Electrifying Rival Emerges For Cable Modems And
DSL.
Utilities Launch Broadband Over Power Line
Service in Two Markets.
Make way for the third communications pipe into
the home. After years of talk, tests and tentativeness, electric
utilities and municipalities are finally beginning to introduce
a potentially powerful broadband technology, known as broadband
over power line (BPL), to American consumers.
Since the beginning of the year, BPL pioneers
have turned on commercial service in two U.S. communities. In
January, the city of Manassas teamed with Main.net and Prospect
Street Broadband to start offering service to 15,000 residents
and businesses in northern Virginia. The partners aim to
complete the rollout by the end of the summer.
Then, in early APRIL, a large Midwestern utility,
Cinergy Corp., and technology provider Current Communications
joined forces to begin rolling out high-speed service to 60,000
utility customers in the greater Cincinnati area by the end of
this year. Competing against Time Warner's Road Runner and
Cincinnati Bell's Zoomtown services, Cinergy and Current are
offering three different speed tiers of 1 megabit per second
(Mbps), 2 Mbps and 3 Mbps for $29.95 per month, $34.95 per month
and $39.95 per month, respectively. The move follows a 14-month
trial with about 100 customers.
The joint venture's plans call for extending the
rollout to at least 250,000 homes in southwestern Ohio, northern
Kentucky and Indiana over the next three years. Ultimately, the
partners aim to serve all 1.5 million Cinergy customers in the
three states. Current is managing the partnership and running
the service, known as Current Broadband.
Cinergy and Current also unveiled a second joint
venture early last month to bring BPL to 24 million homes served
by smaller municipal and cooperatively owned power companies.
Using rural electric lines, they aim to reach areas largely
neglected by cable modem and DSL providers today.
At the same time, electric companies, technology
suppliers and Internet service providers (ISPs) are trying out
BPL in a number of other markets around the nation. In one such
market trial in the Raleigh, N.C. area, Progress Energy and
EarthLink are promoting high-speed data service over electric
wires to about 500 homes in southern Wake County. Subscribers
pay $39.95 a month for the service, which delivers data at
speeds of 1 to 2 Mbps. Progress Energy and EarthLink are
plugging the service with an introductory rate of $19.95 per
month for the first three months of service.
"The goal here is to see if BPL is really a
technology ready for prime-time," said Matt Oja, director of
emerging technologies for Progress Energy. "We're looking to see
if customers value and like the service."
Similarly, Current is working with PEPCO, a
Washington, D.C. utility, on a BPL market trial in the
Potomac/Rockville, Maryland area, and with Hawaiian Electric on
a pilot in Hawaii. Jay Birnbaum, vice president and general
counsel for Current, said company executives expect both
deployments to "go commercial" by the end of the year.
