The European Commission this week approved financing of Eur9.06m to support field deployments of Broadband over Powerline (BPL) internet access.

Opera, the Open PLC European Research Alliance, is the standardisation body behind the technology and over the next two years, the objective of Opera Phase II will be to catalyse the deployment of low cost broadband over electricity networks.

Potential applications for the platform include high speed internet access, VoIP telephony and video on demand as well as a number of sector specific applications such as healthcare and education.

The Opera specification adopted in 2006, is based on Spanish chip vendor DS2’s 200Mbps technology and was developed by a consortium of 37 companies.

The specification has been submitted to both the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). It has also been endorsed by the Universal Powerline Association (UPA).