IBM to Help Build Broadband Network in Power Lines

IBM is teaming up with International Broadband Electric Communications to bring broadband over power lines to rural areas. For IBMs part, the company signed a deal worth almost $10 million with the electric company to provide and install the hardware.

Their strategy is to sign up electric cooperatives that provide power to sparsely populated areas across the eastern United States. Rather than compete toe-to-toe with large, entrenched cable or DSL providers, IBEC is looking for customers that have been largely left out of the shift to high-speed Internet. Signing on IBM, perhaps the highest-profile company to buy into the idea, could juice a technology that has failed to make much of an imprint.

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Such a big story, it had to be on the front page twice

EXTRA EXTRA READ ALL ABOUT IT!!! STEVE DOUBLE POSTS TOPIC!!!

even better, they both link to the same forum topic. Well that being said, this is a really good idea. It is the first time I have really seen BB over Powerlines that makes sense. Targeting that audience that has no real high speed access.

Sweet



Sweet

Me, I wouldn't mind a little competition for cable. DSL is generally slower and satellite has almost no upload speed. I like my cable access as it is now, but competition means better prices and would hopefully stave off universal download caps.

I don't think this will compete with cable or DSL anytime soon. The speed is not fast enough. There is interference and do you want to have to pay for all of the repeaters that will need to be installed?

Darn it. Now I am going to have to google the cost/benefits/technology of this verses satellite internet. Stupid curiosity.

We've had BPL here in Cincinnati for a number of years, and I think that 5,000 number is not quite right. I've been waiting for Duke Energy to extend it into my area, but it seems like they may have stopped expanding the coverage.

It's only 3M D/L, which really isn't going to set the world on fire, BUT, it will also U/L at 3M which would be great for online gaming. Especially as I host a lot of IL2 1946 co-op games.

I had hoped that BPL would soon be a "has been" technology. Too bad IBM signed on, cuz BPL has many opponents. It's too slow, too late in the game, and offers no cost savings to customers or ISPs once you factor in all of the necessary repeaters -- and all of the hideous radio-frequency interference spewed by the power lines being modulated with digital signals.

Even the FCC's military/government equivalent, the NTIA, agrees that BPL sucketh much and should not be deployed. That, combined with the FCC's "money means everything" approach to previous BPL trials and its complete unwillingness to enforce its own rules regarding interference to existing radio spectrum users, makes a "new and improved" BPL a tough sell.

Oh well, IBM (about a mile to the north of my location) has plenty of cash to waste

BPL must die!

And IBM must stick to ungainly mainframes that are supported forever and chess-playing supercomputers...

--Kirk in MN

With the quality of the power lines around here I really do not see how this would be a viable option in most of the US. This country's electrical infrastructure is old and in very bad shape as is and would require nothing less then a total replacement from the ground up to fix.