By Marguerite Reardon
CNET News.com
March 2, 2004, 8:30 AM PT

One of the largest Midwestern power companies announced on Tuesday a joint venture with a privately held startup to provide Internet access directly to consumers through power sockets in their homes.

Current Communications Group and Cinergy Broadband, a subsidiary of a Midwestern utility with the same name, announced on Tuesday one of the first large-scale rollouts of broadband over power line (BPL) technology in the United States. The service promises lower prices and more convenience by allowing consumers to access the Internet simply by plugging into an electrical outlet in their house.

The joint venture will offer Cinergy's 1.5 million power customers in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky a bundle of broadband and voice services. It will also deploy BPL to smaller municipal and cooperatively owned power companies covering 24 million customers across the United States. The rollout of the service is currently underway in the Cincinnati area after 14 months of trials.

The concept of using power lines to access the Internet has been around for years. Because electricity travels at a lower frequency than Internet signals, the two can co-exist on the same line without interference.

Power lines are also an attractive broadband delivery system because they are already in place and reach more homes than either cable systems or telephone lines. But the technology has yet to catch on because of technical issues and the expense of delivering services.

Continued @ ZDNET