USA - Multi Utilities Markets

Synopsis

The multi utilities market in the US has seen little activity since the telecom industry slumped in 2001. Many electricity and natural gas providers have piggy-backed their network with telecommunications optical fibre but as the demand for capacity was never enough to meet the supply, the cross-country and intercity network providers have suffered – and as the multi utilities generally focus on providing the optical backbone of a network, they, in turn, are suffering. Broadband over Power Line (BPL) services are beginning to be trialled by many utilities across the country and represent an exciting opportunity for some serious competition to the broadband DSL and cable services that dominate the broadband market.