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High-speed Internet may be in your power

Colorado’s rural areas are seen as a potential test site for a new means of online speed electrical lines

By Marsha Austin
Denver Post Business Writer

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~33~1972967,00.html

Rural Colorado and small towns in the mountain West may become prime proving ground for emerging technology that would deliver high-speed Internet over electric power lines.

The technology to allow customers to plug their modems into a wall socket – just like they do a lamp or a blender – would add a competitor to the marketplace and could provide Internet access for millions of consumers still living on the dark side of the digital divide.

Successful test runs across the country are building buzz for the technology that would provide an affordable alternative to DSL, cable modem and satellite Internet access. And the concept has been endorsed by the Federal Communications Commission, which will soon issue rules allowing electric utilities to offer power-line-based Internet access to millions of customers.

"I welcome the day when every electrical outlet will have the potential to offer high-speed broadband and a plethora of high-tech applications to all Americans," FCC Chairman Michael Powell said this month.

But ranchers in remote reaches of the state are likely to enjoy "plug-and-play" technology years before Denver urbanites get the choice, if they get it at all.

"We have high-end homes and lone eagles," said Shelly Farrell, manager of engineering operations for Pueblo-based San Isabel Electric Association, which serves a seven-county area west of Pueblo. "A lot of our customers have a phone line, and they have a dial-up and that’s the best they have."

Farrell said the co-op is looking for an affordable way to deliver high-speed access in areas unlikely to get DSL access. He said he found out about regional trials of running broadband over power lines at a National Rural Electric Cooperative Association meeting last fall.

"The technology is so new, we’re keeping an eye on it," he said. "If it happens, we’d like to be able to offer it to our customers."

United Power, an Brighton- based energy cooperative that serves customers just northeast of Denver and in mountain communities in Jefferson and Gilpin counties, is also taking a look. However, United’s director of external affairs, Troy Whitmore, said the co-op is more cautious about getting into the telecom business because many of its customers already have access to DSL, cable-modem and wireless-Internet services.

"But we do have our fair share of customers that want faster Internet service," he said. "I’m one of them. Dial-up just doesn’t cut it anymore."

Whitmore attended a conference last week in New Orleans, where breakout sessions on sending broadband services over power lines were packed beyond capacity.

The biggest question for United is whether running broadband on its power lines would be financially viable, and whether the technology that keeps the signals from interfering with customers’ radios and telephones really works, Whitmore said.

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SURFING THE FRONTIER

Reliable, viable technology has been the roadblock to offering Internet access over power lines. But progress is being made:

Power Line Communications Worldwide, an Israeli equipment supplier, has figured out how to maintain the integrity of broadband signals as they pass through transformers on power poles.

Its Reston, Va., subsidiary, Main.Net, routes the signal with no interference by slicing the data into tiny pieces. If some packets are lost in the process, computers can still read the message. Signals get a boost from amplifiers placed along the line. Main.Net partners with Electric Broadband to supply gear to American utility companies.

Amperion, based in Andover, Mass., has combined optical fiber and power line technology with wireless fidelity (WiFi) gear to avoid the interference altogether.

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In Denver and in other areas served by Xcel Energy’s Public Service Company of Colorado unit, customers are unlikely to get power-outlet broadband, spokeswoman Margarita Alarcon said.

While the giant utility has done early-stage research into broadband power-line technology, company officials have decided that, for now, Xcel won’t branch out into the telecommunications business, she said.

"We are not going to be focusing on developing this kind of business," Alarcon said. "We’re not going down that road at all."

Until recently, the technology hadn’t caught up with the concept.

A handful of pilot programs running on revamped technology are producing results and grabbing attention. In Manassas, Va., the city and the local power company partnered to offer residents and businesses broadband over power lines at faster-than-DSL speeds for $26.95 a month.

Last week, about 500 residents of Wake County, N.C., were offered high-speed Internet access over power lines through a joint venture of Raleigh, N.C.-based Progress Energy, Internet service provider EarthLink and gear maker Amperion. The project uses wireless fidelity, or WiFi, technology to make the connection between house and power line.

In rural Georgia and Alabama, Southern Power’s telecommunications division ran broadband over power lines as part of an experiment in high-speed "last mile" connectivity.

The cost to consumers can be more than 30 percent cheaper than DSL or cable-modem service, said Lance Rosen, co- founder and partner in Electric Broadband, a New York-based consulting firm that’s behind most of the U.S. pilot projects.

The technology has its share of skeptics, particularly those who see the future of electronic information sharing in wireless Internet access.

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PLUGGED INTO THE FUTURE

Communities with broadband-over-power-line pilot programs:

# Manassas, Va.

# Atlanta

# Allentown, Pa.

# Ossining, N.Y.

# St. Louis

# Boise, Idaho

# Wake County, N.C.

# Cottonwood, Ariz. (proposed)

At least a dozen power companies are testing the technology, including:

# City of Manassas, Va.

# Southern Power Co. of Atlanta

# American Electric Power of Columbus, Ohio

# New York-based Con Edison

# Pennsylvania Power & Light

# Ameren of St. Louis

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"It’s a great promise, but so far it hasn’t been delivered on as well as the WiFi promise has," TeleChoice analyst Patrick Hurley said. "That’s an issue for a power company that wants to get into this."

Plugging into electrical outlets sounds convenient, but for people who have already experienced wireless communication, it sounds like a step backward, he said.

"It isn’t as convenient as unplugging my laptop from the wall and sitting on the sofa with it or out on the patio with it," Hurley said.

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