[QCWA] It's official... we are secondary.

[THOMAS WEBB]

Since I started this discussion, I'll make one more comment and quit.  I enjoyed reading all the ideas.  Political comments on the reflector are probably not a good idea, as has been said.

I'm an engineer, not a lawyer.  Some of you legal types tell us if there is any legal recourse that might be taken to force the FCC to comply with their own rules (Part 15).

Tom Webb  W4YOK
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Paul L. Schmidt 
  To: Discussion of QCWA 
  Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2004 7:11 AM
  Subject: Re: [QCWA] It's official... we are secondary.


  Norm Gertz wrote:
  > ITF writes " I do not think it matters whose in the White House "
  > 
  > Sorry old man.....it sure does matter.  All the top brass of the FCC are 
  > political appointees......you could easily question the expertise of 
  > many of them.
  > 
  > They do the bidding of those who have placed them in office.
  > 
  > 73   Norm    K1AA

  Sure, it does.  But take a look at the question from the political
  perspective -- the interests of a nation of about a half billion
  people, many of which (by the way, myself included) don't have access
  to high-speed internet access - compared to the interests of under
  a million people -- with the (regulated) power industry telling the 
  government that they can, indeed, provide such service to the large
  group with minimal or no impact on the small group.

  We're still the primary users of the spectrum, although with the
  position not nearly as strong as it has been.  The FCC'a given the
  power industry permission to go ahead with something that isn't
  going to work as advertised. But when the power industry is bearing
  the financial risk in a market that has competetion from providers
  who actually *can* provide service to the customers, what are they
  supposed to do?

  Yes, I think the FCC blew this one.  But I think the ones who are
  eventually going to be complaining the loudest are the power companies -
  when their customers call up to have BPL disconnected and replaced with
  a competitor's service due to poor performance.  And we've been down
  this interference-from-wired-services road before in many areas -- with
  cable TV systems.

  The R&O is requiring the power industry to keep all of their deployment
  information out in the open - that at least gives us a fighting chance
  (or, reversing the phrase around, a chance to fight).  The ARRL's petiton
  for reconsideration is a good start, but our best long-term chances may be
  with local hams monitoring (policing?) the local BPL implementations.
  Maybe the ARRl should set up a website to collect and track BPL
  complaints?  If John Q. Ham could just go type in an interference
  location on a website, instead of having to initiate a formal complaint
  with the FCC, I'd bet enough complaints could be collected (and, of
  course, verified by some trained volunteers) to totally bury the
  issue.

  On the other hand, what if the power companies are telling the truth?
  What if it really *can* work?  (Time to look out the window and see
  if there are any flying pigs going by.)

  73,

  Paul / K9PS
  _______________________________________________
  QCWA mailing list
  QCWA at mailman.qth.net
  http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/qcwa