IP Democracy: DirecTV to Partner with Current on BPL

Now that municipal Wi-Fi networks have been discredited as viable technologies for mounting a third broadband pipeline into the home, all we’re left with in the short-term is an even more difficult technology, broadband-over-power-lines (BPL). And according to this report in today’s Wall Street Journal, DBS provider DirecTV, which has been shut out from the triple-play broadband competition era due to its non-wireline status, plans to partner with BPL leader Current Communications to juryrig its own bundled offering of voice, video and data services.

DirecTV currently pitches a “double-play” service package that includes the high-speed options of top telco partners AT&T, Verizon and Qwest under the phone companies’ own brand names, but Current plans to throw VoIP services into the mix, and allow DirecTV to put its own label on the bundle. (It’s also reasonable to assume that Current offers better terms and conditions than do the mighty telcos.) The DirecTV-Current package of multichannel video, high-speed and VoIP service is slated to roll out in Dallas later this year or in early 2008.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on August 15, 2007 8:07 AM to IP Democracy