Another BPL chip maker offers 400MBPS. Too bad there is no access to speak of.

Will Ready Killowatt ever morph into Ready Gigbit? That’s a question for the people who own and manage the power lines. As for what level of access they can provide if they chose to, the possible bandwidth has increased by 100% in the last few months. Now there is a second player in addition to DS2 entering the 400MBPS chip market:

Powerline networking specialist Devolo will next month demo an Ethernet-over-the-mains prototype capable of delivering up to 400Mb/s bandwidth.

Devolo’s keeping mum about the details until it shows the kit off at the CeBIT show in Hannover. We suspect the unit essentially comprises two separate 200Mb/s HomePlug AV that sit between the mains power cables and a Gigabit Ethernet port.

By pairing the 200Mb/s adaptors, Devolo essentially doubles the available bandwidth. Just as 200Mb/s powerline Ethernet doesn’t deliver that perfect-world throughoput, so the 400Mb/s units only deliver real-world speeds of up to 180Mb/s, Devolo admitted.

But that’s still double what at 200Mb/s unit can provide and sufficient, the company claimed, for five HD video streams to be routed over the network simultaneously. (from the Register)

We’ve reported a few announcements about service roll out’s using BPL. To date, I can find no evidence of any wide availability of BPL access. It’s conceptually a natural in the wire line access business. Are any readers BPL wsubscribers? If so, please comment or email. Email is thirdpipe@gmail.com or you can comment by registering and logging in.