I guess the real question is then: Does allowing home/business users onto the same network that manages the electrical grid a good idea (from an OpSec point of view)? Does this make it easier to hack the electric grid? What happens to the electric grid when the network becomes congested?
One would hope they would be physically segregating the network and using different fiber strands for SCADA vs home/business users. I would be nervous even if it was logically separated using something like vlans at layer 2; you're one bad configuration change away from possibly damaging consequences.
My thought is that this digs into the idea that they 'just decided to' offer Fiber-to-the-Premises after they realized that they had built a fiber network. Or is this a non-issue (i.e. adding new strands is trivial / cheap once the infrastructure is there or maybe SOP is to just lay lots of strands, because the strands are cheap)?
Without actually knowing, either this (PowerLine), or they use the existing resources (cable pipes, wiring posts, ...) to run fiber or other wires to their customers without having to invest in digging or putting up poles.
This saves not only the construction costs, but also allow speedy installation as the time needed to get digging/building permits falls away. It's dead fast to wire an entire city area with FTTH if you already have a network of pipes for electrical wiring.
