This is being made possible by the establishment of local BPL -- broadband over power line -- networks by a partnership that includes IBM, IBEC (an Internet Service Provider) and seven rural based customer owned nonprofit electricity co-operatives.
All a person apparently requires is a modem that plugs into existing electrical outlets in a home or business.
"The electricity grid is the largest network in the world. For us to be able to piggyback off that circuitry and provide signals to people who can't get it is a great alternative."
Blair is referring to how rural America up to now has been out of bounds for Internet services beyond dial up because the major telephone and cable companies find it is too expensive to offer broadband in sparsely populated regions outside the cities.
One estimate from IBM is that nearly 45 per cent of Americans, primarily in the rural areas, do not have broadband.
All this is changing as the new US administration seeks to invest $7.2-billion in the form of grants and loans to expand broadband access to rural communities as part of its immense economic stimulus package.
Scott Lee, chief executive officer at IBEC, drew parallels to the economic depression of 1930s when rural co-ops began to provide power in communities with the assistance of President Franklin Roosevelt's administration. "The electric co-operatives are a unique animal itself. All of them born in the 1930s when rural America had no electric power."
These nonprofit bodies have since expanded to offer such services as water, sewage, gas, garbage pick up and security for their members in non-urban areas which have historically been bypassed by commercial providers that saw greater economic opportunity in the densely populated cities, he stated.
The US department of agriculture has been offering low interest rural broadband access loans to small communities. However the current US government's new stimulus "brings to the forefront a tremendous opportunity to move much quicker," stated Lee.
IBEC (International Broadband Electric Communications) is the developer of the BPL and provides under contract all of the equipment, service, support, maintenance for Internet access to a host of rural communities through their co-ops.
Deployment Strategies
The alliance with IBM came about because IBEC lacked the resources to undertake a major deployment of BPLs across the country in a timely fashion in perhaps 30 or 40 locations, stated Lee."[The deployment] requires someone who understands electrical networking as well as IT networking and also project management. IBM is critical to our success in being able to go to market quickly."
Blair at IBM noted that there is a lot of detailed work in the BPL installation such as ensuring that every power line pole is set up in the correct location in sometimes difficult to access geographical spots that might include hills, trees and swamps on or off a farmer's property.
"The poles may be in someone's backyards and you may have to get permission to get on there. Or sometimes the poles are in a swamp and you can't get a truck out."
The goal by IBM and IBEC is to have close to 200 co-ops signed up over the next couple of years in what will be large and complex undertakings for all concerned, stated Blair.
Up to now the "sweet spot" has been those rural communities with eight to 15 people per linear mile, the
IBM spokesperson continued. "Anything below that, they can't money."
The new US government's stimulus package makes it more affordable for the BPL providers to extend their service to areas with less than eight customers per linear mile, Blair noted.
But communities with one or two customers per linear mile are still remain off limits even with Washington's subsidy because of the expensed involved for IBM and IBEC in servicing such sparsely populated areas, he continued.
In addition the new BPL deployments must be more robust than the standard computer hardware equipment which tends to become obsolete and get replaced every three years.
"You can't do that on a power company. If they are looking at putting something on a pole, they are not going to take it off for at least for 20 years," stated Blair.
The targeted rural communities are being offered three basic broadband services based on speed -- $29.95 for 378K, $49.95 for one megabyte and $89.95 for three megabyte.
Broadband speed in the US generally including the urban areas tends to be three to six megabytes, stated Charlie Arteaga, IBM's chief network architect for BPL
"Most average users are well served with three to six megabytes. Even in other technologies -- e.g. fiber to the home -- for broadband services the most that I'm aware of is 100 Mb which is available in Korea and Japan."
Photo by Gabriel Allon. CC Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic
