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![Previous (earlier) Story](/images/sty-down.gif "Montana Hams in "Heads-Up" Mode in Wildfires Response"){kind=small} Previous: Montana Hams in "Heads-Up" Mode in Wildfires Response |  Next: FCC Turns Down Amateur's Petitions |
NEWINGTON, CT, Aug 28, 2003--Encouraging Broadband over Power Line (BPL) technology puts the FCC at a regulatory crossroad, the Amateur Radio Research and Development Corporation (AMRAD) has suggested. AMRAD's remarks came August 20 in reply comments filed in response to the FCC's BPL Notice of Inquiry (ET Docket 03-104). The Washington, DC-based organization's comments also outlined its BPL testing and measurement efforts, which included laboratory and real-world conditions. AMRAD said any departure from the "current baseline" of Part 15 rules that govern unlicensed services would invite "troublesome unintended consequences" that could prove difficult to correct.
 BPL would use low and medium-voltage lines like these to distribute broadband services. |
"The FCC is facing some serious decisions on whether to continue with past rules and historical enforcement or to dispense with their historical role and substitute rules which give the unlicensed Part 15 systems priority over the licensed systems such as the amateur radio service," AMRAD said. "Such changes to Part 15 rules would tip the responsibility of compliance so as to favor the unlicensed users and leave the FCC facing a large number of harmful interference complaints to resolve."
AMRAD recommended the FCC proceed "slowly and with caution" in advancing BPL as a viable and economical alternative to existing high-speed Internet technologies such as cable modem and DSL. "The FCC must assess whether BPL will prove an unreliable, marginal system with expensive remedial and mitigation actions while other technologies become the mainstream technologies."
The non-profit scientific and educational organization invited the FCC to participate in coordinated testing with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) "to explore and understand the full impact of these proposed technologies." In its comments, NTIA indicated plans to go forward with an extensive measurement, testing and analysis initiative to determine BPL's potential to interfere with users of the government spectrum it administers.
AMRAD also expressed concerns as to whether the FCC would be able to enforce Part 15 rules as written in the face of neighborhood Internet service interruptions caused by "a single radio amateur or other FCC-licensed radio transmitter" of relatively low power and operating legally. It said its own testing, both in the field and in the laboratory, demonstrated that an amateur transmitter running as little as 10 W in the vicinity of a BPL system could seriously impair the system's throughput. A 100 W signal would cause it to collapse altogether.
The antenna was 40 feet high and 40 feet from the residence where a HomePlug-standard in-house BPL local network was operating between two levels of the house. Operation was on the 20-meter band. Ironically, the HomePlug standard substantially notches out the amateur bands. The new 60-meter band is not notched out, however.
AMRAD said its laboratory testing showed that systems based on the HomePlug standard--which is used by some access BPL systems--were vulnerable to RF and will collapse with no data transfer when RF fields induce 1 V or more of RF into the power line. "The system is sensitive to interference over the range of 4 to 21 MHz and does not exhibit less vulnerability in the radio amateur bands," AMRAD said.
AMRAD said its observations and tests demonstrate that broadband BPL signals that conform to Part 15 "are well above the ambient noise and will interfere with many forms of reception." It said other non-HomePlug-standard systems that don't notch out ham bands "could cause more serious interference problems."
In the final analysis, AMRAD said, the FCC "must proceed with great care and take actions now to conduct testing to gather critical information" before making regulatory assessments. "The FCC efforts should remain focused on providing broadband to the home and not focus on any specific technology," AMRAD asserted.
AMRAD member Frank Gentges, K0BRA, recently assisted ARRL Lab Supervisor Ed Hare, W1RFI, in the League's efforts to assess the impact of BPL on HF. Gentges gave Hare a guided tour of "hot neighborhoods" in Manassas, Virginia, where BPL is undergoing field trials.
Although the reply comment window closed August 20, the number of comments in response to the FCC's BPL NOI was 4535 as of August 27 and counting, with more than 80 reply comments filed since the deadline. Many of the individual comments in the BPL proceeding have come from the Amateur Radio community.
AMRAD's reply
comments are available on the FCC Web site.
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