Surfing on the power lines

Commercial trials of a new technology which enables householders to connect to the internet through the three-pin electrical sockets in their homes are about to start in Britain.

Scottish & Southern Energy is beginning mass trials in Hampshire and Stonehaven in the north of Scotland with a view to making the telephone-free service widely available within the next five years.

The technology has the potential to undercut conventional telecoms and cable companies and bring broadband access to more remote rural areas now deemed uneconomic to serve through conventional fibre-optic cable.

United Utilities, the electricity and water supplier for Britain's north-west, experimented with a similar concept in the late 1990s using the electricity distribution network to carry voice calls and data, but scrapped the trials because of technical problems.

S&SE believes it has overcome the teething troubles after a six-month pilot scheme involving about 70 homes and small businesses in the Scottish towns of Crieff and Campbeltown.

Ian Marchant, the chief executive of S&SE, estimated it would cost about £1 million ($2.9 million) to connect a town with a population of 20,000.

"If we can half the capital costs then within five years you could see the technology in common use," he said.

All that is required is a black box which boosts the signal at each electricity sub-station and a modem in the home to connect the PC or laptop in the nearest three-pin wall socket.

There are no telephone rental or call-up charges and, unlike broadband services supplied by telecoms or cable companies, the band width leaving the house is as great as that entering it, enabling users to download and send large documents at speeds of 2000 kilobits a second.

Angus Armstrong, who runs a small structural engineering consultancy in Crieff and took part in the pilot trial, described himself as "a very happy guinea pig", and said the service had exceeded his expectations from the start.

- INDEPENDENT