The New York Times predicts that broadband over powerline is here, to stay. In Cincinnati, there are 7500 subscribers of the BPL service, about 15% of the homes with BPL access. Current Communications, says its planning to launch a VoIP service as well. To counter balance the Times’ eubilent point of view, a sobering report from The Morning Call, PPL Corp of Allentown, considered on of the early leaders in the BPL space is throwing in the towel and getting out of the BPL business. “The company came to the conclusion that it wasn’t profitable,” the daily reports and quotes spokesman Jim Santanasto as saying, ”The economies of scale wouldn’t work.” I am not sure if BPL will amount to anything more than a niche play, especially useful in areas ignored by cable and DSL providers.
I still don’t think it will ever get beyond the “live trial” stage. Makes me think of the old technology (I think developed by Lockheed-Martin) to distribute PCS over a cable tv plant. It was deployed in one cable network in CA and it worked. I think it is still active there, but it was never deployed anywhere else.