Posted on: Tuesday, November 9, 2004

HECO will test broadband service via power lines

By Sean Hao
Advertiser Staff Writer

Hawaiian Electric Co. next year will conduct a large-scale demonstration of technology to deliver new services, including high-speed Internet, via power lines.

About 100 homes in Pearl City will test the so-called broadband power line technology.

For HECO, the technology offers the ability to read electricity meters remotely and monitor its electricity network.

For consumers the technology also could provide a high-speed Internet alternative to cable and digital subscriber line Internet providers.

"The primary driver for utilities is what we call enhanced utility services," said Jay Birnbaum, vice president for Current Communications Group, a Germantown, Md.-based broadband power line technology and services provider working with HECO on the project.

In addition to increased reliability from improved failure detection, broadband systems could offer utilities the ability to establish different electricity rates for different times of the day, Birnbaum said.

Pearl City customers selected for the technology trial will face no added charges, said Lynne Unemori, Hawaiian Electric Co. spokeswoman. The idea is to test the technology over both overhead and underground power lines.

Broadband Internet service also will be provided, though that won't be HECO's focus.

"It could be used for that," Unemori said. "For HECO, improving service to our customers as an electric utility is kind of where we're focusing."

HECO said it had no time frame for any commercial use to its 275,000 customers. It has been testing the new technology at 10 homes in McCully for the past two years.

"It's a new kind of thing," Unemori said. "We'll take it one step at a time.

"As far as we're concerned, we're still doing the technology trials."

So far power line-based broadband services are available to relatively few homes nationwide. Current Communications plans through a joint venture with Cincinnati-based Cinergy Corp. to provide broadband power line service to 40,000 to 50,000 homes in southwest Ohio by year's end with the goal of signing-up 250,000 homes in three years, Birnbaum said.

Eventually the technology could be a third major entrant providing high-speed Internet connections to the home, along with telephone and cable lines.

"Broadband power lines, as an industry, our goal is to be a competing third-line business — competing head-to-head with cable and DSL," Birnbaum said.

Reach Sean Hao at 525-8093 or shao@honoluluadvertiser.com.