[HCRA] BPL - Please review....

Mon, 18 Aug 2003 19:03:04 -0700 (PDT)

Broadband over Power Lines

Please, if you have not educated yourself on this
issue yet, take a careful look.  This issue is not
something to ignore� 

Type �Broadband over Power Lines� into Google (both
Web and Groups) and READ!!!!  Look especially hard at
groups which have nothing to do with radio.  This will
give you a view of the technology from the �masses� as
it were�  

Here are a few selected quotes to wet your appetite:

"This is within striking distance of being the third
major broadband pipe
into the home," said Federal Communications Commission
Chairman Michael
Powell, who visited the house Wednesday to get a
preview of the technology.

The home is part of a trial project run by Current
Technologies, a company
based in Germantown, Maryland. The company, working
with the Potomac
Electric Power Co., is providing broadband over power
lines to about 70
homes in Maryland. Another trial offers the service in
suburban Cincinnati.

Powell watched as a Current Technologies employee
simultaneously used a
special stereo to listen to an Internet radio station,
showed a high-quality
video of a movie streamed from the Web and played a
motorcycle video game in
live competition with others online. All the services
flowed through a
single power outlet.

"I love this stuff," said Powell, who described
himself as a
"techno-ecstatic geek."

Asked if he would put the power line service in his
home, Powell said: "Yes,
I would. I'm a little bummed it's not in my area yet."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is a scary quote from the President of the
American Public Power Association (APPA): 

"Given the tremendous potential of BPL to provide an
advanced
technology that utilizes additional facilities based
mechanisms for
providing services the burden should be imposed on
challengers to BPL
to demonstrate interference is a fact based, empirical
proof.

Further, to the extent that interference is
demonstrated, there should
be an attempt to accommodate BPL, even if it means
that existing
communications providers may have to share or transfer
bandwidth."

Source Document:
Reply comments [to FCC] by American Public Power
Association
http://www.appanet.org/pdfreq.cfm?PATH_INFO=/newsroom/Other%20Agency/FCCNOI2003.pdf&VARACTION=GO

Lastly, here are two e-mails I �copied� from the YCCC
reflector written by a past president of the YCCC
(K2KQ): (Remember that the FCC is looking for comments
about the comments already posted in July.  You can
review them at the web site). Also comments are due by
Wednesday this week...

Club,

I filed the following comment with FCC today.
You can file yours by going to this URL and selecting
docket 03-104.

http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/ecfs/Upload/

Best,
Don...K2KQ
**********************************

I am aware of the FCC's efforts to explore permitting
unlicensed, unregulated operation of
Broadband on Power Lines (BPL).

The implementation of this technique is fraught with
technical, legal and security issues and I strongly
oppose it.

1. Technical

Medium-voltage power lines, while reasonably efficient
in transmitting 60-Hertz power are a very poor medium
for transmitting and receiving broadband signals in
the
high-frequency (1.7-30 MHz) region. They leak
interference and are
themselves subject to interference.

a. Wide-spaced power lines are very poor transmission
lines for HF signals. They leak. The leakage is
uncontrollable.
Non-linearities in connections over years of service
can cause the generation of harmonics and
intermodulation products
that also leak. These leakages will interfere with a
variety of
licensed services operating in the BPL spectrum and
its harmonics.

b. For the same reason that leakage will cause
interference with
licensed services, the same licensed services will
cause uncontrolled
interference to the devices installed on power systems
to receive BPL.

2. Legal.
Licensed services, operating in the HF region, are one
party to a 
contract
with the Federal
Government. Licensees agree to abide by the terms of
the contract and 
in
return
are given implicit assurance that the Federal
Government will provide
protection
to the parts of the spectrum they occupy. The FCC
operates and 
maintains
a Compliance Division which is charged with the
responsibility of 
protecting
licensed users of the spectrum from unlicensed and
otherwise illegal 
uses of
the
protected spectrum. How is FCC going to continue
insisting on 
compliance
with terms of licenses when the Commission itself
contemplates 
violating
those very terms?
While Part 15 of the regulations permits manufacturers
to certificate equipment that radiates in protected
parts of the 
spectrum,
it
also requires manufacturers to accept interference
from licensed 
services.
How can the Commission expect manufacturers to produce
equipment
under those terms when it is certain that the
equipment will be subject
to complete paralysis from legal interfering signals?

3. Security

BPL on medium-voltage, widely-spaced lines is subject
to intentional
denial of service and spoofing attacks simply because
the physics of
the situation permit it. A transmitter located in
close proximity to
the lines can be made to compete with, overcome and
compromise
in various ways, the legitimate signals carried.

The information carried by BPL on medium-voltage
widely-spaced
power lines is subject to very simple, widespread and
uncontrolled
compromise.
To breach a BPL system requires only a
receiver located within the fields generated by the
power lines. Such
breaches seriously compromise security of the signals
themselves and 
the
entities using such a system...a serious liability on
the part of FCC.

If BPL were to be used even in a limited application
such as control
of the power grid itself, it lays the entire grid open
to hostile 
attack.

I vehemently oppose the implementation of BPL on
medium-voltage
power lines.

Save the taxpayers a lot of money and put a halt to
BPL now.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Toman

*******************************************************
______________________________________________
YCCC mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/yccc

Fellow YCCCers,

Those of you who want to really raise Cain over BPL
can
contact the Congressional Subcommittee on
Telecommunications and the
Internet...part of the Congressional Committee on
energy
and Commerce.

These folks fund the FCC.

You may be interested to learn that one Edward Markey
of
Massachusetts is the Ranking Member of this
subcommittee. Here's their website:

http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/subcommittees/Telecommunications_and_the_Internet.htm

Mr Markey's is on

http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/members/Markey.htm

Deluge him and other members of this subcommittee
on BPL. If you know hams who live in the districts of
other members of this subcommittee, ask them to
deluge their representatives.

Congresspeople respond to calls and letters. Give
it to them!

73,
Don...K2KQ

If you made it to this part of the e-mail, you must be
serious.  So, please visit the ARRL web site and
review the material there.  You will be depressed�
http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2003/08/08/2/?nc=1

If I can be of service�.

Marc
K1MZ

=====
73,
Marc
K1MZ

__________________________________
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