BBC News Online: Sci/Tech

Power surge for Net access

The first user of the revolutionary system is a British primary school in Manchester.

The system is 10 times faster than using conventional telephone lines and is permanently connected to the Internet.

"The new system means information arrives virtually instantaneously, thereby maximising teaching time," said Jenny Dunn, the head teacher at Seymour Park Primary School.

"With a normal connection, the children could lose interest waiting for pages to download."

The new technology has been developed by Nortel of Canada and Norweb of Britain. They will market the system next year and it should be available to the general public by the end of 1998.

Mark Ballett, managing director of Norweb Communications, said: "This technology will allow us to use existing infrastructure to establish a strongly differentiated service offering in the north west residential and small business market."

The two companies said they had received over 150 inquiries about the system and were in detailed discussions with 30 utility companies around the world.

Peter Dudley, a vice president of Nortel, said: "Speed of access remains a bottleneck for most users. As one of the first practical low cost answers to the problem of high speed access to the Internet, this new technology will unleash the next wave of net growth."

Norweb and Nortel unveiled the patented technology in October. The system prevents electrical currents from distorting Internet signals and other computer data transmitted over the mains.

With permanent access to data that travels directly from the power mains into homes at speeds of up to one megabit per second, the system heralds the first rivalry between electricity and telecoms companies.

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