Broadband over powerline bruised again
In Dallas this week for the Broadband Properties Summit, I ran into someone who had signed up the broadband-over-powerline service that DirecTV had been trialing there in partnership with Current Communications. (That is, until that trial “collapsed” yesterday, according to the Dallas Morning News.)
A happy customer of DirecTV video, he was unhappy with DSL from AT&T mainly because phone jacks in his East Dallas home were scarce and inconveniently located. BPL modems, however, could take broadband from any electrical outlet in the house. And Current had recently upgraded his meter–along with thousands of others in the area in recent months–to be BPL-capable.
Upon ordering the service from DirecTV last month, he was told to expect the self-installable modem in the mail. It never came, though, and when he called back to ask about it, he found that the modem had been mailed to an old address of his. It was proving to be too much hassle, so he dropped the idea.
“The people at DirecTV didn’t seem to know a lot about it,” he noted.
The gear Current deployed in East Dallas has already been purchased by the local utility company, which plans to use it for remote meter-reading rather than broadband service. When the deal closes in a few weeks, the BPL service will likely end, punishing those early customers who were willing to test the technology.
This week’s news is only the latest reminder that BPL, at least for the foreseeable future, won’t enable anyone (utility firms or satellite partners) to compete significantly in a broadband market already well-travelled by telcos and cable guys–especially since some utilities are already having success rolling out broadband using more traditional technologies. If utility firms deploy BPL widely enough as meter-readers, it will be interesting to see if they one day opt to use it for niche applications like home security or something else that doesn’t exist yet. But for now, it’s safe to close the book on BPL as a rival to DSL, cable modem or PON.
By the way, if any of you readers have had first-hand experience with BPL service, from the Dallas trial or those in Ohio or elsewhere, please let us know about it in the comments below this post. Thanks!
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