I asked a friend at JPL, if there was a civilization at Alpha Centauri and they were sending out the same types of signals as Earth does today, could we detect those signals at Earth with our current tech?

Answer: No (which the article also mentions in so many words)

the article seems way too generous, we'd barely be able to detect things like 1980s tv broadcasts, they fall below galactic noise before alpha centauri, let alone 50 light years out.