Empowering the World's Broadband

Making it easier to connect

Company can send high-speed Internet through utility lines

By David Clemons
Times Staff Writer

HOKES BLUFF – Broadband Internet service has long been available through telephone lines or from cable television providers, but a Huntsville company with Etowah County ties has a way to send the high-speed signal through utility lines. The technology of International Broadband Electric Communications Inc. has been through a test in Cullman, and leaders will conduct market tests in Virginia and Indiana to determine if customers are interested in receiving a service that hasn’t been widely available. Scott E. Lee, president and chief executive officer of IBEC and a Southside resident, said his company’s service is aimed at customers living in the “digital divide.” “If you go to Cullman County, Alabama, outside of right within the city of Cullman, you will not find any broadband, anywhere,” Lee said recently in his office in Hokes Bluff. “The same thing with the area that we’re dealing with in Virginia, the same thing in Indiana. In the United States today, over 60 percent of all the homes do not have access to broadband.” Lee said telephone and cable providers typically extend broadband services to cities only. “You get out past the inner parts of most cities, and you just won’t find it,” he said. “Our focus is those communities, especially the co-ops that happen to sit exactly in those same areas, and we partner with them.” The test markets are in Lovingston and Nelson County, Va., through the Central Virginia Electric Cooperative, and in Martinsville, Ind., through the South Central Indiana Rural Electric Membership Cooperative. Lee said the technology allows for portability inside a connected home. “The great thing is, every plug in the house is hot,” he said. “So you can be downstairs working, decide you want to go upstairs and lie down on the bed, just unplug from that outlet, go upstairs, plug in the outlet there.” Cullman Electric Cooperative hasn’t solicited many customers for the broadband service, but those who have taken part in the test program have enjoyed their experience. “They’ve been very pleased with the service,” said Michael McWaters, vice president of member services and community development for the cooperative. “So far the equipment’s held up and it’s been a very successful pilot program for us.” McWaters said the cooperative will be watching the test markets in Indiana and Virginia. “I think these market pilots are going to be very crucial to see how this technology will progress,” he said. “If all those are successful, I can see us expanding, too.” IBEC will focus on serving customers of cooperatives and small-town municipal utilities, which provide service to more than 35 million homes in the United States, Lee said. “We have spoken to Southern Company (parent of Alabama Power) in the past, and they’re actually doing some trials with a couple of our competitors right now,” he said. “Our focus is rural America, and most of Southern’s territory is not rural.”

Posted in News on 2004-09-20.