[W2CRA] Please tell President Bush he is wrong to support BPL technology!

[Walter O'Brien, W2WJO]

If there ever was a cause to galvanize ham radio into action, this is it.

If you have not done so, email the President & Vice President NOW about you=
r
feelings on the BPL portions of his speech on April 26th IN FAVOR of BPL
deployment.

If they don't hear anything, they will assume no one cares enough to do
anything and will continue to do what they want unabated.  They might
anyway, but...

Below is a sample letter to copy or borrow from however you wish, as well a=
s
the appropriate addresses. Probably wouldn't hurt to send another to the FC=
C
commissioners as well. And thanks to Ron Notarius WN3VAW on the NJDXA list
for the basic letter and inspiration.

president@whitehouse.gov
vice.president@whitehouse.gov

---------------------------------

The Honorable George W. Bush, President of the United States
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Sir:
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I have just read your speech in Minneapolis MN earlier this week in which
you came out in favor of the so-called Broadband Over Powerline (BPL)
technologies currently being tested in many parts of the country, and for
which the Federal Communications Commission is currently reviewing
regulations.
=20
As an FCC licensed amateur radio operator and an active radio operator unde=
r
the RACES program, working with FEMA and Homeland Security and our county
Office Of Emergency Management, I am deeply disappointed and troubled by
your apparent wholesale endorsement of this technology.
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I have no objection to efforts to broaden the availability of broadband
technologies; in fact I am enthusiastically in favor of universal
availability.  I have a problem with these particular technologies because
BPL as currently being tested and proposed will cause massive interference
to the High Frequency and Very High Frequency communication bands, renderin=
g
an important part of our national communications infrastructure useless.
=20
You refer in your speech to reducing the "regulatory burden" on BPL.  I
accept that government entities should not impose undue non-technical
regulations and taxes on this technology.  My concern is that this will be
used as an excuse to remove the proposed technical requirements that requir=
e
BPL systems to not interfere with existing licensed communication services.
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Tests have already shown clearly that BPL systems have massive interference
problems because power lines, which were never designed to be used as
communications carriers, act as antennas, radiating BPL signals into the
environment. Despite BPL proponents' claims that their signals=B9 interferenc=
e
only travels "a few hundred feet", there are years of proof by amateur radi=
o
operators that very low power signals similar to these BPL emissions can
easily travel around the world.
=20
BPL test sites have not been able to solve this interference problem. There
have already been reports of system owners saying in effect, "too bad,
that's the best we can do, live with it" and then continuing to cause
interference.
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This technology was tried in other parts of the world, including Western
Europe and Japan, and was flawed to the point where it has been downplayed
or discontinued outright.  Yet despite this information, which has been
available for years, you and certain members of the Federal Communications
Commission appear to endorse it without reservation.
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I am further disappointed in the timing of your speech.  The FCC is
currently accepting input from the public on its current Notice of Proposed
Rule Making (NPRM) on the BPL issue.  That comment period is not closed yet=
,
but the timing of your speech makes it appear that public input has already
been discarded.  I thought we lived in a democracy where all voices,
including and especially those of the voting, taxpaying public, were to be
heard and weighed equally.
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Those of us with concerns over BPL have an uphill battle to persuade the FC=
C
to consider the technical truths along with the political ones.  But with
your comments and recent comments from members of the FCC, it appears that
the matter has already been resolved, and that the FCC is merely going
through the motions to give only the appearance of making a fair and
reasonable decision.
=20
Please reconsider the damage this will do to national emergency
communications. If we learned one thing from September 11th's many lessons,
it's the importance of a communications system independent of telephone
systems and electrical power that are often the first to fail. FEMA seems t=
o
be aware of this as sponsor of the emergency communications program RACES,
which works in tandem with local Offices of Emergency Management around the
country. We sincerely hope the rest of your administration will realize it
as well.
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Perhaps the power companies should concentrate on keeping the power grid
from collapsing on hot days throughout the summer, or increasing the
efficiency of available electrical generation systems before getting into a
completely unrelated business that will effectively kill a great, long time
hobby of hundreds of thousands of Americans, as well as an important system
of emergency communications for this country.
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Sincerely,
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<Your Name and Address Here>