League Files Opposition to BPL Reconsideration Petitions:

The ARRL has filed an Opposition to three petitions for reconsideration in the broadband over power line (BPL) proceeding, ET Docket 04-37. The League targeted points raised in reconsideration petitions from Current Technologies LLC, the United Power Line Council (UPLC) and Amperion Inc. Each is seeking reconsideration of certain aspects of the Report and Order (R&O) the FCC adopted last October 14 that spell out new Part 15 rules to govern BPL deployment. In its Opposition, the ARRL says the FCC should not eliminate a requirement that BPL providers give 30 days' advance notice of service initiation, as Current, UPLC and Amperion have requested.

"Grant of the petitioners' request to eliminate the 30-day advance notice requirement would not only be antithetical to the Commission's goal of providing competitive, affordable and efficient broadband access;" the ARRL said, "it would also eliminate even the most minimal means for Amateur Radio licensees to be able to identify and contact the source of harmful BPL interference when it occurs."

Current, UPLC and Amperion contended in their petitions that the 30-day rule forces BPL providers to tip their hands to their competition. The League charged that the petitioners were, in effect, asking the Commission "to protect them by regulatory means from competition in broadband delivery."

Keeping the 30-day notification period in place, the ARRL argued, offers radio amateurs a chance to determine baseline ambient noise levels ahead of a BPL deployment and to be able to identify interference when it occurs and the extent to which the HF and low-VHF operating environment is degraded.

The ARRL also took issue with requests by Current and UPLC either to extend the transition period for certification of BPL equipment made, marketed or installed on or after July 7, 2006, or to drop it altogether. Either approach, the League contended, "is tantamount to an abdication of any requirement to implement any of the admittedly inadequate interference mitigation requirements in the Report and Order at all."

As the rule is written, the League's Opposition points out, "no BPL system placed in operation ever has to come into compliance with the interference requirements." The ARRL maintains that the FCC erred in its R&O by permitting the installation and operation of non-compliant equipment after the R&O's effective date.

"The rule, as it now stands, actually encourages the installation of systems incorporating non-compliant equipment which creates harmful interference over the next 18 months," the ARRL said. Based on actual interference cases, the ARRL continued, "any reasonable analysis of BPL leads to the conclusion that the rules adopted in the Report and Order are woefully inadequate in terms of interference prevention."

Noting that Current's equipment already excludes all amateur allocations but 60 meters, the League said everyone would be better served if the FCC had required BPL providers to avoid Amateur Radio spectrum altogether--or if they would so voluntarily.

The ARRL also took the FCC to task with respect to how it's dealt with the BPL initiative and the industry itself. "The extent to which spectrum-polluting BPL systems have been accommodated by a Commission with its collective head in the sand about interference is shameful and an abdication of duty," the League's Opposition concludes. "To further deregulate this ill-advised polluting technology would, in this context, be unconscionable."

Source:

The ARRL Letter Vol. 24, No. 13 April 1, 2005

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