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 Previous: Some Tips on Being a Net Control Station |  Next: The Amateur Radio Crossword Puzzler |
FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin. |
 BPL deployment in Manassas, Virginia, resulted in several interference complaints from radio amateurs. |
The UPLC's BPL deployment map, as of January 19, 2007. [Larger image] |
NEWINGTON, CT, Feb 1, 2007 -- The ARRL is taking FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin to task for telling the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation that broadband over power line (BPL) technology is the answer to broadband deployment in rural areas. Martin and the other four FCC commissioners testified today during a committee hearing, "Assessing the Communications Marketplace: A View from the FCC." In his prepared remarks, the chairman described BPL as a "potentially significant player due to power lines' ubiquitous reach, allowing it to more easily provide broadband to rural areas." ARRL Chief Executive Officer David Sumner, K1ZZ, criticized Martin for repeating "specious BPL industry claims" that suggest BPL has anything to offer rural dwellers.
"The assertion that BPL can `more easily provide broadband to rural areas' is one of the big lies about BPL," Sumner said. "It has been debunked time and time again, and it is beyond comprehension to hear it parroted by the federal government's senior telecommunications regulator at this late date."
Martin's remarks, Sumner added, "should demonstrate to the committee why legislation is needed to force the FCC to use technical studies, rather than outdated industry propaganda and wishful thinking, as the basis for making BPL-related decisions."
Martin was the only one of his colleagues to mention BPL in their Senate committee testimony. The chairman also cited United Power Line Council (UPLC) "reports" that there are now at least 38 trial BPL deployments plus 7 commercial trials.
Parsing the Numbers
Martin apparently derived his BPL deployment figures by counting the dots on a UPLC map, since updated. The most recent edition, dated January 19, 2007, appears to indicate just 25 BPL trials, but that list includes some systems that do not appear in the BPL industry database. The map also shows 9 commercial deployments, including one in Pennsylvania believed to have been shut down.
The FCC's "High-Speed Services for Internet Access: Status as of June 30, 2006" report -- the most recent available -- shows that the number of high-speed "lines" grew by nearly 13.5 million in the first six months of last year. Of that number, nearly 640 were listed as "power line and other," an increase of some 14 percent in that category but about half the overall growth in high-speed services.
"These latest FCC figures underscore just how far out of touch the Commission itself is with marketplace reality," Sumner remarked. "How much longer will the Commission continue to tout BPL as a viable consumer broadband option in the face of its own contrary data?"
Studies Show BPL Not Viable for "Truly Rural" Areas
In joint comments to the FCC in 2003 on the then-pending BPL rule making proceeding, the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative (NRTC) and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) cited studies indicating BPL would "not be a viable solution for most Americans in truly rural areas any time soon." The two organizations pointed out that many rural Americans are served by power lines that are many miles long with as few as one or two consumers per mile.
"To date, no BPL system has been demonstrated to work, much less been commercially deployed, on a long, sparsely populated rural electric power line," the NRTC/NRECA comments continued. "Even if BPL technology proves to be reliable and does not cause unacceptable radio frequency interference in rural deployment, the economics will likely be prohibitive for some time to come. This is because signal repeaters or regenerators will be required at intervals as small as one-fourth to three-fourths of a mile along lengthy rural power lines" in addition to the numerous and necessary network access points and backhaul lines.
An October 2005 FCW.com report by Dibya Sarkar cited the remarks of Public Technology Institute Executive Director Alan Shark, previously executive director of the Rural Broadband Coalition and president and CEO of the Power Line Communications Association, that BPL might not be the answer to providing Internet service to rural or remote areas where traditional telecommunications providers have been reluctant to make investments. Shark suggests, the article says, that repeaters every few hundred feet to keep BPL service from degrading "might be too expensive a proposition for BPL providers."
More recently, the NRTC last fall cited studies by Chartwell Inc, a research company specializing in electric power topics, that found only 5 percent of utilities were moving ahead with BPL projects while 13 percent were planning or "considering" BPL projects. On the other hand, two utilities with more than a million customers between them reported discontinued existing BPL programs, according to a Chartwell member newsletter.
The League has suggested that potential investors in rural broadband delivery would be better off considering wireless LAN or satellite technology as more promising possibilities.
Senate Commerce Committee co-Chairman Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI) said, "We must encourage continued innovation in this industry." Inouye expressed concerns, however, that "other countries are leapfrogging the United States in the deployment of broadband access."
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