Folks outside of Charlottesville and central Albemarle are out of luck when it comes to broadband. Practically speaking, it’s dial-up or nothing. So yesterday’s news of coming change must come as happy news to thousands of Virginians. David Hendrick wrote in yesterday’s Progress:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development office has awarded a roughly $19 million loan to International Broadband Electric Communications Inc., an outfit specializing in delivering broadband Internet over existing power lines.
Customers of Central Virginia Electric Cooperative in 11 Virginia counties are expected to benefit, including those in Albemarle, Buckingham, Nelson, Fluvanna, Louisa and Orange.
The technology is already being beta tested by 80 households in Nelson, apparently with success. It’s scheduled to be available by the end of the year, with speeds from 256kbps up to 3mbps. BPL is just one of many proposed “last mile” solutions, which is the method of getting data from the nearly-ubiquitous fat pipes zigzagging the country to each and every home in the nation. Orange County is considering solving this problem with wireless, but Nelson’s mountainous terrain makes BPL far more attractive.
I am sure that Sprint and Aldephia will fight this tooth and nail. That seems to be the constant here. If the local monoploy is in trouble with better and cheaper service, lets fight them in a court of law.
Seems that as long as Sprint and Adelphia are unable to provide broadband to these locations, nobody will pay much attention to their whines. They can’t argue (at least not effectively) to keep territory they have already ignored.
I’d take such a challenge more seriously if they offered service in those areas already. Right now, they’re doing nothin’.
D’oh. The point so nice, I made it twice.
I am not talking about the people who CAN”T get it now. I am talking about those who can get broadband. I am sure this service will be offer to those who are already Sprint and Adelphia’s customers.
Verizon has already provided DSL service in parts of nelson for quite some time now.