Now the Germans are lighting the way with the world's first power line communications network. Ascom said they would launch the first commercial power line service in the Ruhr region this July. UK companies have been surprisingly silent on the subject of power line communications. Market conditions and lingering doubts about the technology are to blame. Clive Longbottom, service director at Strategy Partners, said the UK's deregulated power market made it difficult for companies to go out on a limb for a new technology.
Most power companies are part of larger organisations.
They are only looking for services that turn a profit. Data rates from Ascom's trial were about 1.3Mbps, but large field trials promised about 2Mbps, and 3Mbps for the first generation of real products. This may not be enough to attract UK power companies when competing technologies, such as fixed wireless, could offer transmission speeds of 54Mbps within five years. The UK's short history of power communications consists of a number of trials conducted by Norweb on its access product called Digital Power Line. The service offered an alternative to local loop telcos, but Norweb's parent companies decided that the demand for commercial access was too limited and it was closed in September 1999.