DirecTV Offering Powerline Broadband/VOIP

We (ok, I) always thought that sending broadband over powerlines was one of those empty threats used to gain leverage on cable and DSL providers. But DirecTV has just announced a partnership with Current Group to provide their Dallas/Fort Worth market with high speed Internet through their wall sockets.

The resulting BPL (Broadband Over Powerline) should be a lot faster than DSL, with theoretical transmission rates hitting between 256k/s and 2.7 MB/s. 1.8 million subscribers will get to find out starting late 2007 and into 2008. Now let's get the gas lines going, too. Maybe the power companies will stop bill-raping us if they're making a bit more on their lines...nah! [cnnmoney]