Xcel not planning to offer internet service on their fiber network
@DadsPad: I live in Boulder, CO, where we have the first installed Smart Grid in the nation. It consists of a separate fiber network to the curb put in by Xcel, our power company. Because at the moment there are no devices for attaching appliances to the Smart Grid, the fiber mostly sits dark, except for whatever traffic Xcel does with our smart meters (which we have no real access to).
However, in response to an email, Xcel has told me they currently have no plans to offer internet service. I have no idea what they plan to do with all that bandwidth, or why they bothered to put it in in the first place. If all you're doing is periodic polling of appliances (light turned on, now the light is turned off, etc.), it seems to me they could have put modems on our phone lines and gotten all the bandwidth they needed.
