[CQ-Contest] FCC's NPRM on BPL -- President's comments

[K0HB]

K2QMF said:

>
> Everyone should make a comment regarding the
> NPRM from the FCC  It is very easy to do..
>

While you're at it, send an eMail to the White House (see below).

Who the heck am I gonna vote for now?

73, de Hans, K0HB

From: JBellows K0QB 
 
The following is from the President’s speech in Minneapolis on April 26,
2004. Note the last line of paragraph four. Particularly note the comment
“(s)o technical standards need to be changed to encourage that.”
 
“Now, the use of broadband has tripled since 2000 from 7 million subscriber
lines to 24 million. That's good. But that's way short of the goal for
2007. And so -- by the way, we rank 10th amongst the industrialized world
in broadband technology and its availability. That's not good enough for
America. Tenth is 10 spots too low as far as I'm concerned. (Applause.) 
(Note from K0HB:  Would someone help me with the math on this?  Does he
want us to move up 10 spots to "zero-th" place?)
 
Broadband technology must be affordable. In order to make sure it gets
spread to all corners of the country, it must be affordable. We must not
tax broadband access. If you want broadband access throughout the society,
Congress must ban taxes on access. (Applause.) 
 
Secondly, a proper role for the government is to clear regulatory hurdles
so those who are going to make investments do so. Broadband is going to
spread because it's going to make sense for private sector companies to
spread it so long as the regulatory burden is reduced -- in other words, so
long as policy at the government level encourages people to invest, not
discourages investment. 
 
And so here are some smart things to do: One, increase access to federal
land for fiberoptic cables and transmission towers. That makes sense. As
you're trying to get broadband spread throughout the company, make sure
it's easy to build across federal lands. One sure way to hold things up is
that the federal lands say, you can't build on us. So how is some guy in
remote Wyoming going to get any broadband technology? Regulatory policy has
got to be wise and smart as we encourage the spread of this important
technology. There needs to be technical standards to make possible new
broadband technologies, such as the use of high-speed communication
directly over power lines. Power lines were for electricity; power lines
can be used for broadband technology. So the technical standards need to be
changed to encourage that. 
 
And we need to open up more federally controlled wireless spectrum to
auction in free public use, to make wireless broadband more accessible,
reliable, and affordable. Listen, one of the technologies that's coming is
wireless. And if you're living out in -- I should -- I was going to say
Crawford, Texas, but it's not -- maybe not nearly as remote. (Laughter.)
How about Terlingua, Texas? There's not a lot of wires out there. But
wireless technology is going to change all that so long as government
policy makes sense. 
 
And we're going to continue to support the Federal Communications
Commission. Michael Powell -- Chairman Michael Powell, under his
leadership, his decision to eliminate burdensome regulations on new
broadband networks availability to homes. In other words, clearing out the
underbrush of regulation, and we'll get the spread of broadband technology,
and America will be better for it. (Applause.) “

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End of speech excerpt
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I thought you would be interested. Perhaps you might think about expressing
your views on the BPL issue to President Bush. You may want to check the
ARRL Website on this. I expect Jim Haynie will be sending a letter to
President Bush on behalf of ARRL. The mail and email address for the
President should be available on the Web page.
 
73,
Jay Bellows, K0QB