Deloitte Telecom SIG: Word of the Day: Broadband over Powerline (BPL)

In the News Today:
Since the federal government as set aside an estimated $7.2 Billion in funding to bring broadband to underserved areas, telecom companies are rushing to meet the August 14th deadline to apply. 1 company in particular, International Broadband Electric Communications (IBEC) located in Huntsville, Alabama is hoping to secure a piece of this funding to further push their technology offering known as Broadband over Powerline or “BPL”. Today we will discuss further what BPL entails and how, although it is a viable technology, it’s very expensive to implement and maintain.

For more information on how companies are responding to the August 14th application deadline for part of the money granted by American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009, check out the following URL:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32284073/ns/business-businessweekcom/#storyContinued

Broadband over Powerline (BPL): the contemporary and updated version of Powerline Carrier (PLC), a means for sending and receiving voice and data over electric utility power lines. PLC has been used for many years by electric utilities for low speed data communications applications such as telemetry and control between power plants and substations. PLC also has long been used by telephone companies to provide voice service to extremely remote subscribers who have electric service but for whom the construction costs associated with telco local loops would be prohibitively expensive. BPL can be broken into two component technologies: Access BPL and In-House BPL

We will continue to explore these technologies throughout the week…for now, refer to the below illustration for a reference on how BPL delivers voice/data to households