Peter Walton, Vice President and CIO, Amerada Hess

Q: What do you think of Broadband over Power Lines (BPL)?

A: " We consider ourselves a conservative 'fast follower' of technology, unless there is a possible competitive advantage for us to adopt something early. If we perceive such an advantage with BPL, Amerada Hess would need to be convinced that it is reliable, secure, cost effective and environmentally friendly, and then there would need to be a business case for either switching to BPL or for using it in a new startup location. Additionally, we wonder why a power company would invest in building out their infrastructure when the market is already crowded with DSL, cable and the promise of Wimax to come? Most of our locations are in areas with an overabundance of broadband capability today providing last mile connectivity. I suspect this will likely die in the Gartner 'trough of disillusionment' or sooner on the hype cycle curve. "