ARMONK, NY — The notion of enabling broadband internet connections over power lines has been around for years, but disappointing applications of the technology caused interest in the idea to wane some time ago.However, technology heavyweight IBM reinvigorated the debate last week when it announced a new $9.6 million partnership with Huntsville, AL-based startup International Broadband Electric Communications Inc. The pair said they are going to employ improved technology and an infusion of low-interest federal cash to make broadband over power lines (BPL) work on a small scale in order to provide service to rural areas that don’t have other options.
IBEC Chief Executive Scott Lee told The Washington Post putting the network in place should take about two years and may cost as much as $70 million. At deployment, the companies hope to have access to 340,000 rural homes in Alabama, Indiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.
Currently, more than 900 electric cooperatives in the United States provide about 45 percent of the total electric grid and cover about 75 percent of the land mass. BPL leverages an existing asset, power lines, to deploy broadband access quickly and inexpensively. IBM, the first major systems integrator to enter the BPL market, will provide overall project management, oversight, and training of the line crews who will install the BPL equipment. IBEC, which has designs on becoming the dominant internet service provider for rural America, will provide the BPL technology and equipment and serve as the ISP.
“Americans in rural areas of the country trail their urban and suburban counterparts in broadband availability,” according to Lee. “This capability will play a critical role in rural health, education and economic development while closing the digital divide that exists between well-served and underserved America.”
Raymond Blair, director of advanced networks at IBM, said the two companies have complementary strengths.
“This partnership leverages the deep communications and project management expertise of IBM with the market presence and position of IBEC in the rural electric cooperatives to accelerate the deployment of broadband services in these underserved areas,” he noted. “High-speed internet service is revolutionizing the way we do business, and access to this resource will generate great opportunities for rural America.”
Bill Moroney, president and CEO of the Utilities Telecom Council, seemed pleased with the development. The UTC is an international organization representing critical infrastructure communications needs of investor-owned, municipal and cooperative electric, gas and water utilities worldwide.
“This announcement represents a major step forward in bringing broadband services to the residents of rural America,” Moroney said in a prepared statement. “This is a key development in the growth and availability of high-speed broadband over power line internet services and widespread availability of critical SmartGrid applications in the United States.”
Although the project initially will focus on bringing broadband internet services to rural America, expectations are that the new service also will enhance the ability of electric utilities to monitor, manage and control the reliability of their power grids.
The deal is the first of its kind to deploy BPL technology among rural electric cooperatives. Previous efforts, most of them imagined as large-scale operations from the get-go, have failed to deliver on the technology’s promise. Their defeats can be chalked up in part to overhyped and underperforming technology and in part to the counter efforts of ham radio operators — also common in rural areas — who complained BPL interfered with their signals. Some even vented their frustration by suing the Federal Communications Commission. Such was the case in Dallas in May when Oncor Electric Delivery Co. shelved its plan to provide BPL to 2 million consumers.
Although BPL is faster than dial-up access, in its current state it can’t match the speed of other broadband delivery systems. Even IBM and IBEC admit that, which is why they are not worried about competition from larger operations.
“Broadband service by any of the major utilities doesn’t make sense,” Blair told The Washington Post. “It will never be able to compete head on.”
According to FCC statistics, only 5,000 consumers nationwide had BPL service in 2006, the most recent year for which figures are available.
