If your planning on knocking holes in the wall and installing network cables every where, you might want to read this.

http://www.netgear.com/pressroom/press_releasesdetail.php?id=331

looks pretty cool, a couple of companies already produce power to ethernet adapters for use of your wiring as a network.

unfortuneately the current technology has the limitation of something like 40 Mbs... and you can only use it for 2 systems on the same circuit.
hopefully they have overcome all of this. would be a real win for big companies if it could re-wire an entire building on the cheap.

personally, id just get the place re-wired. mainly for the fun factor of putting holes in things.

imaging implementing this in a school, then saying to the teachers, now all you have to do is plug it in the power outlet....

How many teachers do you think would get electrocuted because of plugging the wrong thing in.

they still wouldnt get the idea... they would be like "but my laptop has a battery.. i dont need to plug into the wall"

Anyone interested in a basic tutorial on how to plug it in:
http://www.netcomm.com.au/Support/Flash_movies/HOMEPLUG/HOMEPLUG_intro.php

simple but videos tell a thousand words.

From memory aroura have been offering this technology already to a very small area around mt. Nelson as telstra in their wisdom wont upgrade the exchange there. So Aroura stepped up and said they could try this. But because Telstra would kick up a huge fuss about not owning the telecommunications infrastructure, Aroura will not likely be providing it to the general public. So we can blame telstra for keeping us 5 years behind in terms of internet connection speeds.
its cheap as too, $15 a month from memory.

UPDATE: Did a bit of a search (As the info i had in my head was from a few years back) seems as if Aruora have taken this off the ground and are retailing it over tassie. Google provided a plethora of links to sites explaining what is happening www.tastel.com.au/bpl seem to be the isp's name. Unfortuantly it looks like they have upped the prices and dont have any uncapped plans as yet but a 4mb connection for the price of a telstra 1.5mb connection is a plus.