Like Roaches, Broadband Over Powerline Doesn’t Go Away

from GigaOM by Om Malik

By now even I am tired of pointing out that broadband over power lines as a viable broadband option just doesn’t work. Many including Google have spent millions of dollars to make a go of this technology with microscopic success, but that doesn’t stop others from trying. My friend, Karl Bode in October said that 2008 was the year BPL died. Apparently not. Now there is news that International Broadband Electric Communications, a startup to sign-up electric cooperatives in rural US where there are no broadband options.

The technology involves sending data on the same wires that provide electricity. Every half a mile or so, a device clamped to the line perpetuates the signal…The key innovation introduced in the past few years, Blair said, is the ability to remotely control the devices fixed to power lines. That way it can be told to switch frequency when it meets interference.

IBEC has signed up IBM who are going to get $9.6 million to provide and install the BPL equipment on a network that would reach 340,000 homes in Alabama, Indiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The venture’s promoter and CEO Scott Lee says that the cost of the network would be as much as $70 million, an amount that they have received as $70 million in low-interest loans from the Department of Agriculture. I gotta be honest — this is going to be money down the drain.