What Is Power Line Broadband?

Power line broadband, or power line communications, uses not telephone wires to deliver high speed internet access, but the mains electricity network. It is completely independent of the landline phone network; to use power line broadband you plug your modem or router into a 240v socket and get broadband from whichever room in the house you wish, without relying on a wi-fi wireless network.

Since the electricity mains network is fairly universal, the delivery network is already in homes and offices. The major drawback is that the technology at the moment will only work for users located within 300 metres of an enabled substation.

Commercial trials were conducted in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and in Grampian over a year ago, but power line broadband is not generally available in the UK as yet.

The greatest concentration of power line broadband providers are on the Continent and in the USA. However, in the UK, power line broadband still has a number of obstacles to overcome before there is any kind of wide-scale roll out of the technology, not least regulatory problems and interference issues to solve.