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FCC Dealt Setback In BPL Push
SonicSpike writes in with word that an appeals court has dealt a setback to the FCC's plans to encourage broadband over power lines. The court ruled that the FCC erred when it withheld parts of the studies it had used in arriving at its position on BPL. The court did not rule that the FCC's decision was incorrect or that it should be revisited. According to the article, about 5,000 people nationwide subscribe to BPL in 35 pilot projects. We've been discussing BPL for years. "...a federal appeals court has sided in part with amateur radio operators who challenged rules designed to speed the nascent Internet service's rollout. When setting rules for BPL operators nearly two years ago, the Federal Communications Commission said it was trying to encourage deployment of a 'third pipe' to compete with cable and DSL services, while establishing limits aimed at protecting public safety, maritime, radio-astronomy, aeronautical navigation, and amateur radio operators from harmful interference. The American Radio Relay League, which represents amateur... radio operators, however, promptly sued the agency, contending that the FCC's approach was insufficient to ward off interference with its radios and inconsistent with its previous rules. On Friday, the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia on Friday issued a ruling (PDF) that took issue with the way the FCC arrived at its rules."
No where in the US Constitution is the federal government allowed to regulate communications. If the federal government wants to regulate communications they should've proposed an amendment to the States
And yes I am ham radio operator and the OP.
Libertas in infinitum
My father in law lives in west bumfuck, farmland. They tried for years to get BPL working there. But the sad fact of reality is that powerlines just arent up to the task. His community sunk massive funds into that project and they only ever managed to serve like 10 customers. And it was slow. And they all left for some type of LoS wi-fi. (I know not the underlying tech that went in, but its several towers at the tops of hills, and he himself had to install a 4 story tower in his yard.) They have all been very pleased with their wi-fi. And it was much cheaper than the powerline nonsense.
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
BPL's interference can have detrimental effects well beyond the ham bands. They can take out local emergency comms if BPL interferance is high enough. For a visual example of whats going on here, check out this video. It shows plainly the kind of interference BPL can cause.
BPL is just one of a thousand different devices that pollute the HF and VHF spectrum. Computers, laptops, touchlamps, plasma TV's (are the worst). Just about any device that uses high speed digital circuitry or switch mode power supplies. In computers, spread spectrum clocks are used to get pass FCC emission requirements, but if you live in a dense neighborhood where people leave their computers on 24/7, that doesn't help much.
Perhaps if they would get off their ass and do something about the non-competition in the market they wouldn't be having to go out of their way to find poor solutions.
Competition between classes isn't competition.
You can't scrap the laws of physics. And amateur radio operators were the first hackers. Wait until you're in a flood, a hurricane, or another natural disaster.
Or the next time you try to watch TV, listen to a radio, you'll use technology that hams invented, tested, retested, and helped put towards commercial use for your convenience.
Hams are hackers..... and were, far before your great grandfather was born.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
This was a good decision by the US Appeals Court. I'm an amateur radio operator myself (there's over 700,000 of us in the United States alone), and it wouldn't make any sense to severely degrade our performance for the benefit of only 5,000 people. Remember, amateur radio isn't merely a hobby: it's been proven useful time and time again in severe emergencies when the communications infrastructure goes down and no one else can get a signal through.
And even if you make the argument that the number of BPL customers will go above 700,000 at some point in the future, it's still not worth it. There's only one radio spectrum, but there's a large variety of ways to get data into households, the rest of which do not pollute the radio spectrum. There's simply no excuse for trying to send data along entirely unshielded power lines. They weren't designed for this purpose and they leak RF like mad. You want to get people access to broadband? Send the data through shielded cables — oh wait, that's what we already do for millions of people!
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Perhaps we should scrap those antiquated rules...
Are you even aware of the multitude of amateur radio digital modes that are in use these days? Saying ham radio is "twentieth century" makes as much sense as saying that automobiles are "twentieth century" — both have evolved considerably over time.after all, we don't provide hitching posts and water troughs outside public buildings anymore, do we?
Just be thankful for us ham radio operators. Someday your ass might be saved in an emergency by a ham who is capable of getting a signal through when the communications infrastructure goes down. The Internet is a great thing, I'll grant you, but when power goes out across an entire region (like it did with the Northeast blackouts a few years ago), you're not going to get any net connectivity and you're not going to get any cell connectivity either. The only people who will be able to relay vital emergency messages will be ham radio operators working off of battery backups or generators.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
The point is that the FCC withheld evidence that contradicted their decision, something the ARRL caught them on. Judge Rogers said,
"It would appear to be a fairly obvious propositioon that studies upon which an agency relies in promulgating a rule must be made available during the rulemaking in order to afford interested persons meaningful notice and an opportunity for comment."
Another judge, David Tatel, wrote,
"In this very case the Commission redacted individual lines from certain pages on which it otherwise relied...there is little doubt that the Commission deliberately attempted to exclude from the record evidence adverse to its position."
Amateur radio may not enjoy the popularity it once did, but it still works when your precious ethernet is buried in mud and the cell phones are down (e.g. Katrina) and is an essential cog in rescue operations when your average laptop is utterly useless. And BPL, by the way, is deader than amateur radio. Dallas just threw in the towel. There isn't much left.
KZ7B
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Spun the dial on a shortwave radio lately?
The vast bulk of traffic that takes place on it is commercial and military, not ham.
It's just that hams, having the technical savvy, were the first to raise a stink about it.
This is actually a good thing. The FCC was trying to push a technology that does not work well, interferes with others, and costs much more than some other ways of getting connectivity. Even if the Amateur bands can be notched out, the other frequencies suffer. There are a lot of other communications in the range of frequencies that BPL wipes out. The FCC needs to rethink their stance and pay attention to the laws of physics. If BPL is allowed to exist I believe there will be a time in the future we will regret the down side of this technology. In the places it is being used now there are a number of interference problems that keep different services either off the air, or make the use of that spectrum damn near impossible. There is also another side to the story. Licensed equipment transmitting in close proximity to a BPL system can shut down the BPL connection. The bottom line is BPL should never have been adopted. There are better, more effective and less costly ways of getting connectivity without polluting the HF spectrum.
Yes, but with BPL causing interference all the time, there is no incentive to purchase, use, maintain, practice with, etc. amateur radio equipment. Ham radio is a hobby, if it can't be practiced for fun it won't be practiced at all.
You're setting up a straw man - that is NOT what the OP said.
Federal regulation is, quite simply, unconstitutional. It is not a power granted by the Constitution.
State regulation of spectrum would be workable, and as proof I point to Europe where countries are the comparable in size to US States.
And yes, I too am a ham (extra class).
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Ironically, radio interference played a role in the biggest natural disaster in this area (I am replying to my own post). In 1969 the largest hurricane in US history jumped 800 miles inland and killed 157 people here in the mountains. Emergency response was hampered by a radio silence zone established to protect the Green Bank National Radio Astronomy Observatory several counties away in West Virginia.
He answered your question rather effectively.
BPL uses a modulated carrier around 6 meter (~50 MHz). Our amateur licensed transmitters can transmit from 50MHz to 54MHz. And as we learn with radio, a transmitter is also a weak receiver and vice versa. I know that BPL uses a carrier in that band, but I am unsure of the exact frequency allocation.
Because they use that carrier, the whole power grid turns into an antenna. That prevents us from using much of 6m. Along with that, if we use a linear amp (say 1kW) to poke out of the interference zone, which we are legally allowed to do, we inject our signal back in the power lines eliminating the broadband in BPL.
And as a note, 6m is known to do atmospheric bounce for thousands of miles. I was at one Field day where we used a 1 watt transmitter and contacted someone in Rio de Janerio (sp?).
I think the Commerce Clause doesn't have to stretch very far to cover radio communication that can go worldwide; that is, radio communication clearly influences interstate commerce, so I think the Constitution grants Congress the power to make law about it fair and square.
I think you're wrong on the facts as well as the law. The only reason to let each state make its own regulations (assuming its not required by the Constitution, vide supra) is if they are going to regulate differently, because, e.g., the citizens of state X have different needs than citizens of state Y, or because X believes it has a better idea than Y and we want to let them all try their individual plans out, to see which is best (the "50 laboratories of democracy" concept).
But even if that could be argued to make some kind of sense for VHF and UHF, it makes no sense at all for HF and AM, where signals easily cross many states. The states could not, in practise, make different regulations for those parts of the spectrum without chaos resulting. So if the state must, as a practical matter, all regulate in the same way, what's the point? Why not just have the Feds do it? Why have 50 wasteful duplicative efforts that must reach the same result?
(And since we're signing our bona fides here, I have an Extra ticket, too.)
The Radio Quiet Zone still exists, but the observatory works effectively these days with local hams to make sure they can communicate and that there will be working repeaters, etc. when the next emergency comes up.
Bruce Perens.