A report released Thursday predicted that 2005 might be the year that so-called broadband power-line technology breaks through and becomes a third option for computer users whose high-speed connectivity options are cable modems or DSL.

"It is being embraced by consumers and there is increasing interest in it from the utilities," said Joe Fergus, president of Communications Technologies, a firm that has launched BPL service in Manassas, Va. "It's still a young technology, but it is moving beyond the theoretical realm into actual deployment."

BPL operates in muc h the same way that DSL and cable operate. The signal is carried along existing power lines and emerges through any standard electric outlet into a modem that is plugged into the socket.

The current speeds are around 500 kilobytes to 1 megabyte per second, although some of the world's major modem producers are developing technology capable of 100 million megabytes per second.

Fergus and other advocates of BPL base their pitch for the technology on the relative ease in which it can be hooked up and the subscription price of around $30 per month compared to cable and DSL that are usually more expensive.

"It is more affordable and it comes over a service (electric utilities) that most people trust," Fergus added during a conference call announcing the release of the report from the New Millennium Research Council in Washington.

The report concluded that there was little standing in the way of a large-scale growth spurt for BPL that would benefit consumers in the form of a low-cost alternative to other high-speed data lines and the ability to hook up houses virtually anywhere in the United States and not just major urban markets.

"The real sweet spot for BPL and where its impact will be felt the most is in cities and towns like Manassas with 20,000, 50,000 or maybe even 100,000 potential customers," Fergus said.

That is not to say, however, that the road is wide open and that BPL will become a must-have consumer item. There are consumer and regulatory issues that are by no means insurmountable, but may be enough to give pause to conservative utilities and the state regulators who will have much to say about how deployment of BPL is paid for.

The bottom-line issue could be the inability of BPL to break out of the pack and establish itself as a clear choice for alternative Internet-service seekers.

"You can g et communications data rates that are comparable to those available over telephone lines and telephone cables," said Bob Olsen, an electrical engineering professor at Washington State University, on the conference call.

Olsen added the somewhat deflating caveat, "You are going to get rates that are comparable but not much else."

That unfortunate state of technology means that BPL will be an option for consumers who cannot currently obtain DSL or cable service, or who are on the hunt for the lowest price available.

Fergus told reporters that his company's foray into Manassas sparked a price skirmish in which one of the established high-speed providers steeply cut its prices to compete with BPL's rates.

While great for customers, the idea that a BPL enterprise might have to rely on bargain-basement prices could dissuade some utility companies from committing startup capital to what is basically a telecommu nications business.

And a regulated energy utility dabbling in the regulated telecommunications sector means plenty of regulatory hurdles to be cleared.

A separate report on BPL issued this month by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners predicted that the question of whether electricity ratepayers should finance a communications enterprise would have to be legally settled sooner or later.

"Based on historic cost accounting principles utilized by many regulatory commissions, the direct costs of BPL ... probably should not be supported by core electric ratepayers," the association's report said.

"If these costs are not removed from electric rates, the captive electric ratepayers would arguably subsidize the deployment of BPL and also bear a degree of risk for what could be a speculative venture."

Utility companies could get around the problem by spinning off BPL enterprises into a no n-regulated company; however, that adds overhead and effort to offering a service that will be competing head-to-head with the local phone and cable companies.

Another option would be a joint venture between the utility and a company such as Communications Technologies, which will no doubt take different forms depending upon the companies involved.

"There are a number of different ways that utilities can approach this," Barry Goodstadt, vice president for Harris Interactive, told United Press International on Thursday's conference call. "They can build it themselves - or they can open it up (their power grid) for others to use."

A mix of solutions is considered the most likely scenario, and Goodstadt predicted that state regulators would not take a staunch hard line on BPL since high-speed Internet access is considered a desirable goal by politicians nationwide.

There are other details to be worked out, including access to power poles and BPL signals interfering with radio transmissions; however, the conference-call participants expected those to be worked out possibly through a congressional revisit of the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

At the same time, getting the legalities in order is one thing, but it is entirely another to convince consumers to drop existing high-speed Internet service without the most compelling of reasons.

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