Manassas, Virginia was the first US city to see a real, non-trial launch of broadband over powerline (BPL) technology. The technology was praised by BPL vendors as a viable third pipe competitor, and a fairly unskeptical technology press often repeated the claim. However, BPL spent much of the latest decade floundering because of early implementations' inherent potential for interference with amateur and emergency radio. It was also made irrelevant in the face of next-generation broadband speeds, and the unavoidable fact that many utilities simply didn't want to be broadband providers.

After buying the flailing network from companies who once heralded it as proof BPL was a major broadband player, the city has spent a total of $1.6 million on it, and was pumping an additional $100,000 or so into the network every month. With city residents lured away by faster alternatives, leaders have had the network on life support for months. Now according to the ARRL the city this week finally decided to pull the plug as of July 1. The closure will impact just 520 local residents, which in and of itself kind of tells you what you need to know about BPL:It's unfortunate for Manassas, which was hailed by former FCC boss Michael Powell as the pinnacle of broadband achievement just five years ago. Those companies (like Comtek, who took an adversarial role against those worried about interference) have since moved on to pitch their hardware to energy utilities as part of smart energy networking solutions. Powell, who once called BPL the "great broadband hope," has since moved on to a life of highly paid work at telecom think tanks. The city however still sits nursing their wounds from a cash-guzzling network that promised ubiquitous connectivity, but almost immediately become entirely irrelevant.