Data over powerlines to residential subss isn't common but is being done in a variety of places, notably by Braintree Electric Light Department (BELD) in Massachusetts. But it'll take more than hydro lines to protect what we take for granted from our broadband At risk of sounding too fatalistic, we're all gonna die if the Rogers', Bells, SBCs, and Comcasts are allowed to closely control and toll the subscriber access networks they've built. Today there exists the ability to very acurately identify the layer 7 application (Skype, BitTorrent, etc.) nevermind the destination address or domain (Google, etc.) so that charging by the function or application used by the subscriber and closing off access to portions of the Internet is quite easily accomplished. Now providers can offer a $10 per month service to guarantee some service level concerning the latency, for example, of your Vonage service while at the same time extort Vonage for access to their very networks. A good overall framing article on what the providers are up to is 'Saving the Net: How to Keep the Carriers from Flushing the Net Down the Tubes' and available on the Linux Journal site (http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8673).