Empowering the World's Broadband

Affordable broadband might soon be available to rural Virginia

By BERTRAND M. GUTIERREZ
The News Virginian
Monday, November 22, 2004

An Alabama broadband company plans to push a revolutionary high-speed service in sparsely populated areas of rural Virginia, including Augusta and Nelson counties, company officials say.

Residents in more densely populated areas such as Waynesboro have several options for high-speed Internet service, including cable, DSL, satellite and portable broadband. People who live on the fringes of Augusta and Nelson counties, however, are limited to either dial-up service or shelling out $50 a month for satellite Internet service.

IBEC wants to change that.

Instead of connecting to cable or phone lines, customers of International Broadband Electric Communications, or IBEC, just plug their computers into a power socket for broadband (high-speed) Internet service, which is approximately 20 times faster than dial-up service.

The product has been offered since July in the Lovingston area for $29.95 a month to account holders of Central Virginia Electric Cooperative, or CVEC. Residents of Afton and other Nelson County areas will be able to buy broadband over powerline, or BPL, in the spring, officials say.

IBEC’s chief operating officer, Steve Turner, says the Huntsville, Ala., company must partner with a power company to offer the product. The power company provides the line while IBEC provides the broadband service.

CVEC spokesman Greg Kelly says the broadband-over-powerline product is so popular that IBEC is poised to roll out the product to CVEC’s 30,000-plus members.

Money for the project could come from a federal program designed to help Web surfers hop on the broadband bandwagon.

The U.S. Agriculture Department’s Rural Development office offers loans to companies like IBEC interested in installing broadband to rural areas with 20,000 residents or less. The Rural Utility Service is reviewing IBEC’s application to provide the service throughout Augusta and Nelson counties as well as other rural Virginia communities, Turner says.

Bringing high-speed Internet service at a competitive price is in line with the electric cooperative’s mission, Kelly adds.

"The co-op is doing this only because the service really isn’t available in most of the territory we serve," Kelly says. "The goal really is to provide the service at an affordable rate where you break even after all the bills are paid."

But if IBEC wants to broaden its broadband base, it’ll have to partner with power companies in other territories.

In Augusta County, for instance, Shenandoah Valley Electric Cooperative officials say they’re taking a wait-and-see approach. Two concerns must be satisfied before the co-op offers BPL to account holders: reliability and affordability.

Until the BPL question is resolved, the Mount Crawford-based electric cooperative is set to offer satellite service in April to account holders for $49.95 through a company it manages, North River Telephone Cooperative.

"We have signed on for satellite," President and CEO Doug Wine says.

"What’s good about this versus cable, DSL or even broadband over powerline is: If you put the service in for one person, but five or six others don’t want it, you’ve got to put all that investment in to serve the one person, but satellite’s already up. I think for a rural area, satellite will be a pretty feasible way to go," Wine says.

But Central Virginia Electric Cooperative didn’t pay a cent to roll out broadband over powerline - except for manpower. IBEC’s plug-and-play BPL is serviced and installed by the Huntsville, Ala., company, not the co-op, Kelly says.

"This is really about economic development, job creation and quality of life. People are going to be more and more mobile, and in order to have economic opportunity in a rural area, their going to need a broadband connection," Kelly adds.

Though Shenandoah Valley has not signed on for BPL, company officials say they have been monitoring the pilot program in Lovingston and might consider offering the product once it earns a few stripes.

With BPL charging through rural Virginia via CVEC, officials with Waynesboro-based nTelos - a regional telecom that offers landline, wireless, DSL and portable broadband products - say they have few competitive concerns.

"At this point and time, [BPL] doesn’t affect nTelos because it isn’t being deployed where we have broadband service," spokesman Mike Minnis says.

Contact Bertrand M. Gutierrez at bgutierrez@newsvirginian.com.

Posted in News on 2004-11-22.