latham torpedoes labour party, page-10

re: which company use powerline for internet and p Further to the previous post.....

A power company has begun offering discount telephone calls and broadband Internet access using electrical wires to carry the signal.

A new Hobart suburb of 500 homes has turned its back on Telstra, making phone calls without the need for telephone landlines.

For the last three months, families in the suburb have used electrical power lines to carry their phone service.

Chief executive of Aurora Energy, Peter Davis, explained how the electricity company’s 25,000km of power lines had now entered the telecommunications market.

"If you've got a power point in your house, with this technology you can access cheapo phone calls and broadband Internet that doesn't go through the telephone line, it goes through the cable that supplies your electricity," Mr Davis said.

The project was made possible using technology from Mitsubishi Electric which enabled power companies to become phone companies.

"All you do is plug in your modem into a power point, plug in your computer, plug in your phone, plug in to a whole new world," Mr Davis said.

He said the plan was to provide high-speed Internet access for hundreds of families forced to rely on dial-up services because they could not receive broadband through old-fashioned phone lines.

Project manager for the trial, Piero Peroni, said the signal traveled through the sheath of the electrical wires into a modem in the user’s home, straight into the phone.

Mr Davis said the technology was fast.

"The products we are offering are between four and 10 times faster than ADSL that people are currently paying for," he said.