Engineering Alert: BPL research

Engineering researchers at Penn State have discovered the reason that BPL (powerline broadband) data transmission is more limited in practice than it should be in theory, when compared to the relative conductive channel sizes of DSL and cable data transmission. In brief, junctions and branches that are not impedance-matched are causing data reflections that bounce between nodes, severely cluttering the data stream.

By using impedance-matched materials at junctions, and placing CRC-enabled repeaters at regular intervals, data transmissions to private homes in the Gb/sec range should be possible. True, it's still a significant amount of time and money to overhaul large portions of the electrical power infrastructure, but it's a great deal easier and cheaper than running fiber everywhere. Additionally, the lines are ubiquitous even in rural areas.