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BPL in California
AT&T: Plug into power sockets for high-speed Net
Last modified: July 14, 2004, 11:55 AM PDT By Ben Charny Staff Writer, CNET News.com AT&T and Pacific Gas and Electric demonstrated Wednesday how broadband can be sent over power lines, an emerging alternative to cable and DSL for delivering high-speed Internet access. As part of the demonstration, at AT&T Labs in Menlo Park, Calif., the companies created a connection operating at 500 kilobits per second to 3 megabits per second over a power grid. AT&T intends to send voice calls over that link using voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology, among other applications, the company said. Because electricity travels at a lower frequency than Internet signals, the two can coexist on the same line without interference. Power lines are also an attractive broadband delivery system because they are already in place and reach more homes than either cable systems or telephone lines. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell attended the demonstration. He has said that broadband over power line (BPL) technology makes it "theoretically possible to reach every power outlet in America with a broadband connection." The FCC is under pressure to substantially increase the number of U.S. homes that have broadband, which now stands at about 29.2 million. AT&T and other local phone companies support the technology because it doesn't rely on the local phone networks owned by regional Bell operating companies BellSouth, Verizon Communications, Qwest Communications International and SBC Communications. Phone competition rules that set cheap rates elapsed last month, so the Bells are expected to charge more for access. Accordingly, alternative "last mile" connections into homes, such as BPL or wireless broadband, are getting more attention, AT&T executives said. But BPL still has problems. The technology can be unreliable, and it's still very expensive. These two drawbacks have tempered its use. Current Communications Group and Cinergy Broadband, a subsidiary of a Midwestern utility with the same name, in March teamed up for one of the largest commercial rollouts of BPL. However, there are about two dozen ongoing trials of the technology throughout the United States, AT&T said. |
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