FCC ruling sets stage for broadband surge
Broadband service may get a little broader in the next few years, now that the Federal Communications Commission is graciously stepping out of the way.
Last week, the agency laid out new rules that should give the big telecom companies a big incentive to build us a better network. In their most controversial move, the FCC said that phone companies can build high-speed fiber-optic lines to within 500 feet of customers' homes without having to share the new lines with rival companies.
That didn't thrill consumer advocates, who fear that companies such as Verizon Communications will seize monopoly control of our broadband access and hose us down with absurdly high prices. But today, most people don't have broadband at all. And one potential monopolist, SBC Communications, said that because of the FCC ruling, it would spend $6 billion in the next two or three years to build a fiber-based broadband network. SBC officials said that not having to share the network made the investment worthwhile. Sure, monopoly abuse is a worry. Let's worry about it once we've gotten the nation wired.
Of course, we're already wired with phone lines and TV cables, and the most popular broadband services piggyback on these old-fashioned networks. Then come the wires that make all the other wires possible--the electrical grid. You can send data over the electrical wires, too, by using electrical frequencies that presently go to waste. And if you're worried about monopolies, how about launching a whole batch of new broadband providers with the stroke of a pen?
That's what the FCC hopes to do with another of last week's decisions. Power utilities are now free to carry data on their electrical wires, using a technology called "broadband over power lines," or BPL. If the electrical companies embrace it, millions of consumers who now must choose between DSL and cable modem for broadband will get a third option. Because even remote parts of America have electricity, BPL could bring high-speed Internet service to those who've never had it. Its most optimistic supporters say that BPL could even help clean up the air and lower our electric bills.
For now, most of us will settle for fast, cheap Internet access, but moving the Internet over power lines is quite a challenge. Forget about injecting the data right at the power plant, where the big cables are energized with hundreds of thousands of volts. This high-voltage juice is too "dirty," tainted by random fluctuations that wouldn't matter much to a washing machine but would ravage an e-mail message.
Instead, the data are added farther down the line, after the power distribution system has knocked the power down to 7,000 volts or so. Today's BPL chips can cope with this voltage, and deliver a clean data stream. The data can now be distributed to any home or business with lights on.
It's possible to run the data signal directly onto the household wiring, but that's not the method being used in Agawam, where Western Massachusetts Electric Co. has launched a test of BPL technology. "We did not necessarily want to use the wires going into the house," said spokeswoman Nancy Creed. Wiring quality can vary from building to building, and rooting around in somebody's house boosts installation costs. Instead, the utility feeds the data to WiFi wireless data routers mounted on electric poles. The routers beam the data into nearby homes.
The hardware for the Agawam trial is made by Amperion Inc. of Andover. CEO Philip Hunt says that he's working with a host of utility and telecommunications companies that want to piggyback data onto the electrical grid. "I think we have something like 25 separate entities as customers," he said. With the FCC ruling, he expects to gain many more.
Never mind the claims that most of America is already wired. Hunt says his own company sits in an industrial park with no cable access. Lots of other homes and businesses are too far away from the phone company office to get DSL signals, which can't travel more than three miles. "These kinds of mismatches in a city are market enough for us," he said.
And then there are the millions living in small towns and rural areas, where cable and DSL will never be available. Hunt says that Amperion's current gear can deliver 20 megabits of data to the lamppost, with a 100-megabit version due out next year. And because the utility won't have to string a lot of new cables, Hunt figures it could sell this kind of service for $19 a month and still turn a profit.
The utility can make still more money by using the data network to operate more efficiently. It can install electric meters that read themselves or electrical switchgear that diagnose maintenance problems and send an e-mail to headquarters before there's a blackout. Systems like these could save millions in labor and repair costs and hold our rates down.
And if you combine a smart electrical grid with smart electrical devices, utilities would be able to manage customers' demand for electricity. Imagine a big office building whose owners get a lower electric rate in exchange for letting the utility control their electrical use. The building's key electrical systems--air conditioning, heating, lighting -- could all talk to the utility over the power grid. On a hot day, with power demand soaring, the power company could inch up the building's thermostat from 70 to 75 and shut off half the fluorescent lights on every other floor. Multiply this by thousands of buildings, and you could save enough juice to skip that new power plant. That's millions of dollars saved, and millions of tons of filthy coal unburnt.
It's all pie-in-the-sky stuff, of course, and years away. Just like Internet retailing a decade ago. But it all got quite a bit closer last week, as the feds sagely stepped aside.
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.
