Broadband over Powerline (BPL) continues to be an attractive alternative to costly cabling in order to bring broadband services to residences, housing developments and small businesses in remote or rural areas. The technology’s slight limitations in terms of speed and capacity are arguably made up for by its tremendous convenience: With BPL, all a homeowner or apartment dweller needs is a BPL “modem” which can be plugged into any wall outlet in order to get Internet access and other broadband services, such as VoIP. There’s no need to wire (or re-wire) the entire residence with cable or DSL lines in order to deliver the services, as they are delivered over the last mile via electric powerlines which are already installed in the home. The technology is continuing to see growing adoption in Europe and other parts of the world, although in the U.S. it has seen much slower adoption rates. Whether the technology ultimately becomes ubiquitous or not, it is at least having the effect of forcing some service providers to extend their networks into remote or rural areas which might otherwise see penetration by companies delivering BPL technology.

Foster City Calif.-based Asoka is a leading developer of BPL solutions. It offers a broad portfolio of BPL network products and solutions, including its PlugLink and PlugLAN product lines, which it claims deliver “the industry’s most robust and complete PLC product portfolio, making connectivity simple, secure, and effortless.” In addition to its line of residential/SOHO products, Asoka offers a commercial network solution suitable for commercial environments. This solution offers the same “plug-and-play” characteristics, while at the same time delivering remote manageability and billing/administration capabilities for hotels, hospitals, education facilities, apartments, dormitories and airports. In addition to its Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and Original Device Manufacturer (ODM) divisions, the company also offers private label solutions to its partners as well as consulting services.

As affirmation of BPL’s continuing growth and adoption throughout the world, Asoka today announced that it has received $7 million in venture capital from Venrock Associates and Storm Ventures. The company said the funds will be used “to advance adoption of Asoka's Powerline networking products and continue to advance the technology.”

In addition the company announced that industry veteran Dano Ybarra has been selected to serve as the company's new Chief Executive Officer. Ybarra, who will oversee the advancement of Asoka’s BPL product lines and global expansion plans, will succeed founder and current CEO, T.K. Chan. Chan will continue to serve the company as CTO, and will now focus on product innovation.

Ybarra has more than 20 years senior leadership experience, including more than 10 years experience in the telecommunications industry. His expertise includes the management and success of operations, engineering, sales and marketing teams at both startup companies and accomplished brands, including Netopia (News - Alert), FlowPoint Corporation, Efficient Networks, Siemens, Adobe and QMS.

"We are extremely pleased to have Dano join Asoka as our new CEO,” Chan said in a press release. “His success at FlowPoint, a DSL broadband router company, where he took the company from $800,000 to over $120 million in annual revenue makes him the perfect person to lead us to the next level of growth. He has a keen grasp of communications technologies and how to effectively bring them to market. The combination of Dano's excellent domain knowledge and entrepreneurial background is ideally suited to our company growth ambitions.”

"Being a self-funded company for over six years, I am very proud to have the opportunity join Asoka who has done an amazing job of cultivating Tier 1 Carriers throughout the world," Ybarra said. "With its commercial Powerline network solution for multi-dwellings, I believe Asoka has a commanding lead in the commercialization of Powerline technology. I am impressed by what has been achieved and I am looking forward to contribute to its further expansion."

For more information, visit www.asokausa.com.

-------

Patrick Barnard is Associate Editor for Customer Interaction Solutions magazine and Assignment Editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.