Broadband Over Power Lines (BPL)

Rural Americans have waited a long time for access to an affordable and viable high-speed internet solution. Midwest Connections, a subsidiary of Midwest Energy Cooperative, in partnership with International Broadband Electric Communications (IBEC), are working together to bring a solution.

Broadband over Power Line (BPL) is the newest heavy hitter in the competitive world of broadband Internet service. It opens up the world of high-speed Internet access in previously unserved or underserved areas. BPL is built using the existing infrastructure of our own electric distribution system. Because it is delivered over the power lines, you access the service through a common electrical outlet. No dialing in or tying up phone lines!

By slightly modifying the current power grids with specialized equipment, BPL developers are partnering with power companies and Internet service providers to make broadband available to anyone with access to electricity.

A Letter to our Customers
June 2010

It’s been a few months since our last update, and we wanted to let you know what was going on with the BPL build-out. We just finished our rounds of 2010 member district meetings and, as expected, BPL was a popular topic at each one!

With our last report we shared that unexpected equipment issues were slowing our build-out process and that we would not extend deployment efforts until those issues were resolved. While we still have not built out beyond the first two substations, we have resolved some of the equipment issues and are feeling more confident in the future of the service. As a matter of fact, as of this month we have about 150 customers successfully and happily using the service.

The biggest obstacle facing us is underground service. We’ve discovered that the signal cannot travel across underground wire, and we have a lot of that on our system. It’s good for your electric reliability, but unfortunately not good for our BPL efforts. We continue to work with our business partner, IBEC, to resolve those issues.

IBEC is also starting to certify lines. Certification means IBEC is confident in the ability of the line to deliver the service at the prescribed service levels. Once certified we will begin actively promoting BPL availability on those line segments. Again, we will continue our efforts and completely activate the first two substations prior to starting on another. As such, we have no target date at this point for the next substation deployment. Our efforts will remain focused on addressing and fixing existing problems with the service before proceeding to a new area. Although we have struggled getting over a number of technology challenges with BPL we have also been encouraged by a number of successes.

On a related note, we continue to look at alternatives to bring affordable and reliable high-speed internet access to rural America. Late last summer we submitted an application for stimulus dollars through the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act to bring a wireless option known as WiMAX to our geography. We learned in late February that our application was rejected. With only two weeks to turn around an application for Round II funding, we reevaluated technology options and put together an application for a fiber-based project. Fiber was looked upon very favorably in Round I, and we believe we have an excellent application. This technology is recognized as the standard bearer for customer solutions but is also the most expensive to provide. Without the benefit of stimulus dollars it would be impractical to consider any investment. And, as we learned with our first round application, there are no guarantees; there are a lot of players competing for a very limited pool of money.

Regardless of what happens with the Round II process, we will continue to work with IBEC on BPL efforts. Please know that we understand the urgency to bring high-speed options to rural America and are doing all that we can to pave the way.

Thank you for your continued patience and interest.

Sincerely,

Robert L. Hance
President/CEO
Midwest Energy Cooperative