News: "Broadband over power lines (BPL), made a giant leap- that BPL products will be available from big-box retailer Best Buy ~

BPL Sparks Best Buy

After a painfully slow start, high-speed broadband over power lines cracks big-box retail.
February 5, 2007
By Cassimir Medford


Broadband over power lines (BPL), a technology that has taken only baby steps in the United States, made a giant leap with the announcement Monday that BPL products will be available from big-box retailer Best Buy.

Best Buy For Business introduced ConnectedLife.Home, a technology package that targets small businesses and “prosumers” that has at its core video distribution products from Corinex Communications.

Corinex, a privately held company based in Vancouver, Canada, markets communications products that use electrical wiring or coaxial cable within the home to allow consumers to move video around the house.

The ConnectedLife.Home package is initially targeted at professional contractors that wire new homes, hotels, or multi-dwelling units, for instance, but it is also targeted at small businesses and prosumers.

Using either coax cable or electrical wiring, Corinex’s AnyWire system creates an in-home distribution network that operates at 200 megabits per second (Mbps).


‘Power lines go everywhere.’

-Brian Donnelly,

Corinex


Consumers will be able to stream TV around the home, from room to room or TV set to TV set, using the network, and with 200 Mbps consumers can stream HDTV video and movies with relative ease.

Business at Best Buy

Best Buy For Business is a three-year-old effort by the retailer to sell to small businesses. According to Jeff Dudash, a Best Buy spokesperson, Best Buy found that small businesses were buying products in the same manner as consumers.

So the retailer developed Best Buy For Business as a store within a store to address the needs of small businesses. Much like the retailer’s well-known Geek Squad, BBFB has its own counter within Best Buy stores.


Of Best Buy’s 812 stores nationwide, 300 include best Buy For Business counters.

“We started with this as a small business technology, but we believe this will be a consumer product so you may see this product introduced into general retail stores sometime this year,” said Mr. Dudash.

Wireless Rival

To date, BPL has been introduced in the U.S. as a technology rival to cable modems and DSL, so it has been delivered by BPL service providers such as ComTek and Current Communications.

There are some lower-speed in-home BPL products available in retail, but this is a first for high-speed BPL.

Corinex markets products to service providers such as Telefonica and Belgacom, as well as to companies focused on in-home networking to connect TVs, PCs, and other digital devices.

It is in that latter capacity that Corinex competes with other in-home networking systems, such as wireless systems marketed by Ruckus Wireless.

“We’ve seen 300 percent growth in our in-home business in the last couple of years,” said Brian Donnelly, vice president of marketing for Corinex. “Our systems are easier to setup and use than wireless systems, which are susceptible to interference in some places. Power lines go everywhere.”

The ConnectedLife.Home package sells for $15,000 and allows users to turn on the lights before they get home and record and watch different TV programs at the same time.

The package includes devices that support either coax or power lines. Initially consumers will need help in setting up the system.