State Utilities Commissioners' BPL task force session yields some insights

ARRL Chief Technology Officer Paul Rinaldo, W4RI, represented the League last week at a meeting of the National Association of Regulatory Utilities Commissioners (NARUC) Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) Task Force.

Michigan Commissioner Laura Chappelle chaired the October 24 gathering in Alexandria, Virginia. Its aim was to give NARUC BPL Task Force members an overview of federal regulations, an industry perspective, and insight into potential state regulatory issues related to BPL. NARUC consists of state utility regulators who have no jurisdiction over RFI issues, Rinaldo explained after the meeting.

"However," he said, "it's good that they are aware that there's a potential interference problem that could complicate life at the local level when hams complain to utilities about interference." On the other hand, he noted during his presentation, "BPL may be a distraction from a
utility's main function of delivering reliable power to customers." During a question-and-answer session, the state utility commissioners posed no questions regarding BPL interference, Rinaldo said.

Rinaldo's presentation, "BPL--Amateur Radio Perspective," pointed out a paradox in the new regulations: "The R&O excludes frequency bands for those facilities typically away from BPL installations," he said. "However, it does not exclude frequency bands for those stations, such as Amateur Radio, typically closest to residential BPL installations."

Rinaldo noted that ARRL and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) BPL measurements "are consistent" with each other. The NTIA had determined that even at Part 15 emission limits for reception of low to moderate-strength signals, BPL interference extends out 460 meters (approximately 1509 feet) for fixed stations.

Among suggested BPL "best practices," Rinaldo recommended that BPL providers exclude Amateur Radio bands "by design" rather than awaiting complaints.
If complaints do arise, BPL providers should "promptly
eliminate interference," he said. Rinaldo also stressed Amateur Radio's emergency communication role.

Precursor Group CEO Scott Cleland spoke on "The Alchemy of Broadband over Power Lines." While focused primarily on investments, Cleland's presentation also asserted that technical alchemy "has finally overcome the heretofore insurmountable barrier of noise interference in an
economically viable way."

The United Power Line Council's Brett Kilbourne told the gathering that all technical problems confronting BPL had been solved and that it was time to roll it out. "I bit my tongue," Rinaldo remarked later.

During a discussion on "open access," Rinaldo said, the mood of the Commissioners was not to regulate how many BPL providers might have access to a given utility system, "which logically means that only one provider would be practical," he concluded. "That is, if one provider hogs all the bandwidth and/or time on the bands not notched, it would be virtually impossible to have the original provider back out just to let a competitor in."

Franca and Current Technologies' Jay Birnbaum allowed that there wasn't much bandwidth to begin with, and, Rinaldo said, subdividing it wouldn't make much sense.

Discussion also touched on the timing of BPL rollouts and competition from well-established cable and DSL as well as growing wireless system providers. "From the discussion, I got the impression that rollout would take about 4-1/2 years," Rinaldo said. "Over that time, cable, DSL, fiber,
wireless and satellite broadband providers will provide strong competition."

Source: ARRL Letter - courtesy of The American Radio Relay League

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