'Third' wire to bring broadband to rural areas

Wednesday, 04/16/03    |    Middle Tennessee News & Information By KEITH RUSSELL <a href=www.tennessean.com>tennessean.comStaff Writer

Six years ago, passing motorists would spot Wayne Sanderson tinkering with the electric power lines along Interstate 65 and report his suspicious activity to Nashville Electric Service officials.

Today, that initial tinkering has the former Nashville Tech electrical engineering professor helping lead an Alabama company on the cusp of delivering high-speed Internet service directly over electric power lines.

The technology has long been considered a sort of Holy Grail — a ''third'' wire that could expand broadband service into rural areas where cable and digital subscriber line, or DSL, providers don't reach.

Among the concept's biggest fans is Michael Powell, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

''This is within striking distance of being the third major broadband pipe into the home,'' Powell was quoted as saying last week at a demonstration of the technology in Maryland.

And Sanderson's PowerComm, based in Huntsville, Ala., is right in the thick of it. Earlier this year, the company began its first field test, a project to offer broadband service at speeds similar to DSL along power lines to a small residential subdivision in Cullman, Ala.

Oversimplified, Internet traffic is sent along the power lines using parts of the electromagnetic spectrum not used for other purposes, such as radio and TV signals. The content, whether it's a piece of data, video or a phone call, then makes its way to a PowerComm customer using a modem. Eventually, the company expects to be able to allow a customer to connect to the Internet by literally plugging into a wall outlet.

If all goes well, PowerComm hopes to launch service in northern Alabama and other Southeastern communities served by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Utilities could either offer the service directly to customers, or partner with an existing Internet service provider.

Initial monthly service in Cullman is expected to cost about $30, but PowerComm officials believe they may eventually get that down to $20.

No Middle Tennessee utilities are close to offering the service, but some are interested to see how the field tests pan out. Larry Kirk, general manager at Murfreesboro Electric, recently sat in on a presentation Sanderson made to the local chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

''That's an issue we're very interested in,'' Kirk said. ''Hopefully they can get it perfected.''

NES officials are also watching the developments with interest, though the utility has no active plans to get into the broadband business.

''We're certainly interested in it from an NES standpoint, both for our customers' use and our own internal use,'' said Leonard Leech, chief engineer for NES.

Leech added that NES wasn't necessarily inclined to use its power grid to get into the Internet business.

Rather, the utility is interested in being an ''enabler'' by helping spread broadband service to areas where it isn't available.

''We'd like to make sure that whatever needs to happen as far as economic development, that we appropriately use our infrastructure to the maximum advantage of citizens.''

Leech has actually been a longtime supporter of Sanderson and PowerComm, which was started after Sanderson, a Nashville native, was laid off from his job in the mid-1990s as an engineer at telecommunications equipment maker Motorola. He was teaching at Nashville Tech but was interested in doing something more.

''Motorola downsized, and I decided to do something more entrepreneurial,'' Sanderson recalled.

Finding a way to deliver broadband over power lines intrigued him. The concept had been tried in the early 1990s in Europe but never took off.

Sanderson called Leech and received the utility's blessing to work on the project using the local power grid.

Subsequent testing was conducting on power lines in Sanderson's hometown of Fayetteville, Tenn.

In 2001, Sanderson partnered with Steve Turner, a former colleague at Motorola, to found PowerComm.

While starting in small Cullman, about a three-hour drive from Nashville, Turner believes the potential for offering broadband over power lines is literally global in scale. As proof, Turner notes PowerComm has already been contacted by utilities in China, Malaysia, Venezuela, India, Ukraine and the Czech Republic.

''The market is so huge,'' said Turner, PowerComm's president and chief executive officer, ''and there is a relatively small number of people who are finding a way to do this.''

The technology also has non-consumer uses, ranging from allowing utilities to electronically read meters to helping protect the homeland from terrorist threats. Already, Turner said PowerComm is working to deploy video cameras attached to power lines that can help customers keep an eye on critical infrastructure, such as hydroelectric dams.

Despite the opportunities, longtime observers of efforts to introduce high-speed Internet services on power lines say a dose of caution is in order. Not the least of which is that companies still must prove the technology actually works.

''I definitely think power line has the potential to be very revolutionary, but it is technology that is still relatively unproven,'' said Seth Libby, an analyst with the Yankee Group research firm.