FCC's broadband over power lines expansion hits major snag
By Joshua Fruhlinger 
posted April 28th 2008 8:39PM
posted April 28th 2008 8:39PM
If you're waiting for broadband over power lines (BPL) as an alternative to cable or DSL in your area, it may be time to finally give in to one of the big companies. The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) -- a group of amateur radio enthusiasts -- has sued the FCC over its plan to speed up BPL's expansion, citing concerns that the service's radio emissions provide too many interference risks to the hobby / ham spectrum. While the FCC conducted a favorable study on BPL's potential problems, their published report had so many redacted sections that the ARRL wants to know what they missed. A D.C. district court agrees with the League, and plans for further rollout have been tabled until the FCC can come up with more facts.
@superpotential: Who uses HAM? How about the volunteers who provided emergency communications during the Katrina hurricane and the recovery effort. How about the volunteers who provided emergency communications during the Northridge earthquake and the recovery effort. I could go on (and on and on...).
HAM operators have provided, and will continue to provide, communications in time of need. I guess you don't care. Maybe you have everything you need set aside for that time when there is no power, no water, the stores are empty, and people around you are panicking. But too many aren't prepared. Too many communities have not established backup plans (this can cost a lot) for keeping the multiple agencies in touch with each other when the normal systems fail.
Many people volunteer to provide all kinds of services. I guess you could say we HAMs are the geeks of the voluteerism. And we're damn proud to help, even ungrateful fools who don't no any better.
HNKelley
KF6GEK
From how this story reads these guys need to step into the 21stc and get off the ham radios and let up technology progress.
Why does it strike me all of the sudden that HAM radio hobbyists are uniformally alarmist?
I've seen depcitions of you guys huddled in what I thought were basements but I now realize to be lead-lined bomb shelters stacked floor to ceiling with cans of chunky soup and culligan water.
How's about this; when "teh shirt hits the fan!!@" and the nation is crumbling beneath our feet, mired in disaster, you guys can have your spectum back :D
Wow, I see that a lot has been said about this already. My two cents are:
This hurts me because I live in a very rural area where this would really be my only fast access internet (the only real internet) option for the next 7 years.
While I am not a member of ARRL I am smart enough to realize that in the event of a massive failure of technology (EMP used in war, hit by comet, nuclear winter, insert any other potentially survivable world disaster) then radio will be the first and easiest communications system fixed. Communication is the backbone of human society and without that we are all in trouble. While it may not be the most powerful media, it is the best and only backup system we have for communication.
P.S. I really want BPL workout, but radio communications is too high a price to pay. I hope they can workout a way to implement it with signal interference.
That "with" should be "without"
Seriously Engadget an edit option is not that hard to implement as far as code is concerned. If you are worried that it could potential make cause confusion about comments because of "post reply" changes, then lock the comments with replies.
I am not sure if this is just me, but everyone else has a spell check when they are writing these comments? If so, thanks for that Engadget. If not, then I have to figure out what is that.
This has failed around the world when they have tested it.
Any person that knows how a long wire antenna works and looks at BPL will understand why it will fail no matter how you work it. Its one big lie...
Let face it... The Grid is a mess already add this and hang on!
This will never be done out to the boonies due to the cost of the repeaters. It will only be done where the rest of broadband is current deployed. cheaper to run fiber out there than this joke.
That's it. In protest, I'm never eating ham again.
Who lives in the country anymore?
I mean get with it guys... why not just move to the city?
Why whine about something that will puzzle more people than it serves?
Get with technology... go rent a loft.
Go @#$! yourself and drink your recycled chlorinated diarrhea water and scrub pigeon shit and get mugged.
Sorry, but ignorant comments like your's piss me off.
As you can see there are a lot of extremes here, Amateur radio operators are a group of very dedicated people, and whether people realize this or not, they are an asset to our community.
BPL is bad, no matter how you do it. But think of the alternatives there may be available to BPL if you can't get DSL or Cable. There's satellite, high-speed long-distance wireless, you could even do data-communication over HAM-Radio! OK the last one is not that realistic since it's super slow, but it works, and will hopefully always work.
As soon as the airwaves get cleared from the old analog broadcast stations, there will be plenty of bandwidth available for even more alternatives.
Remember, amateur radio operators are pioneers in the field of radio communications. Helping realize mobile-telephone, digital radio comms. (for law-enforcement, government for example), satellite comm.
So how about you got our backs on this for a change?
AB7QI
We need BPL about as much as we need to be able to buy electricity or city-water from the cable-tv company, or like we need to buy natural gas over the phone lines.
I'm a HAM, I'm an ARRL member, and I'm also the Assistant EC for my county's Skywarn (severe weather spotting).
It doesn't surprise me that there are those who are ignorant about what kind of community service amateur radio provides. It only shows further how hard we have to work to let people know that, "When all else fails, Ham Radio!"
All major government agencies who work directly with local governments and the people deal with HAM Radio. In every major disaster this country has faced in recent times, HAM Radio has been there to provide emergency communications whenever and wherever needed.
For those interested contact your local government for more information about RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service), ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service), CERT (Civil Emergency Response Team), or Skywarn.
As for the BPL, well, that's just a hair-brained idea for the power companies to make more money... as if they need it.
Bringing broadband to the greater populous is a wonderful initiative but using one technology to cripple another that is so important to the emergency preparedness of this country is hardly something we should even consider.
Perhaps it would be better to simply ask those companies who already provide broadband service to swallow the big bite and help bring this country forward.
Just curious, how many HAM operators here have ever used their equipment in a natural disaster or emergency in the assistance of themselves or others?
Sure did.
Helped the Toronto Police Department during the northeast blackout communicate between Divisions (aka Precincts in the USA) when their repeater network went out.
A bunch of my friends (who all have licenses - we got them initially because it was a free way to communicate that didn't require -at the time - expensive cell phone calls) all over the city helped the Police direct traffic. Communication between intersections helped move the incredible traffic snarls that ensued.
Lots of hams I personally know in the NYC area (where I now live) were indispensable during the 9/11 attack, when the FDNY lost some of their major antenna structures that were on the towers.
Hams help a lot more than you realize.
@Xee: I do every time there's severe weather in the area. We report what we see, the Skywarn spotters, directly to an amateur station at the National Weather Service, which they use in conjunction with RADAR data to issue warnings.
Last year the city of Fenton, MI was hit with a tornado and the local amateurs were used to help coordinate the efforts of various departments. No doubt countless lives were saved and resources managed effectively saving money and time.
The problem is that the people that want this as an alternative can't get high-speed any other way.
There's at least one BPL method/install approved by ARRL.
License that approach and use it for all BPL projects.
Though I'm still not convinced BPL is cost-effective compared to wireless implementations like WiMax.
From Wikipedia's WiMAX:
"WiMAX access was used to assist with communications in Aceh, Indonesia, after the tsunami in December 2004. All communication infrastructure in the area, other than Ham Radio, was destroyed, making the survivors unable to communicate with people outside the disaster area and vice versa. WiMAX provided broadband access that helped regenerate communication to and from Aceh."
So I think BPL is just bad.
Plus I am a ham operator, too. It is great being a ham operator. I help out for the NWS around here. I think ham radio will never die mainly because it is needed for time of emergency.
Well, for all of you who think amateur radio is just for 'trucker wannabes':
Do you remember a little event that happen on 9/11/01? Ham radio operators were on-scene at ground-zero helping shortly after the beginning of the event helping the citizens of New York recover from the attack.
Do you remember another little stork called KATRINA? After all the cell phone towers, public radio towers, telephone networks, cable TV networks and every thing else was taken out by this storm, ham radio operators came out in bulk and assisted the citizens of the affected ares survive.
I could continue, but I hop you get the point. Amateur radio is a valuable tool of public safety - yes, your safety depends on ham radio operators.
So, if you think amateur radio is just a bunch of "trucker wannabee's," you really need to go learn some recent history.
Yea, I know that about 9/11 and Katrina. I think people just think ham radio is CB at times. I wish people know about ham radio more too.
I forgot about the Greenburg, KS tornado too. Ham operators helped out there too.
@superpotential
You blabber: "who the heck uses a "ham" radio these days? if i recall those are those gigantic wooden boxes with these pointy springy 5-foot antennas sticking out."
There are about 700,000 people in the USA with a ham radio license, and about 6-7M worldwide.
Ham radios are small, compact, powerful and not what you claim them to be. Sure, there are tons of old "wooden boxes" that run using tubes, but the people who use them are much like the people around here who still use record players... they swear by the audio quality.
As far as walkie-talkies, cell phones, etc... ham radio was pivotal during the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Cell phones? Didn't work. No towers for them to call. Walkie talkies? Great, if you needed to talk to someone a mile away or less. Satellite radio? Great, but what if you need to TALK to someone?
Hams from around the country went to the disaster areas and helped get communication OUT. Setting up mobile stations that could be run off of battery, generator or solar, these hams helped people get in touch with family members.
If your son/daughter/mother/father lived in the area, and you had no idea if they were alive or dead... you'd be singing a different tune if a ham helped you discover they were alive and well.
Ham Radio is classified as an EMERGENCY SERVICE in America, and rightly so.
You clearly have zero clue as to what you're talking about.
Doesnt this span into the remote control industry too? If so, I am against it as well. I dont feel like losing $1000+ when my planes or helis fly away and bust through some kids window while he is watching porn on the internet.