Cable and DSL have always had an advantage over Wireless and Satellite Internet due in part to the fact that the infrastructure was already in place in most houses to use the services. The cable networks are over 25 years old, and digital upgrades to phone lines have been ongoing for many years. There has however been a new type of service brewing that few people have taken seriously, and that’s BPL. BPL stand for Broadband over Power Lines, and it means just that. By plugging in a modem to any wall socket, a user can get broadband Internet access. This was small potatoes, but DirectTV intends to change that.

This month DirectTV has announced that it has signed a distribution agreement with the BPL provider Current Group to resell their service. With over 16 million satellite television customers, DirectTV is poised to make a big splash in the marketplace. The agreement will stay centered in the Dallas/Ft Worth area of Texas initially, but is written to allow expansion in the future. The offering will be available to the public in early 2008 and will include a VoIP offering as well.

BPL works in much the same way as traditional DSL Internet or Cable. Data packets are sent over power lines as opposed to telephone or cable lines; the data is converted and transmitted via routers. A BPL modem plugs into a wall socket and then into the computer via an Ethernet cable. This is similar to cable and DSL connections and requires no additional computer resources to function.

Current Group describes their existing BPL offering on their website as, “Best end-user experience: Consumers self-install their Internet access in minutes using a commercially available HomePlug® modem. They then have high-speed broadband access using existing electric wiring from any electrical outlet in their home."

This new technology is more than just a geeky new way to access the Internet, and much more than a marketing ploy to offer the same service in a new “box". Rural areas have long been forced to either use slow Dial-Up connections or install expensive satellite equipment coupled with large monthly bills. As BPL grows out of the obvious urban areas that it is being tested in, these users can expect to see a new alternative arriving quickly. The rural areas have had Internet troubles because the cost to extend existing infrastructure to them was too cost prohibitive for the providers. There simply weren’t enough users to justify the network growth required. BPL will use the power lines already in place, so this issue quickly disappears.

In many Sci-Fi movies when a family enters their house, they user voice commands to control almost every aspect of it. Lights come on, food starts cooking, and windows open and close all at the command of the user. This might not be too far fetched with the introduction of BPL. With BPL enabled computers, appliances, and other devices an entire house could become computer controlled, and the user could access their house from anywhere.