The Jeff Beckham Weblog

Late last week, the Austin City Council approved spending up to $317,500 to test broadband over power lines (BPL), a technology that has proven elusive at best.

Austin’s chief information officer, Peter Collins, told the Austin American-Statesman, “Everyone is saying how great this is. All we want to know is, what does this really do? I don’t like to jump on a new technology just because everyone else is jumping on it. This is an education pilot program for us.”

Fair enough, but the city should proceed with caution. Broadband expert Om Malik points out that previous BPL efforts have produced less-than-impressive results, while Steve Odom at Metroblogging Austin reports that the firm doing the trial, GTSI, faces an uncertain financial future.