Possible Money Tip of the Day: Internet Through the Power Grid May Be Coming of Age–Right Here!

Mark Twain’s disputed quote (the dispute is whether he really said it) about wanting to come to Cincinnati if the world were to end because we’re 20 years behind the times may be turned on its head in this one instance.

That’s because “broadband over power line,” (i.e., through electrical outlets), yet another way to get high-speed Internet service into homes, has gained a lot of traction in (of all places) Greater Cincinnati:

Surfing Through the Power Grid

After years of hype, connecting to the internet over electrical power lines may finally be coming true.

In Cincinnati and surrounding areas, more than 50,000 homes are connecting to the web through power lines. And recently, Manassas, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C., became the first city in the nation to offer all its citizens the option of going online over the power network.

First hyped in the mid- to late-’90s, broadband over power line, or BPL, is currently enjoying a big wave of renewed interest.

Mega-ISP EarthLink has been experimenting with it. IBM and CenterPoint Energy, a Texas utility, tested the technology in the Houston area this summer. Earlier this year Google, Goldman Sachs and Hearst jointly invested a reported $100 million into Current Technologies, which is providing BPL in the Cincinnati area together with Midwest utility Cinergy.

….. Customers plug a BPL modem into any electrical wall socket, and send data over the city’s electrical wires to substations. The substations are connected to the net by city-owned fiber-optic cables. Because the data travels at higher frequencies than electrical current, the two do not interfere with each other.

But that doesn’t mean internet traffic doesn’t interfere with other signals. BPL faces continuing criticism that transmitting data over unshielded power lines can interfere with both ham radio broadcasts and police and fire radios.

That’s one of the issues that has slowed BPL adoption, said Joe Laszlo, research director at Jupiter Research who covers broadband.

A number of BPL trials around the country “have been canceled or scaled back because of interference issues,” he said, “or because the cost of deploying was much higher than the utilities expected.”

I spoke with a “Chris” in customer service at Current Communications (apparently the same company as Current Technologies), and he indicated that the following as the service status for various neighborhoods in the Cincinnati area:

• Fully operational: Hyde Park, East End, Mt. Lookout, Oakley, Pleasant Ridge, Kennedy Heights, Golf Manor (half), Delhi Hills, Silverton, Cheviot, and Madeira.
• Partial implementations with completion expected between December and March: Price Hill, Westwood, Norwood, Kenwood, Bridgetown.
• Full Cinergy market saturation in 2-3 years, including service areas in Northern Kentucky and Southeast Indiana.

Chris stated that interference issues cited in the article have not been a problem in the Greater Cincinnati area. He also says the company believes they have a better technology pathway to faster speeds (6-8 mbps instead of the current 1-3) than the cable and phone companies.

The Current web site has good links on “how it works (it looks ridiculously easy), residential pricing (businesses will come later after additional interference problems present at many businesses are solved), and even a nationwide lookup for estimated availability.

Consumers who want to see the service brought in to their area can go to the Contact Us link to get the phone number and begin their lobbying campaign. Chris said they are in the early stages of implementations in Honolulu and DC-suburban Maryland.

Based on the players noted above, this is no fly-by-night operation. Bring it on. The more competition, the better.