Small offices and telecommuters may soon be able to purchase broadband Internet service over power lines thanks to an FCC announcement this month of support for broadband-over-power line.

The electric utility industry has been waiting three years for the FCC to issue a report about BPL services. In its decision, the FCC unanimously affirmed widespread deployment of such services, and made changes to Part 15 of its rules to encourage the development of BPL services.

BPL is an emerging technology that provides high-speed broadband services over the nation's power grid. BPL allows consumers to receive broadband services anywhere they have an electric outlet, without having to lay additional LAN cable throughout their homes or offices.

Rollout of BPL services would be accompanied by an upgrade to the power grid. This upgrade has the potential to improve the reliability and efficiency of the power grid by providing utilities with automated detection of failures and outages as well as automated meter reading.

The FCC ruling included steps designed to prevent BPL services from causing interference for licensed radio users who had raised some concerns about the technology.

In addition to the FCC ruling, FCC Chairman Michael Powell and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Pat Wood issued a joint statement agreeing that "BPL holds great promise for the American public."

"The provision of high-speed communications capabilities over utility poles and electric power lines provides an opportunity to increase the competitive broadband choices that are available to customers and the power supply system management options of utilities," Powell and Wood stated.

Companies trying to bring BPL services to market hailed the FCC decision.

"The FCC decision was first and foremost a vote of confidence in BPL," says Bill Berkman, chairman of Current Communications Group, a Germantown, Md., start-up that is providing BPL services to nearly 50,000 homes in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana through a joint venture with Cinergy, an electric utility.

The Current/Cinergy project is the largest commercial rollout of BPL services in the country, Berkman says. This rollout offers Internet access of up to 3M bit/sec in every room of a home that has an electric outlet. The cost for the 3M-bit/sec service is $49.96 per month, with slower services being available for as little as $29.94.