[RFI] BPL

[W0UN -- John Brosnahan]

While I agree with W8JI that battling BPL from a ham perspective
has little impact on the public and that fighting the BPL RFI issues from
the perspective of more VITAL communications is much better, I think
the REAL battleground will ultimately be in the area of economics.

The battle should hinge on a poor technology that is too late.  The potential
market is already well served by better technologies that are better
protected from interference.  BPL customers won't be pleased with
service interruptions from every strong and legal radiator in the
immediate area, and BPL may even suffer from the utilities' own
failures to limit their own RFI.

Power companies are SO FAR behind the times that they don't even
know that the internet bubble has burst.  The battle should be one of
educating the investors to not allow the utilities to waste the investors'
money on yet another get-rich-quick scheme.  Investors WANT the
utilities to be safe investments.  The more the utilities "play" with the
investors' money the less the traditional utility investor will want to
buy utility stocks.

I think the technology has been oversold to the utility companies and
the utility companies are looking for some "glitter" technology to
get well after their past mistakes and that this is more likely to
COST the utilities and be yet another mistake rather than MAKE the
utilities a lot of money.

So I feel the real battlefront is on the pages and screens of the financial
media.   Defeating BPL will happen because it is a bad investment, not
because it causes interference to a group of hams.

73--John

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