Darwin said he has been very pleased with the uptake and response to the trial so far.

"The day after the launch we had about 1400 people sign up expressions of interest on our Web site. Unfortunately a lot of those people were out of state so we had to tell them we couldn't quite stretch our wires that far," he said.

"We've also had a lot of interest from utility companies in every other state and territory, as well as from New Zealand, Indonesia and Fiji. So our belief is that if we build the business model, others will follow."

By partnering with Aurora, Darwin said, ISPs and retailers would have increased opportunity to sell to other utilities.

"Utilities are interesting because they are very difficult to sell into. They are much more comfortable leveraging information across the industry, so we are trying to get as much information (about BPL) out there as possible.