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Posted on 10/18/2004 6:43:55 AM PDT by Denver Ditdat
FCC commissioners yesterday unanimously approved rules for broadband over power line (BPL) technology, which policymakers hope will provide the elusive third broadband access line into most U.S. homes and reduce—or eliminate—the need to regulate the broadband industry.
Certainly the most outspoken opposition to BPL has come from the amateur radio community, which has claimed that BPL will create interference with its operations. FCC Chairman Michael Powell called amateur radio operators “an important resource” and expressed hope that the rules the FCC has created will protect them, but he said obstructing the deployment of BPL is not an option.
“The potential for the American economy is too great—is too enormous, is too potentially groundbreaking—to sit idly by and allow any claim or any possible speculative fear to keep us from trying to drive this technology and drive America into the broadband future,” Powell said.
Powell believes the ubiquity of the U.S. electrical grid makes BPL an ideal platform to provide affordable broadband nationwide, particularly in currently underserved rural areas. It also offers the promise of network-based competition with DSL and cable-modem service as a wired broadband option.
“In addition to universal service, we talk so often about competition—well, here it is,” Powell said. “All economists will tell you magic happens when you find the third way.” But amateur radio proponents question the economic benefits of BPL.
“If it’s not economical to run fiber or cable, they’re certainly not going to be putting repeaters on power lines every two miles to get a signal out to one guy’s house, get him to pay 30 bucks a month for the service and then expect to make money on it,” said David Patton special assistant to the CEO for the Amateur Radio Relay League. “It’s just a bad investment.”
Patton said there is some question as to whether electrical utilities will be able to deploy BPL—“They can’t even supply power. There are power outages everywhere,” he said—and added that existing technologies such as microwave, satellite and Wi-Fi would do a better job of bringing broadband services to rural customers without the interference concerns.
“When you walk around the library with your [Wi-Fi-enabled] computer, you’re using frequencies that are pretty innocuous,” Patton said. “Satellite service could be cheaper, but if you really want broadband, you can get it [with satellite] pretty much anywhere you want.”
Patton said the ARRL board is considering its options, which could include putting pressure on Congress to draft legislation that would protect amateur radio operators and challenging the FCC’s order in court, though that would come “somewhere down the line.”
In other news, the FCC allocated spectrum in the 2.0 GHz and 2.3 GHz bands for the relocation of federal operations that had been using the 1.7 GHz and 2.1 GHz bands. These airwaves previously had been reallocated to private sector entities for the provisioning of advanced wireless services, including 3G services. The action is “an important step” towards an auction of 90 MHz of spectrum for AWS, the FCC said.
Ham Radio Ping ListPlease Freepmail me if you want to be added to or deleted from the list.
Bump.
Hmm. A ZOT would really mean something with a broadband connection over a power line!
Patton comes across as a lower than low used car salesman. He doesn't do us any favors.
Ping!
Yeah, that particular talking point is a loser.
Why would this provide significantly more interference than electricity only power lines?
Patton comes across as a lower than low used car salesman. He doesn't do us any favors.
Yeah, most all of us have to surf on our battery-powered laptops all the time because the electric power cuts out on our desktops so often...
I really don't see how this would be either cost effective or even workable. Coaxial cable works well because it has an outer shielding on the cable that keeps out external interference, but power lines lack that shielding. From the standpoint of offering broadband, it's not what gets out of your lines and bothers the amateur radio guys, it's what gets into your lines and corrupts your signal. Also in order to run an RF signal you need amplifiers spaced at regular intervals, the higher the frequency the more amplifiers, and who in the world is going to want to do the maintenance work on amps that are hooked up to primary power lines? They're not like transformers that you can just leave there for decades at a time.
Because of the frequency range used. Normal power lines are at 60 Hz which is well below any kind of radio transmission.
"Get Smart; use this:"
"Federal Broadband Equality Act Access Charge" (for the "poor" of course).
16kv gloves; might present a problem when trying to use a screwdriver...
Haven't we been paying the "algore tax" for years? Why isn't this country coast to coast, border to border, fibre optic?
You are forgetting alot of things here, IMO.
First, for those of us in "rural" areas, Ham radio does lots of things. The Sheriff's office RELIES on the Ham radio operators as back up to when their ordinary systems get hammered by weather or whatever.
Ham radio operators are ESSENTIAL in mountain rescue operations, co-ordinating search teams, bouncing their signals off the mountain top relays THEY have INSTALLED and PAID FOR. This may not count for much in the city areas, but it means alot to the rural areas.
Alot of athletic events in the rural areas are also dependent on the Ham operators, as event communications.
What will also be affected, I have heard, is CB communications. For those of you who don't travel by car alot, the entire trucking system relies on CB communications from truck to truck on the open road. I have a CB in my truck, and I have had to use it 5 times with various breakdowns of mine or another person. There is an incredible amount of goods moved by truck that the whole country uses EVERY day. The Homeland Security agency has enlisted and trained long haul truckers for more eyes and ears in the problems of possible terrorist activities. That is their communication.
Lots of truckers have cell phones, but they live on the CB radios. What disruption to that part of the commerce of the USA will be hammered by this "advance" in technology?
Short wave radio will be overrun, also, and there are a great number of persons who enjoy listening to shortwave from all around the world.
I personally don't see the need for "broadband" to be using the electrical system of the country, effectively riding the coattails of the power companies who placed the lines and poles in place. Not every person in a rural area even wants broadband. They barely use computers, and they like it that way. They have no use for alot of "big city" ways, and they are not going to appreciate it being crammed down their throats and added to their current telephone bills.
As for power outages not being as bad as another poster stated? I live north of Sacramento. The power went out 3 times yesterday for short periods- NOT just a flicker. Don't tell us about "NO POWER OUTAGES". We live with it all the time, expecially in winter. The longest I have dealt with was almost 2 days in the last couple of years.
Fiber. Gotta love it. Kinda tough to use from a boat or when camping on a mountaintop, though. RF still rules there.
My own oppinion is that the future will be fiber run all the way to the house for home service and fiber run to wireless relay stations for laptops, cars and cellphones. I also think that phone, TV and internet service will become so intertwined as to be indistinguishable. You might buy an entertainment computer for your TV/moniter that would download programs off the net rather than pick them up as a broadcast or a communications computer that would essentially be a jacked up telephone that also operated on the net. Of course the entertainment or communications computer could still do your regular computing functions as well, they just wouldn't be built specifically for that purpose.
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