[RFI] BPL Protest Opportunity? Give up? NO!
david jordan
wa3gin at erols.com
Wed May 5 10:22:20 EDT 2004
Folks,
It won't matter if you are correct in your science. I think you are and
I think you do have a good case. But I also think your case is missing
some salent points. The FCC has to deal with telecom technology but
this agency is market driven and the ultimate mandate for them has to do
with what would be good for the general population and how that relates
to the security of the national infrastructure. I think your sum
arguement could be improved regarding the the later. Remember this is
the agency that count's how many Americans have wired phone lines. This
is the agency that imposed fees on all of us that use phone service to
help pay for rural phone services, etc. It's mandate in the 21st
century is to get data/Internet to the masses.
The FCC is just reflecting what the BPL lobby has stated in their
marketing efforts and this is how the FCC works with technology that is
disruptive. I think all the chest beating about potential RFI is wasted
effort. Our energy is focused on the wrong aspect of the discussion.
The FCC may well be comfortable blowing off amateur radio. What it
can't afford to do is support a technology that will be dead on
arrival. Argue the big picture. Stop fighting over the outhouse or
you'll loose the farm!
What you could really use is a know Technology authority, such as
Gartner Consulting, to provide a response that talks to the viability
and ROI for BPL. A paper that exposes the severe security faults in the
proposed application, not from debatable RFI concerns but from a
perspective that this proposed service is just not going to be robust
enough for use by governments, infrastructure industries and small,
mid-size or Fortune 500 businesses, etc. At best this BPL is be a "Blade
Runner" street people low tier service. People that use BPL will have to
live with the fact that this service will suffer from poor availability
due to power outages and high error rates due to RFI produced by other
RF sources, etc. Those are significant down sides that aggressive small
businesses, mid-size or even Fortune 500 companies will not accept. So,
where is the market for BPL when you subtract those entities?
Practical example:
Because BPL is transported via power lines it is not going to be the
choice of governments (Federal, State, County or Local) simply because
those entities will require something much more reliable (fiber,
wireless, etc.) Here in Alexandria and Arlington, VA. when the electric
power goes out, and it goes out frequently, the cable system goes down
as well and if I was a BPL customer that too would be out of service
while wireless would remain a viable communications path. When the
power is out in my town there is a glow coming from the windows in my
home, it's the light from my wireless laptop (running on battery) linked
to my wireless ISP. I use it as a flash light as I move from room to
room Instant Messaging friends, talking on Echolink, or talking on my
amateur radio Internet remote station located 60 miles away where the
power is on. You can't do that with cable or BPL if the power is out.
So, that being the case a massive portion of the potential market for
BPL doesn't really exist. What customer in their right mind is going to
switch from high availability to poor just for a $10/month break in
price. We know the price differential won't last which eliminates that
BPL marketing benefit. So, no cost benefit, poor availability and
endless intermitent high error rates and blank outs. Doesn't sound like
a viable offering to me.
I haven't said much about copper because it just can't deliver the band
width. Maybe this is why Verizon is installing fiber to the house in
Arlington, VA. They're making massive profits on their wireless offering
(somthing around five time the cost to deliver) and it appears they are
going after the "tethered" market. I don't like monopolies but fiber to
the house is hard to beat! The question really is which technology will
win the day, fiber or wireless. For the near term I think wireless will
take the lead (survey how many of your friends under 25yrs old have
wired phone service - not many, if any). The copper guys are well aware
of the migration of voice traffic to wireless. They think they can
regain that business if they offer fat band to the home. Bundle telco,
TV, data on a fiber to the house and capture the rest of the market with
fat band wireless. If I was an investor non of my money would be in BPL
and I'll be watching my investments in cable and get out when the
tipping point gets a bit closer. In a few years wireless data offerings
will settledown and we'll be able to see a clear direction as to who the
players will be. At the moment Nextel is testing Flarion technology
(5mbps wireless data) which could blow out T-mobile's current wireless
offering. With this type of competition wireless services are only
going to get better and better.
Wireless is the near and mid-term future and that is not arguable! The
newpaper writers talk about us ham radio operators playing with old
fashioned technology...haha thethered BPL is worse, at least we're wireless!
Best of luck,
dave
wa3gin
Michael Tope wrote:
>Well said, Rob. The main thing is to stick with the facts. We
>have a very good case to make. The BPL proponents DO
>NOT.
>
>
>
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