Burlington, Ontario L7N3W5
Canada
Phone: +1 800 263 9110 (Toll free)
or: +1 905 639 8840
Fax: +1 905 333 7565
ABB SA
Power Systems
José I - Rucci 1051
B1822CJU - Valentin Alsina
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Phone: +54 11 4229 5500 (Switchboard)
Fax: +54 11 4229 5819 (Power System)
Europe
ABB SpA
Power Systems Division
Via L. Lama 33
20099 Sesto San Giovanni (MI), Italia
Phone : +39 02 2414.3869
or: +39 02 2414.3855
Fax: +39 02 2414.3916
E-Mail: power.systems@it.abb.com
ABB Russia Ltd
Power Systems Division
Utility Communication Systems Department
2nd Kabelnaya St., 2,
111024 Moscow, Russian Federation
Phone: +7 495 956 62 77
Fax: +7 495 956 62 76
E-Mail: es@ru.abb.com
ABB Switzerland Ltd
Power Systems
Brown Boveri Strasse 6
5400 Baden, Switzerland
Phone: +41 58 589 37 35
or: +41 844 845 845 (Call Center)
Fax: +41 58 585 16 88
E-Mail: utilitycommunications@ch.abb.com
ABB Limited
Oulton Road, Stone
Staffordshire
ST15 0RS
United Kingdom
Phone: +44 1785 825050
Fax: +44 1785 819019
E-Mail: utilitycommunications@ch.abb.com
India, Middle East & Africa
ABB Automation Co.Ltd.
© ABB Switzerland Ltd, February 2012. The right to modifications or deviations due to technical progress is reserved
P.O.Box 441,
Riyadh 11383
Saudi Arabia
Phone: +966 1 265 3030
or: +966 1 265 2112
E-Mail: info@sa.abb.com
ABB LLC Oman
218 Hatat House
P.O. Bos 778, Postal Code 131
Al-Hamriya, Sultanate of Oman
Phone: +968 24 567 410
or: +968 24 567 961
Fax: +968 24 567 406
E-Mail: abboman@omantel.net.om
ABB Industries LLC
1KHA - 001 194 - SEN - 1000 - 02.12 - Printed in Switzerland
Utility Communications Systems
9th Floor, Concord Tower, Media City
P.O Box 11070
Dubai, U.A.E
Phone: +971 4 4241900
Fax: +971 4 438046
ABB South Africa (Pty) Ltd
Power System, Utility Communications
No 2 Lake Road,
Longmeadow Business Estate (North)
Modderfontein, Gauteng, South Africa, 1610
Phone: +27 10 202 6995
or: +27 10 202 5000 (Switchboard)
E-Mail: sales@za.abb.com
ABB Limited
22-A, Shah Industrial Estate,
Off Veera Desai Road,
Andheri (West),
Mumbai – 400 053, India
Phone: +91 22 6671 7272
Fax: +91 22 2673 0842
Asia
ABB Engineering (Shanghai) Ltd.
Power Systems
No. 5, Lane 369, Chuangye Road,
Kangqiao Town, Pudong District,
Shanghai, 201319, P.R. China
Phone: +86 21 61056666
Fax: +86 21 61056677
www.abb.com/utilitycommunications