Austin, Texas looks at BROADBAND over POWER LINES

Austin Business Journal - 10:20 AM CDT Friday
The dot-com boom has come and gone, but the City of Austin wants to get into the Internet business.

At yesterday's city council meeting, the council approved a $317,500 proposal to pay a Virginia outfit called GTSI Corp. (Nasdaq: GTSI) to do a technical trial to design, build, and operate a system to provide broadband Internet service over the city's power grid.

The technology, which uses ancient-history power lines to deliver high-speed Internet signals, is called Broadband over Power Lines, or BPL.

BPL works by coupling radio energy onto power lines and distributing that into homes. A device in the home plugs into a normal wall outlet and provides an ethernet connection to a computer or home network.

The six month trial period will run from Aug. 1 to Feb. 1, 2007.

The contract will cost $250,000, with three 90-day extention options for $22,500 each.



BROADBAND over POWER LINES: new 200 Mbps Technology !!!