If the BPL signal can be shown to be below the published Part 15 guidelines, it is deemed acceptable, EVEN IF IT COMPLETELY WIPES OUT RECEPTION on the affected ham bands.
I re-read the report and order of October 14, 2004 that ammended Part 15 by adding Subpart G and find no such reference. Perhaps there's another modification that you know about.
While FCC 04-245 Report and Order, In the Matter of Amendment of Part 15 does make some specific statements about emmission limits, it does not nullify or mitigate the Part 15 requirements of non-interference. In fact, it adds the requirement that the BPL systems must be capable of some level of attenuating signals to avoid interference with licensed services (for less than 30 MHz must be able to attenuate at least 20 dB below Part 15 limits). It further specifies how they are to respond to interference complaints. However, it does not specify that it is sufficient to meet the 20 dB attentuation when there is a complaint. In fact, as far as I can tell, it remains that as a Part 15 user they must not cause harmful interference to a licensed user of the spectrum.
If you believe otherwise, please indicate where it says that meeting the emmission limits is sufficient.
I didn't get that from the FCC's BPL statements. There does not appear to be any change to the requirements under Part 15 that it "must not interfere" with licensed services.
As for interference from Ham and other transmitters, there's essentially no cure unless the BPL system uses hard filtering, which except for the Motorola system, the BPL manufacturers have been reluctant to do, and understanably so. Doing that they would loose a significant amount of bandwidth capacity.
There's also a very difficult practical problem restricting licensed transmitters from causing "ingress". How could they go about restricting licensed radio services when those are transient or mobile? How can the FCC say that a Part 15 radiator has priority over a licensed service?
More importantly, if restrictions on licensed services can only be imposed after each specific transmitter/location has been shown to cause interference with the BPL system, how will the BPL operator be able to explain to it's users that the frequent interruptions are OK because they're each from transmitters that haven't been restricted yet or that they have yet to locate or be able to restrict? Frankly, I don't think that BPL users are going to put up with such frequent interruptions (well, anymore than they do with the cable systems now). It appears as the BPL proponent know all this but hope that they can actually get enough deployed before the problem rears its ugly head that they'll be able to use some type of "public good" arguement.
My last problem with BPL is that it's only been deployed so far in areas where there are already broadband services. BPL proponents keep touting BPL as a solution for those who can't currently get broadband because that sounds good to the legislators, but most of those people are in rural areas where BPL is considerably more problematic and not likely to be deployed.
In my opinion, if power companies want to get into broadband services, they should exploit their extrordinary advantage of already having right-of-way and deploy a real solution, like fiber!!!
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I re-read the report and order of October 14, 2004 that ammended Part 15 by adding Subpart G and find no such reference. Perhaps there's another modification that you know about.
While FCC 04-245 Report and Order, In the Matter of Amendment of Part 15 does make some specific statements about emmission limits, it does not nullify or mitigate the Part 15 requirements of non-interference. In fact, it adds the requirement that the BPL systems must be capable of some level of attenuating signals to avoid interference with licensed services (for less than 30 MHz must be able to attenuate at least 20 dB below Part 15 limits). It further specifies how they are to respond to interference complaints. However, it does not specify that it is sufficient to meet the 20 dB attentuation when there is a complaint. In fact, as far as I can tell, it remains that as a Part 15 user they must not cause harmful interference to a licensed user of the spectrum.
If you believe otherwise, please indicate where it says that meeting the emmission limits is sufficient.
As for interference from Ham and other transmitters, there's essentially no cure unless the BPL system uses hard filtering, which except for the Motorola system, the BPL manufacturers have been reluctant to do, and understanably so. Doing that they would loose a significant amount of bandwidth capacity.
There's also a very difficult practical problem restricting licensed transmitters from causing "ingress". How could they go about restricting licensed radio services when those are transient or mobile? How can the FCC say that a Part 15 radiator has priority over a licensed service?
More importantly, if restrictions on licensed services can only be imposed after each specific transmitter/location has been shown to cause interference with the BPL system, how will the BPL operator be able to explain to it's users that the frequent interruptions are OK because they're each from transmitters that haven't been restricted yet or that they have yet to locate or be able to restrict? Frankly, I don't think that BPL users are going to put up with such frequent interruptions (well, anymore than they do with the cable systems now). It appears as the BPL proponent know all this but hope that they can actually get enough deployed before the problem rears its ugly head that they'll be able to use some type of "public good" arguement.
My last problem with BPL is that it's only been deployed so far in areas where there are already broadband services. BPL proponents keep touting BPL as a solution for those who can't currently get broadband because that sounds good to the legislators, but most of those people are in rural areas where BPL is considerably more problematic and not likely to be deployed.
In my opinion, if power companies want to get into broadband services, they should exploit their extrordinary advantage of already having right-of-way and deploy a real solution, like fiber!!!