[CW] Excerpt from ARRL Letter-FAX abt BPL to FCC

[Ed Tanton]

This an excerpt from ARRL Letter, VOL 25, No 48:

==>LEAGUE FAULTS FCC CHAIRMAN RE BIASED, INACCURATE BPL INFORMATION

The ARRL has called on FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin and his fellow
commissioners to employ "a more even-handed approach" when promoting new
broadband technologies. In a December 6 fax to Martin and the other four FCC
members, ARRL CEO David Sumner, K1ZZ, faulted the chairman for using
broadband over power line (BPL) deployment data from the BPL industry when
speaking at Georgetown University November 30. Martin's presentation
<http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/martin/georgetown.ppt> included a slide of
a map from the United Power Line Council (UPLC), a BPL proponent, purporting
to show current BPL deployments in the US.

"This slide is taken from a biased industry source and fails to note that a
large percentage of the deployments shown on the map have been shut down and
no longer exist," Sumner told Martin. His letter included a list of five
systems shut down as much as two years earlier. In several instances,
utilities announced they had abandoned their BPL pilot projects because they
proved to be uneconomical or were unable to compete with existing broadband
technologies.

Sumner said the ARRL wants the FCC to stop using the UPLC as a source for
illustrating BPL deployments. He further faulted the chairman for failing to
include slides on the other two new technologies in the early stages of
deployment he'd mentioned -- wireless broadband and fiber-to-the-home.

The FCC Report, "High-Speed Services for Internet Access: Status as of
December 31, 2005," showed 448,196 fiber and 256,538 fixed wireless
connections compared to just 5859 for "Power Line and Other," Sumner pointed
out. "Your prepared remarks do not even mention satellite broadband, yet the
same FCC report shows 426,928 satellite 'lines,'" he added.

Sumner said BPL, as a technology, doesn't warrant the kind of partiality
it's been getting from the FCC. "As you know, the ARRL's concern is with the
still-unresolved radio interference issues that uniquely plague BPL and not
with BPL as such," he noted in conclusion. "However, it is evident that the
technology does not deserve the favored treatment the FCC continues to
bestow upon it, especially when its inherent shortcoming, that it is a radio
spectrum polluter, escapes mention."

Sumner said the UPLC BPL deployment map Martin used when speaking at the
Georgetown University McDonough School of Business Center for Business and
Public Policy November 30 also was on display at the FCC open meeting last
August at which the Commission adopted its BPL Memorandum Opinion and Order
(MO&O). The MO&O dispensed with various reconsideration petitions, including
one from ARRL, asking the Commission to reconsider its October 2004 BPL
Report and Order (R&O).

Martin's excessive emphasis on BPL as a "new" technology when other new
technologies "are vastly more successful and promising according to the
FCC's own reports" belies the chairman's impartiality, Sumner commented
after faxing the letter. "The ARRL remains highly dissatisfied with the
Commission's handling of the BPL radio interference issue."

In October, the ARRL notified the US District Court of Appeals -- DC Circuit
that it would seek review of the August MO&O as well as the October 2004 R&O
on the ground that they exceed the Commission's jurisdiction and authority,
are contrary to the Communications Act of 1934, and are arbitrary,
capricious, an abuse of discretion, and otherwise not in accordance with
law.

The League will request that the court "hold unlawful, vacate, enjoin and
set aside the orders." A court filing detailing the League's specific
objections to the two FCC orders is pending.


Ed Tanton

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