BPL to the rescue?

Broadband over Powerline (BPL) is an emerging technology that has great potential for enabling all forms of service providers to offer robust products and services. Unfortunately, competition from cable modems, DSL, and wireless broadband along with the poor track record of success stories have curbed the enthusiasm for many ambitious BPL business plans.

Enter “Virtual Dark Fiber,” a new concept that makes power lines throughout the world analogous to dark fiber that needs to be “lit” by BPL equipment. This “virtual dark fiber” approach to the communications market gives local power companies dark fiber inventory throughout the world.

Once a customer purchases an Indefeasible Right to Use (IRU) between two points, the IRU owner rather than the power company invests in the infrastructure required to deploy high-speed data connectivity. The concept is simple: Rather than spend money deploying large-scale BPL solutions to provide residential broadband, the power companies should simply publish their inventory of power lines and sell the rights to use these lines for point-to-point BPL solutions.

By Dr. Robert C. Raciti

Full Story: http://www.americasnetwork.com/americasnetwork/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=370992