- DALLAS (AP) The utility
TXU Corp. said Monday it will offer high-speed Internet service over power
lines to several million Texans as part of a $150 million project aimed
at improving its ability to monitor the power grid.
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- The "smart grid" buildout will enable what
would be the nation's largest broadband-over-power line Internet rollout.
The 10-year partnership with Current Communications Group Inc., a privately
held company in Germantown, Md., is not, however, expected to yield residential
Internet service until the second half of 2006.
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- Once completed, the grid will let TXU check meter consumption
remotely and pinpoint problems before they become major blackouts.
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- TXU spokesman Chris Schein said Internet access was secondary
to the smart grid capabilities.
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- "We really believe that what end users are going
to appreciate is when the spring storms hit and they don't have an outage,"
he said. "Or if they do have an outage, it's not as long as it was."
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- Construction on the smart grid system will begin early
next year along TXU's 14,000 miles of transmission lines and 100,000 miles
of distribution lines.
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- The deal gives Current access to more than 2 million
business and residential customers, mostly in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
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- Proponents say broadband-over-power line technology,
or BPL, could be especially significant for rural areas, where high-speed
Internet access has lagged due to the higher costs to telecommunications
and cable companies of serving sparsely populated areas.
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- Though pricing and download speeds haven't been finalized,
Current vice president Jay Birnbaum expects to compete directly with cable
and DSL providers. BPL moves data at roughly the same speeds as cable or
DSL lines.
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- Current's only existing widespread availability is through
Cinergy Corp. in Cincinnati, where it charges between $20 to $45 monthly
for Internet speeds of up to 3 megabits per second. Birnbaum wouldn't provide
subscriber numbers but said the service was available to about 50,000 customers
in Ohio.
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- Current, which counts Google Inc. and The Hearst Corp.
among major investors, has smaller pilot projects in Hawaii, Maryland and
Southern California.
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- Most BPL offerings remain in the test phase, said Alan
R. Shark, executive director of the Washington-based Broadband Over Power
Lines Industry Association. One of the current largest rollouts is in Manassas,
Va., where 850 subscribers have signed up since the municipal utility began
offering BPL in October.
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- Shares of Dallas-based TXU Corp. were down $1.49 to close
at $52.09 in trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares have ranged
from $30.22 to $58.29 in the past year.
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