Our friends electric try broadband again

Five years after electricity firm Norweb tried and failed to commercially deliver 1Mbps internet access over power lines, rival firm Scottish Hydro-Electric has completed technical trials delivering access at twice the speed.

The company has been running the trials since last July, delivering speeds of up to 2Mbps over its power network.

Scottish Hydro-Electric is now planning two larger trials - one at a town in Scotland and one in southern England - to be up and running before the end of the year, according to telecoms infrastructure manager Antony Lowe.

Norweb's Digital Power Line technology was scrapped after being dogged by security issues: it had the potential to interfere with emergency services' radio and even suffered interference from street lights.

The new service could be made available to Scottish Hydro-Electric's three and a half million customers across northern Scotland and the south of England.

"What we have done so far is very much a technical trial. We like what the technology does, we are happy to see it on the power network, and there are no technical reasons why we can't deliver broadband as a product," said Lowe.

"Now we want to look at a market trial. If this goes well, and we see continued development on the commercial side, it could grow significantly."

The cost of rolling out telecoms infrastructure to sparse rural populations is hampering the availability of broadband in remote areas.

Power lines will not be the only answer to the digital divide, but could fill in some of the most serious gaps in coverage.

Electricity suppliers face high costs providing connections from local networks to the main fibre backbone, but the costs look more attractive than for traditional telecoms networks.

But with the firm targeting the high-end of the market with a 2Mbps service, the benefit to end users is more likely to be availability than reduced prices.

"The economics we have been looking at can deliver broadband to smaller communities than it would appear BT can," explained Lowe.

He suggested that broadband Britain will involve a patchwork of solutions.

"These will range from high-speed fibre to the home in core areas, out to satellite or leased lines in the most remote areas," explained Lowe.

"Power lines can definitely fill in a lot of the space between those two extremes."