My brother has been waiting for this for some time… high speed internet over electric power lines. It’s coming, bro!
BURNET — High-speed Internet service is coming to about 120 homes in this town of 5,000 using a novel technology that connects residents to the Web through power lines.
Broadband Horizons, which provides Internet access to about 6,000 customers in rural parts of Central Texas, is paying most of the estimated $50,000 cost to install a network in a neighborhood of Burnet, about 40 miles northwest of Austin.
Once the system is in place, scheduled by year end, they say that houses will connect by plugging a simple modem device into a wall socket.
Companies have been trying to develop the technology — called broadband over power line, or BPL — for nearly a decade, and now the technology is being tested in a few places. The city-owned electric utility in Manassas, Va., launched a pilot project last fall. Ohio-based Cinergy Corp. is also testing a system.
In theory, electric current runs along power lines at low frequencies and doesn’t interfere with Internet signals at much higher frequencies. Advocates say the technology would be a cheaper way to wire rural towns like Burnet.
Bob McClung, a Blanco entrepreneur, believes he could provide broadband service for about $30 a month with the cooperation of public and private electric utilities. He told the Austin American-Statesman that the technology could be much more common within a few years.
Chasing the Wind 
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