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Electric companies plug homes into the Internet
Brussels, June 12: Electricity companies want to give fresh meaning to the words plug-and-play by sending high speed Internet to the wall sockets in your home.
Brussels, June 12: Electricity companies want to give fresh meaning to the words plug-and-play by sending high speed Internet to the wall sockets in your home.
The first world conference of electric companies, equipment makers and others gathered for a day this week in efforts to make the Internet even more ubiquitous by channeling it through power lines into homes.
"Within minutes of opening the box, the customer can be on the Internet," Keith McLean, who heads the Internet project for Scottish and Southern Energy in Perth, Scotland, said late on Tuesday.
The modem plugs into the wall, then the computer. No extra software is needed. The three dozen players who attended the Power Line Communications meeting from Europe, Japan and the United States hope for big growth, although obstacles remain.
So far, Scottish and Southern has run a pilot project of 200 people using the system. It is about to launch a new test system to serve 15,000 people in limited areas at 29.99 pounds ($50) a month.
At first blush, the advantages of the electric Internet system seem considerable.
For one thing, it neatly avoids the "last mile" problem which has stymied high speed Internet competition across Europe.
Competitors have made little progress against established phone companies who they say make life tough by charging too much to use the copper telephone wires which go into homes.
The European Commission has joined the fray, going so far as to fine Deutsche Telekom, but it says the market is still largely closed.
Electricity companies have their own last mile of copper into every home, including parts of eastern Europe where home phones are far from universal.
And the companies reach rural areas too expensive to be connected to high speed ADSL running on telephone lines and too remote for cable TV operators to reach. Power companies have monthly billing and are established.
"We can compete with ADSL," said Marcos Lopez Ruiz of Madrid, president of the Public Utilities Alliance. Ruiz says the companies can make money with one home in 10 or fewer subscribing, about the same as ADSL and better than cable.
And the speed is faster than most ADSL, with power company Internet sending the Web in and out of homes at one million bits per second or higher.
Bureau Report
The first world conference of electric companies, equipment makers and others gathered for a day this week in efforts to make the Internet even more ubiquitous by channeling it through power lines into homes.
"Within minutes of opening the box, the customer can be on the Internet," Keith McLean, who heads the Internet project for Scottish and Southern Energy in Perth, Scotland, said late on Tuesday.
The modem plugs into the wall, then the computer. No extra software is needed. The three dozen players who attended the Power Line Communications meeting from Europe, Japan and the United States hope for big growth, although obstacles remain.
So far, Scottish and Southern has run a pilot project of 200 people using the system. It is about to launch a new test system to serve 15,000 people in limited areas at 29.99 pounds ($50) a month.
At first blush, the advantages of the electric Internet system seem considerable.
For one thing, it neatly avoids the "last mile" problem which has stymied high speed Internet competition across Europe.
Competitors have made little progress against established phone companies who they say make life tough by charging too much to use the copper telephone wires which go into homes.
The European Commission has joined the fray, going so far as to fine Deutsche Telekom, but it says the market is still largely closed.
Electricity companies have their own last mile of copper into every home, including parts of eastern Europe where home phones are far from universal.
And the companies reach rural areas too expensive to be connected to high speed ADSL running on telephone lines and too remote for cable TV operators to reach. Power companies have monthly billing and are established.
"We can compete with ADSL," said Marcos Lopez Ruiz of Madrid, president of the Public Utilities Alliance. Ruiz says the companies can make money with one home in 10 or fewer subscribing, about the same as ADSL and better than cable.
And the speed is faster than most ADSL, with power company Internet sending the Web in and out of homes at one million bits per second or higher.
Bureau Report