Subject: [NEXTEL-1] North Carolina Hams Experience Close BPL Encounter with FCC Chairman

From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 03:32:57 -0500

North Carolina Hams Experience Close BPL Encounter with FCC Chairman

NEWINGTON, CT

Mar 9, 2004

A Broadband over Power Line (BPL) home demonstration 
in the Raleigh, North Carolina, area March 5 provided an 
ideal opportunity for area amateurs to take their concerns 
to FCC Chairman Michael Powell face to face. While ARRL 
Public Information Officer Gary Pearce, KN4AQ, doesn't 
believe his brief encounter with the FCC head and longer 
discussions with Commission and electric utility staffers 
will stop or slow the seeming BPL juggernaut, they were 
valuable nonetheless. 

"We consider the day successful in the context that we 
were able to speak directly with several high-level FCC 
officials, key Progress Energy officials and the CEO of 
Amperion -- a BPL provider," Pearce said. "Long-term 
success will be measured by how much of a problem BPL 
poses to Amateur Radio, or how much of a problem is avoided." 

While Pearce says he spent all of about 30 seconds with 
Powell, he did manage to tell the chairman that amateurs 
believe BPL's interference potential is being understated 
and would be more difficult to resolve than the FCC suggested 
in its BPL Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM). 

"What I didn't know when I talked to him," he added, "was 
that a question that we had sent to the local newspaper had 
been posed earlier in the day at a press conference about 
interference, and he had already answered that question, so 
he was somewhat tuned into the idea." 

As the Raleigh News & Observer reported, Powell responded 
to the question by saying the FCC would not let BPL interfere 
with critical services. "The question is whether it does, and to 
what extent, and what limits can be placed to make sure it 
doesn't," Powell said. "We've been fully committed to only 
allowing things with the range of what we're convinced won't 
create impermissible interference." 

But Powell went on to say that if BPL can provide broadband 
access anywhere there's a power outlet, "We're not going to 
be easily dissuaded from doing something that has that much 
potential." 

Electric utility Progress Energy and BPL partner Amperion now 
are operating three field test sites in Wake County south of Raleigh. 
Acting on a tip, Pearce and several other area amateurs -- ARRL 
Technical Specialist Frank Lynch, W4FAL, among them -- showed 
up at the prearranged BPL demonstration at a private residence 
in Fuquay-Varina. "They were kind of worried that we were going 
to sit in front of the demonstration with a high-powered mobile 
and disrupt it," Pearce said of the FCC and industry officials. "We 
didn't do that, but certainly hams have talked about doing things 
like that." His approach to getting Amateur Radio's side heard 
has entailed being respectful and behaving like adults, Pearce 
said. But he also acknowledged that many amateurs are upset 
and angry, and more than a few would prefer a more aggressive 
stance. 

While Pearce witnessed the demo inside, other members of the 
amateur delegation, among them Wake County ARRL Emergency 
Coordinator Tom Brown, N4TAB -- an engineer -- chatted with 
Powell Senior Legal Advisor Chris Libertelli. 

"He was informative and courteous and openly sought our views," 
Brown said. "He received them in kind." He said Libertelli told the 
group that the Raleigh area had caught Washington's attention and 
seemed to be the only place in the country where there was any 
real cooperation between hams and utilities promoting BPL. 

Brown said the "outside" delegation again raised the amateurs' 
belief that BPL industry claims are misstated and wrong. "The point 
was made," he said. "Overall I think we were successful in illuminating 
a few issues and opening more doors instead of closing them." 

For his part, Pearce said, the event reinforced his opinion that BPL 
is "a serious, big business-government venture in which Amateur 
Radio is, for now, a minor annoyance. "Everyone is relying on the 
vendors' claims that their technology can solve all the problems," 
he said. 

A few hams - most a half-mile or so away from the field test sites -
already 
have identified some weak interference from BPL on 10 and 12 meters, 
Pearce told ARRL. "There are hams who live in the vicinity who hear 
the [BPL] signals, and if they chose to operate on the bands where 
this stuff is, then they'd have to be listening to it." 

Pearce said he was unsuccessful in getting FCC Chief of Policy 
Development Bob Pepper or Powell to take a quick spin in his 
mobile radio-equipped vehicle to show him what BPL sounded 
like "from our perspective." The FCC officials declined, due to 
time constraints but suggested instead that the amateurs arrange 
a similar demonstration in Washington. 

>From what he and his amateur cohorts have observed, Pearce 
predicted that BPL could blanket a full one-mile diameter area 
with interference to the average home amateur station. "It would 
be very irritating," he said. 

Pearce and Brown agree that BPL is not technologically mature 
enough to ensure the sort of "interference mitigation" the FCC 
envisions in its NPRM. Brown says his engineering instincts are 
raising a lot of red flags. 

"It's being portrayed as being an easy, on-the-fly, 'hey, we just 
push a button, and it happens' kind of thing. I don't believe that's 
the case," Brown said. "The Achilles' heel of this whole thing is 
mitigation, obviously - it's enforcement." Brown believes human 
intervention will be inevitable to resolve interference complaints. 

"It's not anywhere near as adaptive as they would lead you to 
believe it is or want you to - by absence of further information - 
allow you to delude yourself," he said. "It's not there yet." 

Pearce said he was happy to get just a few seconds with Powell 
and to be able to put "a human face" on Amateur Radio's side of 
the issue. 

"We know they heard us and that we made a good impression," 
he said. "We hope it was a deep one as well." 

Brown was more guarded, characterizing the encounter as "one 
of those things that mattered but didn't make a difference." 

"This thing is on a downhill track, it's got a lot of energy behind it, 
it's got a lot of mass behind it, and it's got a low-friction rail," he 
said. "And we're not going to stop it. It's going to happen." 

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2004/03/09/1/?nc=1

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