FCC Pushes for Broadband Over Power Lines

The Federal Communications Commission believes that if broadband over power lines (BPL) takes off, more Americans in rural and underserved areas will be able to take advantage of high-speed Internet access, in addition to forcing companies who currently dominate the cable and DSL market to lower their prices to compete for consumer business.

The FCC unanimously adopted an order designed to reaffirm and build on a set of rules issued for the technology in 2004, which had drawn a number of reservations from both inside and outside the industry. The original guidelines focused on preventing the nascent Internet service from causing harmful interference with radio signals that rely on nearby frequencies, such as those commonly used in aviation and in zones near U.S. Coast Guard and radio astronomy stations.

Though interest in Internet access over the electrical grid began years ago, only about 50 such systems currently exist in the United States, and the vast majority remain in the developmental or experimental phase. That's in part because of resistance from amateur radio operators, who complain that BPL could disrupt their systems and those of public safety organizations if deployed without limits.

The push for commercializing the technology appears to be growing, however, with two companies announcing late last year that they plan to offer BPL to 2 million homes and businesses in northern Texas in the near future, and California regulators this spring gave the go-ahead to test the service in that state.

To learn more about broadband over power lines, check out the CNET news article FCC pushes for broadband over power lines.