A few years ago an idea came down the pike that was supposed to bring broadband to every corner of Australia. That idea, broadband over power lines, has now died a quiet death. The Australian utilities have abandoned the technology.

When it was first announced in 2003, countries around the world looked to Australia as an example of how this idea could be deployed in their own remote areas. Too often, rural areas can’t have regular broadband internet services like DSL, FIOS or cable internet because the cost of bringing the lines to the houses and business in remote areas is high. Broadband over power lines (BPL) sounded like a great alternative.

How it works: the power companies install signal injectors on their end. These use a very specific, narrow frequency range to distribute an internet signal over regular power lines. The specific frequency keeps the signal from interfering with the power. The customer then gets a special piece of equipment on their end when they subscribe to the service. This equipment can then plug into any outlet in the recipient’s home.

This is a fantastic way to bring cost effective broadband to consumers in remote areas. Some argue that with the arrival of satellite internet, a solution like this isn’t needed, but I disagree. Satellite internet in expensive to install and cost slightly more than cable per month. not only that, the signal is dependent on the weather, a problem that is obviously lessened with BPL.

Trials of the service in two of Australia’s more remote communities, Tasmania and Victoria, as well as a handful of customers closer to Melbourne and Canberra. The ease of installation on both ends was a huge selling point, and the two year initial trial received rave reviews from customers. Everyone liked how easy it was, how far it reached and the speed (as much as 200mbps in some cases).

So if it was so well received, why did the power companies pull their support of the project? Some of them cited the rising cost of electricity. I call bogus on that excuse - the same electricity will be used whether the customer is watching Tv or using another method to get their internet delivered, no matter what the speed. No, the thing that killed this great technology was the cost of a wide scale implementation of it.

In order to work at its maximum efficiency, the technology needs a repeater station every kilometer or so. This is no big deal, until you think about how large Australia is, how scattered the towns are, and how many the utilities would have to build in order to service them all. Even if the government subsidized it, the cost of a full roll out would be prohibitive. The very nature of what the technology is designed to so, serve remote and underpopulated areas, makes the return on the cost negligible.

Without a significant return / cost ratio it isn’t worth full deployment. If all of their cash is sunk into a roll out, utilities wouldn’t be able to compete with companies like Telstra to get the market share they’d need in urban areas to be successful in outlying areas. Once again big telcos win the battle before it even starts, and so a brilliant technology dies.

Source

Entry was posted on Saturday, March 15th, 2008 at 1:02 am under Internet, Internet telephony.  Print This Post You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.