For utilities seeking to provide broadband alternative in areas with little or no access, the Washington, D.C. suburb of Manassas, Virginia, has taken the lead. It is now making available broadband-over-powerline (BPL) technology to its residents. It is the first city-wide commercial deployment of BPL technology anywhere in the United States, according to Communication Technologies, Inc. (COMTek), the Chantilly, Virginia-based company that owns and operates the BPL network in Manassas.

COMTek said that the roughly 12,500 households in Manassas now are within the reach of its BPL network and that commercial services are available throughout the city to 2500 businesses on an on-demand basis. COMTek already has an estimated 700 customers in Manassas, with another 500 requests for service now being processed. In addition to Manassas, COMTek is in negotiations to deliver similar services for nine other investor-owned utilities, municipal-owned utilities, and other entities.

COMTek Founder and CEO Joseph E. Fergus said: “This is truly a historic day for COMTek, which is the U.S. leader in BPL services. The major national technology milestone that we are announcing with the city of Manassas is the most eloquent possible expression of our commitment to grow the BPL category of broadband access. Make no mistake about it: What we are announcing in Manassas is something that we could be rolling out in a year or two from now in literally scores of communities across the U.S. The Manassas experiment is a good thing for every American who lives in any city or town with little or no access to affordable broadband.”

American Public Power Association President and CEO Alan H. Richardson said: “The American Public Power Association’s member-supported Demonstration of Energy-Efficient Developments (DEED) program provided a grant in 2001 to the city of Manassas for the initial investigation of how BPL could provide Internet access to consumers and businesses, while enhancing the efficiency and reliability of the electric utility. The city of Manassas has led the way for many other community-owned electric utilities. Its successful deployment and ‘lessons learned’ will help other public power communities evaluate the communications and utility opportunities of this technology.”

In addition to delivering broadband access to residential and commercial customers, COMTek has enabled the Manassas utility to save money and respond more quickly in identifying outages at both the transformer and customer level, central control for traffic signals, and operating video surveillance systems at substations. The city is exploring opportunities to use BPL for other advanced utility applications such as automatic distribution switching, which would restore power more quickly to the grid after outages, and automated meter reading, which already is available on the Manassas network.

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