THE TECHNOLOGY
Evidently, the cost of this initiative has been underestimated. Traditional technologies would require costly infrastructure build-outs into sparsely populated areas where any return on investment would be prohibitive. Cable, fiber and even wireless systems are both labor and material intensive builds. Satellite upgrade requires costly launches and extremely expensive transmission equipment both in orbit and to the end user.
A search of first round applications for funding reveals that 99% of the requests were for traditional build-outs. There is, however, a newer untraditional technology that seems to have been neglected in the rush of deadlines. Broadband over Power Line Internet access (BPL) has come of age. Development has had its challenges, however, BPL now has the capacity, speed, and quality of service equal to or better than traditional technologies. BPL now has a solution to radio interference issues that have plagued development for so long. BPL utilizes the electric utilities power grid for transmission and requires a relatively small investment for equipment to inject, repeat, bridge, and extract the signal. BPL adds value to the power grid infrastructure. BPL deployment compliments “Smart Grid” upgrades and can even be designed to contribute funding to such upgrades. BPL has the capability to extend directly into homes and businesses where any device or appliance that utilizes an Internet Protocol can connect through standard electric wall outlets. Current BPL systems regularly offer broadband services at half the price of legacy technologies. BPL networks are easily inserted in or in between or beyond incumbent networks in a way that will not infringe on a territory served by legacy providers.
Evidently, only two organizations submitted only ten applications utilizing BPL technology. They were apparently able to team up with the electric utilities to come up with a solution. The applications cover a vast area of unserved and underserved geography in the South into the Southwestern and Great Lakes states. They are requesting about $250 million in funding. They project the creation of over 2000 jobs to complete the projects and hundreds of jobs to maintain the systems. They have an excellent chance of getting funded.
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