[SCCC] FCC Accepting Comments on Broadband over Power Line Technology

Michael Tope W4EF at dellroy.com
Sun May 18 21:45:15 EDT 2003


I urge everyone who has any interest in HF communications to
file comments with the FCC in response to their notice of
inquiry (NOI) on Broadband Powerline Communications.
For those who are not familiar with it, BPL is a system whereby
existing low and medium voltage power transmission lines
will be used to deliver broadband data services to households.
The system is seen by many in the telecommunications industry
as very attractive since it uses existing power line infrastructure
rather than requiring new fibers, coax, or twisted pairs to be
strung. The problem with the system is that power transmission
lines are only really good transmission lines at 60 hertz. At HF
frequencies where the new system would operate, they start to
look like pretty good antennas.

Studies by ARRL indicate that If BPL is allowed to deploy in the
United States under the current FCC part 15 rules, it could easily
mean S9 + level broadband interference from 2 to 30 MHz in all
Metropolitan areas where BPL penetration is heavy. The Japanese
have managed to prevent BPL from being adopted in Japan
through a concerted effort on the part of JA amateurs. Once this
genie is out of the bottle, it will be very hard to put it back in. The
consortium that is behind this technology is backed by a number
of top U.S. telecom manufacturers and they appear to have the ear
of the FCC chairman, Michael Powell, a number of the FCC
commissioners, as well as the NTIA administrator. The BPL industry
will try to skirt the interference issue as this is its Achilles heal, so
its important that amateurs make their concerns about interference
known to the FCC.

If you have any interest at all in HF communications I again urge
you to file comments in response to the FCC NOI.  BTW there
is also some indication that BPL proponents are eying lower
VHF up to about 80 MHz as well, so don't think that this won't
effect you if your VFO never gets lower than 50 MHz. The filing
deadline will probably be sometime in mid-June (the exact date
is 45 days after the NOI is published in the Federal register).

For instruction on how to respond to the NOI, see the last few
paragraphs of the following article:

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2003/05/08/3/?nc=1

For more information on BPL, check out the following webpage
from ARRL:

http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/

Ed Hare's report to the IEEE C63 EMC standards group on
BPL gives a good technical overview of the interference potential:

http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/files/C63NovPLC.pdf

Finally if you have access to IEEE publications, the April issue
of the IEEE Communications Magazine, has 5 articles on BPL
technology.

73 de Mike,
W4EF..................................................................















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