[Lowfer] Broadband over Power Line (BPL); Filing Comments to FCC

[Ed Phillips]

Tim Brannon wrote:
> 
> Tonight I was forwarded a post on QRZ.com about filing your comments regarding Broadband over Powerline.  In an effort to encourage everyone here to add your comments, I thought I'd share the comments I filed tonight:
> 
>   "This proposal poses a grave threat to all of us who use HF radio communications, including government and public safety users. In 2003, there are multiple options for providing broadband Internet access to the vast majority of potential users with better reliability and much higher data rates than what BPL can offer. Launching BPL is a totally un-necessary risk.
>     Also, the FCC recently rejected a petition for an amateur allocation at 136 kHz on the basis that operation would risk interference to the electric utility companies relying on Power Line Communications (PLCs) for power grid-control signaling. Proceding with BPL totally contradicts this recent ruling."
> 
> Hopefully I'm not just degrading the signal to "noise" ratio on this at the FCC, but I wanted to contribute something. This sounds just as ominous for us at LF as well.
> 
> The link to the FCC Electronic filing system is http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs/ecfs_alt.html
> 
> The original post on QRZ.com is http://www.qrz.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST&f=3&t=36781
> 
> 73,
> Tim Brannon
> KF5CQ

	I haven't looked at those addresses yet, but do have something to
contribute.  The IEEE Communications Magazine for May 2003, pp 84-118, 
has several papers on the subject; anyone who is interested in the
subject should read them carefully.  Among other things they emphasize
the extreme interference levels such systems must expect to live with
-all of the normal power line garbage, great big BC signals, etc., etc.,
etc. Projected broadband systems would work from 2 MHz up.  Any amateur
VLF activities could contribute negligible interference and would
probably be of no concern at all to system designers.

	In addition to having to live with interference from all of the signals
already being radiated, there is a concern about how to minimize
interference to those services which might be caused by the new PLC
systems.  Those systems would have to meet very stringent requirements
on the interference they would be allowed to produce.

	Bottom line seems to me that there is no technical reason to prohibit
amateur VLF activity in order to protect future broad-band PLC systems,
and any regulatory decisions about such activity should not be based on
such possible interference.

Ed