BPL to let Dallas plug right into Net

Dallas is U.S.' largest test market for Net straight from the socket

10:58 PM CST on Monday, November 19, 2007
By ANDREW D. SMITH / The Dallas Morning News
asmith@dallasnews.com

It weighs less than a hardback book and works from any electrical outlet. If you want to use your laptop in the upstairs bedroom rather than the downstairs study, you can move it as easily as you can a nightlight.

It's a new type of modem that will allow folks in 128,000 Dallas homes access to the Internet through their power lines, reportedly by the end of the year. It's also a major selling point for Current Communications, the company that's building the infrastructure and looking for partners to market it to consumers.

In addition to being the largest domestic test of the "smart grid" technology that may boost power reliability and slash usage, Current's project dwarfs other American efforts to deploy broadband over power lines, or BPL.Dallas residents who live inside Current's footprint will soon have more Internet options than almost any other Americans.

Better still, with Sprint Nextel planning to launch a WiMax network here next year, existing service providers will feel more pressure to boost speeds, cut prices and develop innovative products such as the portable modem.

"Being able to move your connection point is one of the biggest advantages to getting Internet through power lines," said Greg Hormon, vice president and general manager at Current.

"Houses have a lot more electrical outlets than phone jacks or cable sockets, and because the modems pull power from the same sockets they use for Internet access, you don't have to fuss with any wires," Mr. Hormon said.

DirecTV, which announced its plans to sell Current's BPL to customers here in August, still says it's on track for a 2007 launch but declined to discuss prices and other specifics.

Analysts say BPL will have to be cheaper than existing options to win converts.


Demo home

Current, meanwhile, has set up a demonstration home in the M Streets neighborhood to attract other retail partners.

"We want to form enough partnerships so that everyone who lives inside the service area can buy BPL," said Rosemary McMahill, Current's director of regulatory affairs.

"Some people will get it from DirecTV. Some will get it from their power company. Some will get it from other partners."

The technology behind BPL dates back more than a decade, when boosters thought it would provide an affordable way to bring fast Internet everywhere, especially in rural areas that don't get it from cable or phone companies.

Utilities in China, Russia and other countries have begun to translate such dreams into reality, but the design of America's electric grids has limited the spread of BPL to a handful of experiments and Current's 50,000-home network in Cincinnati.

BPL networks won't work unless power companies install new equipment at every transformer – not a big deal in countries where each transformer serves 100 homes but costly in the United States, where each transformer serves five to 10 houses.

The service also requires new energy meters at every home.

The cost of installing the first 300,000 meters around Dallas is expected to run about $450 million.

Current won't say how much it will cost to upgrade the lines serving all those homes, nor will it estimate the total cost of eventually bringing BPL to more than 2 million area homes.

"The Dallas project is the big test of whether smart grids and BPL make financial sense in America, and that's very good news for people in Dallas," said Chuck Newton, president of the Newton-Evans Research Co.

Many observers expect success in Dallas because BPL technology generates two revenue streams – the money consumers spend on fast Internet, plus the money the power company saves by automating labor-intensive services.


Pluses for Oncor

Oncor, the regulated power-line unit of Energy Future Holdings, will get instant feedback on grid performance and home energy consumption throughout Current's smart grid.

That information will allow the company to find and repair problems instantly and nearly eliminate meter readers.

Total savings could exceed the cost of BPL installation.

"I'd guess that when Oncor sees the savings from the initial rollout, it's going to have Current move full speed ahead to wire the rest of its territory, and a lot of other power companies will follow suit," said Gary Sorkin, associate editor of the trade publication BPL Today.

"A lot of different factors are coming together to make this technology take off quickly. ... It won't be that many more years till BPL moves out of the 'other' category in broadband surveys and becomes an option for a lot of consumers."

Current's existing technology supports download and upload speeds around 8 megabits per second.

That's faster than anything else available to Dallas residents, though not as fast as the Fios service that Verizon offers in many northern suburbs.

Such speeds can easily deliver telephone service, but they're not quite fast enough to deliver high-quality live television.

That may change, however, as video compression improves and Current upgrades the software that drives its system.


Serious rival

While broadband providers gear up for competition from Current and its retail partners, all of them must also plan for another serious competitor, the cellular carrier Sprint Nextel.

Sprint announced last week that it had scrapped plans to build a nationwide WiMax network with Clearwire Corp., but the company says it's still on track to deploy WiMax in Dallas and several other big cities next year.

Tests of its WiMax network in Chicago show download speeds around 8 megabits per second and upload speeds around 1 megabit per second.

That's about as fast as cable service is now, and it's faster than most DSL connections.

The Sprint service would be completely wireless, so customers could use it anywhere in the region.

"The broadband world is changing incredibly fast," Mr. Sorkin said, "and Dallas seems to be out ahead of other places."


ROLLING OUT BPL

Where is broadband over power lines available?

Nowhere yet, but Current has wired more than 110,000 houses in the M Streets and surrounding neighborhoods. Homes need new power meters to use BPL, so if you live in that area and have a new meter, you're probably in the footprint. If you have the same meter you've had for years, your home is not wired for BPL yet.

Can I call Current to get BPL?

No. Current isn't selling fast Internet directly to consumers. It will sell its capacity through experienced retailers. DirecTV is the only partner that Current has announced so far, but it is working to sign up others, especially power companies. Such partnerships would let consumers buy fast Internet and electricity on the same bill.

When can I actually get this?

DirecTV says it's on track to begin selling BPL by year-end, so existing customers who live inside the BPL zone will probably see offers soon. Folks who live inside the footprint but don't want to do business with DirecTV will have to wait for Current to find other retailers.