In recent years there has been renewed interest in power line communications (PLCs). The rationale behind providing high bit-rate data services by exploiting the power grid resides in the vast infrastructure in place for power distribution, which means that the potential penetration of the service could be much higher than for any other wireline alternative. There is also growing interest in the prospects of re-using in-building power line cables to provide a broadband Local Area Network (LAN) within the home or office, as well as within a vehicle (automobiles, ships, aircraft, space vehicles, etc.). Access to the Internet is becoming as indispensable as access to the electrical power grid. Since devices that access the Internet are normally plugged into an electrical outlet, the unification of these two networks is a compelling option.

Despite the enormous potential of PLCs, there still is skepticism about the technology and its commercial viability. This is mainly due to several technical problems and regulatory issues that are still unresolved. Moreover, a solid communications and information theoretic approach to PLC is still lacking and there are very few general results on the ultimate performance that can be achieved over the power line channel.

The aim of this J-SAC issue is to bring together the work done by researchers in different fields with the goal of developing a better understanding, not only of the practical issues related to PLCs but also of the theoretical ones. We hope that this effort will provide researchers with the necessary tools for unveiling the ultimate performance achievable on the power line channel as well as inspiring basic theoretical work that will lay the foundation for a new generation of communication technology for power line data transmission. We seek original, previously unpublished contributions not currently under review by another journal. Areas of interest include the ones listed below, with emphasis on the communications/information theoretic and signal processing aspects of the indoor, in-vehicle and access power line environments.

• Channel Modeling and Characterization
• Fundamental Limits on Channel Capacity
• Modulation and Error-Control Coding Techniques, Coherent and Non-Coherent
• Single Carrier, OFDM, and Spread Spectrum Techniques
• Detection, Estimation, and Iterative Processing Techniques
• Advanced Equalization and Signal Processing Techniques
• Multiuser Detection
• Multiple-Access Techniques

Authors should follow the IEEE J-SAC manuscript format described in the Information for Authors. Prospective authors should submit a pdf version of their complete manuscript (which should be compressed if the file size exceeds 1 Mbyte) via email to Stefano Galli according to the following timetable: