Keeping Current on Broadband over Power Line

Michael Harris

July 11, 2005

1 Min Read
Keeping Current on Broadband over Power Line

According to news reports, last week Broadband over Power Line (BPL) service provider Current Communications Group landed investments totaling about $100 million from Goldman Sachs, Google and Hearst Corp. It's a nice chunk of change, but is it too little, too late? Together, North American cable operators and phone companies now count more than 40 million residential broadband Internet customers. That is a formidable market footprint. Current, of course, is working to empower electric utilities to deliver broadband services over their power lines. The company's solution only supports up to 3 Mbps today, a rate soon to be dwarfed by cable, DSL and fiber offerings. And Current has yet to ramp up truly large scale deployments. Current's much-touted rollout with Cincinnati-based Cinergy Corp. is only on track to pass 250,000 marketable homes by the end of 2005, less than 20% of the utility's footprint.

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