Pennsylvania utility ends broadband Internet service

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA - It's lights out for PPL Corp.'s experiment to provide high-speed Internet access to residential customers.

The Lehigh Valley utility said it will end its residential market trial of broadband over electric power lines Oct. 31, affecting customers in Emmaus, Whitehall, Upper Macungie, Hanover Township and north Bethlehem.

David Kelley, president of PPL Telcom, the utility's telecommunications division, said competition and the need for a large customer base to be profitable influenced the decision to unplug the trial.

Since PPL began limited offerings of the technology to customers in 2003, high-speed Internet access has become more widely available and, in some cases, cheaper.

Verizon Communications Inc. this year began offering one package of its DSL service for $14.95 a month, substantially less than PPL Telcom's monthly charge of $37 a month.

Verizon's budget service is about half as fast as PPL Telcom's 1.5-megabit-per-second offering; Verizon also offers a $29.95 service that provides downloads of up to 3 megabits per second.

Broadband over power lines, also known as BPL, has drawn its share of critics. One of the biggest complaints is that the signals transmitted over power lines can interfere with the radios of public-safety forces. The signals can also interrupt transmissions of ham radio operators.

In an advisory to a recently issued report, analyst Rick Nicholson foreshadowed the PPL announcement.

"A lack of utility expertise in running commercially successful consumer telecom businesses and a poor track record of success, combined with utility reluctance to rapidly adopt new technologies, and competition from DSL, cable modems, and other emerging technologies will limit the growth of BPL," said Nicholson, vice president of research for Energy Insights in Framingham, Mass.

Still, dozens of BPL networks remain active in the United States. Pittsburgh-area utility Duquesne Light Co. began experimenting with such a network for residential customers in August.

Communication Technologies, Inc. of Chantilly, Va., is set to announce this week that a city it serves, Manassas, is the first to have city-wide coverage of broadband over power line.

PPL said it has notified the several hundred customers who use its service of the impending shutoff. It is offering them a $50 credit so they can sign up with another Internet service provider.

The utility also said it would continue providing a separate telecommunications service, leasing its high-capacity fiber-optic lines that lace the Mid-Atlantic.