Power company abandons BPL in favor of fiber

Last week, I posted a San Francisco Chronicle story reporting talks between El Dorado County's electric utility, PG&E and a provider of broadband over power lines (BPL) bogged down over money.

Here's a story from NRTC Update reporting that a municipally owned Tennessee electric company has opted not to pursue BPL, concluding it represented an inferior technology in the long run compared to a fiber optic-based system that rolls out in January.

Pulaski Electric System, a municipal electric power provider in rural Pulaski, TN, says it plans to begin offering triple-play (voice, video and broadband Internet) communications to its service area of 4,750 households by January 2007. The city of Pulaski is financing the fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network for the services through an $8.2 million bond measure. The group expects to exceed 50 percent penetration within the first three years. Greg Solomon, Pulaski Electric’s vice president and chief information officer, said the group made the decision to go with FTTH because the technology has matured to provide reliable service and the cost of fiber optic infrastructure is dropping to affordable levels. “Compared to the other technologies out there today and [considering] the bandwidth required for future applications, fiber to the home is the one we see as being the ultimate way to get to the customer,” Solomon said during an online presentation earlier today hosted by the Fiber to the Home Council. “We evaluated broadband over power line and it was more in its infancy then [in 2002] than fiber to the home was.” Pulaski Electric also evaluated hybrid fiber coaxial and fixed wireless approaches before deciding on FTTH, he said.