[RFI] BPL news today's WSJ

[Eric Rosenberg]

Funny,

I didn't ask the question.  I was satisfied that they had done a lot of 
work with the amateur community.  The pilot seems to be based in a 
relatively low income community, so I doubt any hams were impacted.

My very clear impression is that JEA values and wants to maintain their 
relationships with the amateur and public safety communities.

Eric W3DQ

At 10:10 AM 12/21/2005 -0600, EDWARDS, EDDIE J wrote:

>Just curious.
>Did the pilot project do any testing with hams?  Did they test near a
>home station?
>
>Many BPL pilot projects have involved hams at the start only to ignore
>their results later when it didn't come out so good.  That's why I'm
>curious about the testing performed.
>
>I have heard that Current is one of the better ones, but not totally
>clean.
>
>73, de ed -K0iL
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Eric Rosenberg
>
>Two weeks ago, the Nemours Hospital ("the Mayo Clinic for Pediatrics") 
>
>and JEA (formerly the Jacksonville Electric Authority, now including
>the water utility in addition to being the electricity provider) made 
>a
>presentation of their BPL implementation at NTIA here in Washington,
>DC.  NTIA funded this small pilot project, which uses BPL as the
>communications technology for the Nemours staff to monitor pediatric
>asthma patients in their home.
>
>The program itself is quite impressive in its scope, simplicity and
>success.  The hospital is to be commended for the work they are
>doing.  See
>http://www.nemours.org/internet?url=no/news/releases/2005/050325_home_mo
>nitoring_broadband.html
>
>Also to be commended is the JEA, who took the right approach in their
>BPL implementation.  The JEA has an extensive and very robust fiber
>network that ties their substations together.  The BPL system uses BPL 
>
>as the home-to-substation link, after which it ties into the fiber
>network for distribution to the hospital.
>
>During the Q&A I asked the JEA program manager a couple of questions:
>how extensively had they researched the BPL vendors; what criteria did 
>
>they used to award the contract; and how they saw saw BPL in the 
>market
>place.
>
>The answers were quite good.  JEA looked long and hard at all the BPL
>vendors and chose Current (the same as those who are going into
>Dallas).  Their basic criteria was to identify a BPL provider who had 
>a
>solid financial standing, a product that worked and worked well, and a 
>
>strong customer support mechanism.  Understanding that the JEA program 
>
>manager is not in the marketing department, the comments on why the 
>JEA
>opted for BPL had a different slant.  The potential revenues for JEA
>from a commercial BPL service are relatively small, considering the
>cheap competition. JEA is interested in BPL for their own system
>management purposes, and found that it is significantly less expensive 
>
>to implement and operate than their present wireless system, which, if 
>
>I remember correctly, is a combination of CDPD and other LMR/Cellular
>systems.  With BPL, they can read meters and manage their systems far
>more easily and efficiently.
>
>What was most impressive is that before they began to look at vendors, 
>
>they went to the amateur radio and public safety community to
>understand the issues of those communities and integrate their issues
>into their criteria for awarding the equipment and system
>contract.  They impressed me as a being a smart business that did not
>like surprises!
>
>What was most interesting to me is that is that the comments regarding 
>
>their outreach were made as part of the presentation, and not as a
>result of questions (there are only three other hams at NTIA, one of
>whom was at this briefing).
>
>In the end, I was impressed.   As I've said, both sides of the project 
>
>are commendable -- medical and technical.   It proved to me that if 
>the
>system operator is responsible and designs their system properly, and
>holds the vendor to a high standard, BPL and amateur radio can
>co-exist.
>
>73,
>Eric W3DQ
>Washington, DC
>
>
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