Access BPL is considered a viable alternative to Cable or DSL to provide the 'final mile' of broadband to end users.
[2] In 1990s, BPL emerged as a means of leveraging the pervasiveness of the power grid to deliver high-speed broadband communications.
The aim was to expand internet access to areas where traditional wired broadband solutions like DSL or cable were not readily available or economically viable.
In order to achieve high bandwidth levels, BPL operates at higher frequencies than traditional power line communications, typically in the range between 2 and 80 MHz.
[5] More recently, decarbonization is leading to a significant increase in generation plants, storage devices, and consumers at lower voltage levels, causing capacity issues in distribution grids.
[7] Energy utility companies such as E.ON, starts to adopt BPL as a key communication technology to enable real-time, high-speed decentralized control of the grid.
[citation needed] Deployment of BPL has illustrated a number of fundamental challenges, the primary one being that power lines are inherently a very noisy environment.
Power lines are unshielded and will act as antennas for the signals they carry, and they will cause interference to high frequency radio communications and broadcasting.
In 2007, the NATO Research and Technology Organization released a report which concluded that widespread deployment of BPL may have a "possible detrimental effect upon military HF radio communications.
[17] The order rejected calls from aviation, business, commercial, amateur radio and other sectors of spectrum users to limit or prohibit deployment until further study was completed.