Hand it to Grist, their people really find vital stories that the mass delusional media hides.

This is the start of distributed smart grid technology and where the internet switching giant leads, the paradigm must shift.  Shift right over to a marriage of the grid and the internet.

Cisco's Chambers signalled the death of the old phone companies before the bushwacking began.  It's finally happening, phone traffic is shifting to the internet.  Pretty soon a shift to wireless broadband over the power grid might gobble up the cell phone business too?

This limited use of smart grid switching concentrates on internet devices, phones, servers, PCs and so forth, but it's just a few USB grid power relays away from controlling a million water heaters or freezers to smooth out power grid fluctuations due to wind and solar power variations.

It's all too complicated for popular media so far though.  When producers say blah, over stories like this, the public won't hear about them.  Until every other home has a distributed smart grid device controlling its power use and granting internet access over the power grid.

By that time the second internet boom will have turned bubble, and the smart money will have gone elsewhere.  Tech media, oh please blah us and make our money smart, along with the power grid.