NRTC STUDY A SETBACK FOR RURAL UTILITIES’EMBRACE OF BPL

摘要

A soon-to-be-released National Rural Telecom Co-op (NRTC) study concluded broadband over powerline (BPL) technology isn’t appropriate for “sparsely-populated rural” broadband and utility applications. This disputes a BPL advantage touted by industry, which says BPL can bring broadband to rural and underserved communities that aren’t reached by DSL or cable modem, because power lines reach virtually every household. NRTC undertook 2 pilots with West Fla. Electric Co-op and Southern Md. Electric Co-op to test BPL’s performance on rural feeders, with emphasis on speed, latency and network functionality. The Fla. trial was discontinued because the vendor had trouble delivering equipment. The Md. trial, with equipment provided by Current Technologies, which has rolled out commercial BPL in Cincinnati, proved to be work only a mile or 2 in length, Steve Collier, NRTC vp-emerging technologies, told us. Collier said the BPL signal could be repeated only twice on the rural line and “after that it basically is not particularly usable in bandwidth or network management.”