A good response to our question about whether the European Commission’s plans to promote broadband over power lines was bonkers.

PLT/PLC/BPL/DPL - it doesn’t matter what you call it said one of our readers it has significant technical problems. He suggested the following link as a good place to get an understanding of the likely issues with the technology.

Another reader offered the following insight:

It’s a fundamentally unsound technology that has been overtaken by events

Broadband speeds are moving to 2MBs now on fixed twisted pair phone lines and more than this on WiFI. Both are properly designed for hi-speed signals and capable of x10 more speed increases in years to come.

An unscreened or unbalanced 240v wire of undefined charasteric impedance simply can’t support a quality data signal without either generating lots of interference, or getting clobbered by interference from every domestic applicance around. The latter problem comes from every thing like hoovers, washing machines, and substandard switch mode supplies in TVs DVD players and PCs (caused by Ofcom abandoning EMC enforcement).

The economics are dodgier than you think now, which is why BPL is being abandoned by SSE. ‘Proper’ Broadband rollout rate has now been very successful in urban areas. BPL is sometimes thought of as good for rural areas, but the number of homes passed in the country per substation data-head is so low that it also works out as being very unattractive there as well. Fixed wireless access on 2.4, 3.4 or 5 GHz is favoured by Ofcom and is rolling out for such areas.

In addition to Radio Amateurs, the BBC, the DRM Consortium and other broadcasters fiercely opposed it as well - and it’s considered a joke by the cellphone/wimax people.