If Broadband Demand Warms Up Even Slightly, Watch This Tiny Company With the Huge Partner
Let's take a break from the wild gyrations and look at what may well be a success story when the market stabilizes.
Last spring we gave you a distant early warning about a potential development in broadband -- that's the high-speed, always-on Internet access provided either by cable or by existing phone lines. No one can say whether large numbers of consumers will soon (or ever) start feeling flush enough to switch from cheap dial-up Internet access to more-costly broadband. It could happen . . . or not.
What's much more interesting is a report telling us that inside of two years, current broadband providers will face a highly unlikely new competitor: electric utilities.
One company has made a startling advance in moving data, voice and video across existing electricity lines and transformers into homes and small businesses at very high speeds. It's called Ambient Corporation (OTC: ABTG) -- and it has a rich, powerful friend.
Power lines reach practically every building in the United States, an estimated 125 million customers. The problem is, meshing electrons and filtering "noise" on neighborhood power distribution networks has proved incredibly difficult to do cost-effectively.
Ambient develops and markets a proposed communication infrastructure that uses an electrical power distribution grid as a high-speed telecommunications medium. To get under way, the company is developing partnerships with utilities, power distribution companies and telecom providers, including an impressive project development agreement with Consolidated Edison, one of the country's biggest investor-owned utilities.
And now comes the announcement of the first successful demonstration of Ambient's power line communications architecture on Con Ed's overhead electric distribution system. Ambient's proprietary coupler and network components were deployed on Con Ed's medium-voltage and low-voltage lines to construct a total end-to-end network in a live environment. As currently constituted, the PLC network spans more than 1.5 cable miles between the four connected premises.
Providng Internet access inexpensively over power lines is, in fact, hot stuff and it could be a massive shot in the arm for both utilities and telecom. PLC could in time offer other services too, such as video security monitoring. And while it's too soon to be certain, there could be national security applications.
Ambient's financials are par for the course for this kind of company: no revenues yet, but at least its major research and development expenditures seem to be behind it. A bargain hunter's delight, the stock has moved up in recent weeks, from 8 cents to about 11 cents this morning. Obviously, it's far too early to invest unless you have play money. When Ambient signs its first few customers, the stock should really take off. |
