[TowerTalk] BPL -- my ONLY comment

[Michael Tope]

I have heard people who seem to know about this stuff
saying that BPL is just a political tool that the commissioners
are using to light a fire under the DSL and CATV people
to extend coverage to underserved areas. The endgame
is to extend broadband coverage by whatever means is
successful in the marketplace. Politically it would be bad for
anyone regardless of political affiliation to publicly oppose
BPL because their political enemies would use it against
them (e.g. "my opponent opposed new technology that could
bring broadband connectivity to millions of homes that are
now only served by dialup"). The argument against BPL is
too technical to be digested by the soundbite media and
the general public (e.g. its more like broadband = good;
dialup = bad). Fortunately, BPL is its own worst enemy. It is
not a good technology. If its presence in the marketplace
motivates the real players to extend broadband service more
quickly, then I suspect it will have served its intended purpose
(at least I hope this is what is behind all of the cheerleading
by the commissioners). After that hopefully it will die a quick
death as it seems to have done in Europe.

I think the best thing we can do as amateurs is support the
ARRL so that they can keep the pressure on the FCC to
act when the inevitable interference cases pop-up as
systems are deployed. The more menacing the regulatory
compliance burden the more likely it will be that BPL providers
will realize early on that they are on a sinking ship and pull
the plug (pun intended).

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


----- Original Message -----
From: "W0UN -- John Brosnahan" <shr at swtexas.net>
To: <towertalk at contesting.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 6:58 PM
Subject: [TowerTalk] BPL -- my ONLY comment


> >The last time that I checked, it was Michael Powell, a REPUBLICAN,
>  >that was practically jumping up and down and frothing at the mouth
>  >about how excited he was about BPL.  And let's not forget that other
>  >famous REPUBLICAN, G.W.Bush, who APPOINTED him and also
>  >cheered on BPL as though it were the 2nd coming!
>  >
>
>
> My ONLY comment on BPL--
>
> For the record  --
>
> Powell was appointed as an FCC commissioner by Bill CLINTON.
> Bush only made him chairman.  But as chairman he still only has
> one vote.
>
> Something that seems to upset a lot of Democrats is the change of
> ownership of stations by groups such as Clear Channel--also
> attributed to Bush's FCC.   Actually this was also done under Clinton
> as well, at the enactment of the 1996 Telecommunications Act.
>
> Only thing done under Bush was to TAKE NO FURTHER ACTION
> on the ownership rules.
>
> Nothing is EVER as simple as it seems--especially when it is
> described in sound bites.
>
> --John
>
>
>  >Michael K. Powell is Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
>  >Chairman Powell was nominated by President William J. Clinton to a
> Republican
>  >seat on the Commission, and was sworn in on November 3, 1997. He was
>  >designated chairman by President George W. Bush on January 22, 2001.
>
>
>
> I found this little note to be of interest--providing some historical
> perspective of BPL.
>
> http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,8310545~mode=flat
>
> BPL the sad history, the myths and true reality
> First a little history (those that ignore history get to repeat the
> mistakes) BPL (AKA PLC/PLT/DPL) is a tired old legacy technology that has
> struggled with interference issues since it was first rolled out in
> Manchester, England in 1997 (one year before the introduction of DSL to
> Europe). Nortel designed the system. The UK authorities tolerated the
> interference for a time but when the emergency services traced
interference
> to BPL it was shut down.
>
> Development moved to Germany, Nortel struggled on and eventually decided
> that the interference issues could not be resolved. Siemens then took up
> the lead, after several thousand customers had been connected up, Siemens
> came to the same conclusion as Nortel and exited the business. The next
> company to enter the business was Ascom based in Switzerland. Then an
> Israeli company called Mainnet entered the BPL market using chips from a
> Spanish company called DS2.
>
> Tests were made in Japan and the authorities banned BPL due to the
> interference problems. Next Finland shut down their BPL system due to
> interference problems.
>
> By 2003 there were 7,000 users in Europe with a multitude of test sites
all
> small scale. BPL customer growth was stagnant.
>
> The U.S. was never considered a market for BPL because of the architecture
> of the electrical distribution system. In most of Northern Europe
> electrical distribution is underground with about 200~300 houses for each
> transformer. In the U.S. much of the electrical distribution is overhead
> with up to 6 houses sharing a transformer.
>
> In what can only be described as a desperate last ditch attempt to sell
> product and survive, the BPL industry created a "phantom" product that
> answered the FCC's need for rural broadband. The myth was propagated that
> BPL was the answer to rural broadband deployment. The FCC commissioners
> bought the story, the press talked about Internet at every socket.
>
> The reality is that of all the Internet distribution technologies BPL is
> the least suited to go any distance. Every 2,000 feet an expensive
repeater
> in needed to boost the signals.
>
> Now to the myths
>
> Clean technology myth
> Tales of interference had preceded BPLs arrival, the myth that the
> interference issue had been solved (first generation problem!) was told to
> anyone who would listen. The lobbyists were very successful, they managed
> to get an FCC commissioner to state that the interference complaints were
> "unsubstantiated". How the interference problem had been solved was not
> made clear.
>
> The reality is that the interference is even worse than ever, the
> modulation technique has been changed so that the interference sounds like
> noise and for many users it will look like a faulty radio issue. Tracking
> the source and proving the cause will be difficult.
>
> High speed myth
> To add speed to the solution for rural broadband was "icing on the cake".
> To create the illusion of speed, trial/demo systems where set up where
four
> or five users enthused about speeds in the megabit range. BPL is a shared
> system and real world results with typical economic user numbers are about
> 250K (Broadband? more like Midband).
>
> In conclusion
> The only people who will profit from BPL are the power companies who will
> roll out niche systems in the few markets where the economics make sense.
> It will only take a few systems to trash the radio spectrum for a
> substantial portion of the western hemisphere.
>
> There are many better ways to provide Internet access, when the choices
are
> rated, BPL but any test comes bottom of the list however you make the
> measurement.
> _______________________________________________