Broadband Internet Over Power Lines: Is BPL a Profitable Technology for Investors?

Broadband internet over Power Lines came into a lot of Buzz in 1999 when Luke Stewart out of Dallas Texas made his story known to Texas Monthly Magazine. This blurb in Texas Monthly even suggested at the end of the article that investors could call the company to invest in this apparently highly profitable business. The problem was that this Buzz generated by Luke Stewart was superficial and primarily used to bilk several million dollars from investors who thought they were giving their money to a real inventor and business entrepreneur.

Over the years true BPL scientific articles and organizations came out of the wood work and gave unbiased information about the state of the industry and the potential likelihood of this technology seeing the light of day. What the legitimate sources are saying is that the technology is viable but it is too expensive to compete with what is already out there. It would cost about $500 a home to retrofit with the needed connectivity devices to use this technology. Because of the expense it makes much more sense to use this technology in locations such as 3rd world countries that do not yet have broadband infrastructure in place but do have power lines. This would allow the less fortunate to become educated and learn things they would otherwise never be able to do.

The way this technology would work is to simply carry data over the existing power line cables and into the electric wall outlet. There would be a modem device on the wall outlet that would receive the data and transmit and receive from the computer. Repeaters would need to be attached next to each transformer on the power lines in order to receive and transmit the signal else it is lost. These repeaters are what would end up making the cost of this technology too expensive to compete with current DSL and Cable internet technologies. DirectTV is currently working hard to test and achieve a competitive version of this technology to compete with Cable TV. The chance of these tests passing the cost criteria is slim. These types of tests have been done for years with no actual profitable implementation taking place.

For now Electric Utility companies are the only companies taking advantage of this technology. The way they do this is by sending data over the power lines in the form of meter reading data. By sending real time data over the power lines they can effectively determine accurate measurements of when and how a business or residence is using their energy and reward them for their efficiency in the use of the energy.