Mailing the story:

Broadband over power lines has been in the news again recently. At one time BPL was seen as the best way to bring affordable Internet access to poor and rural America: an answer to the technology gap between the haves and the have-nots. Now, thanks primarily to boosters like Michael Powell and Kevin Martin, Powell's successor at the FCC, it's back for another go at the broadband access market. But BPL remains a flawed and controversial technology. Proponents in Texas are pushing a pro-BPL bill past confused legislators in Austin at the same time their counterparts in Washington, D.C., are considering a measure to rescind "BPL-friendly" rule changes made at the FCC last fall.