IBM, IBEC Partner to Bring BPL to Rural East Coast Residents
IBM and International Broadband Electric Communications (IBEC) signed a $9.6 billion agreement to have IBM install broadband over power line networks at electric cooperatives throughout the eastern U.S., IBM said. The project focuses on providing broadband services to rural residents.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
With 900 electric cooperatives in the U.S. providing 45 percent of the total electric grid and covering 75 percent of the nation’s land mass, IBM will leverage existing power lines to use BPL in an inexpensive deployment of broadband access, said Director of Advanced Networks Ray Blair. The deal is the first to deploy BPL through electric cooperatives, Blair said. Careful engineering should help IBM or IBEC avoid snags, he said. Demands on rural broadband aren’t as high as in urban areas because there will be no commercial use, Blair said.
IBM will manage the project, with IBEC providing BPL technology and serving as Internet service provider to rural residents, Blair said. “This is an emotional issue for rural residents,” he said. “They are very upset that they don’t get the same service as people in urban and suburban settings.” IBEC now uses 18 electric coops’ power lines in the eastern U.S. If those efforts succeed, a western push will follow.
IBEC owns the network and is using coops’ lines, rather than those of major utilities, so the collaborators face little state regulation, Blair said. Their only state mandates are to comply with installation and safety standards, he said.
Lessened regulation partly justifies the coop approach, but that path’s real benefit is the ease of reaching rural residents, said United Power Line Council Director of Regulatory Services Brett Kilbourne. Given coops’ presence, and dial-up being rural residents’ only Internet option, the IBEC BPL deployment will reach a market starving for speedier Web services, Kilbourne said.
Yankee Group analyst Vince Vitori agreed that rural electric coops will be key to the IBM-IBEC plan’s success. It’s all about location, he said. Country people have few options other than satellite, which is expensive, and dial- up, which is slow. Using electric coop lines is the best way to deliver broadband to bring them the online speed they need, he said.