BPL industry stonewalling the interference issue?

Two interesting articles appear in this weeks ARRL LETTER:

ARRL CALLS ON FCC TO SHUT DOWN VIRGINIA BPL SYSTEM

In support of Amateur Radio complaints of interference, the ARRL this week
formally asked the FCC to instruct the City of Manassas, Virginia, to shut
down its broadband over power line (BPL) system. Communication Technologies
(COMTek) operates the BPL system over the municipally owned electric power
grid. The League says the facility has been the target of interference
complaints, none of which has resulted "in any action or even interest" on
the part of the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) staff. In
the meantime, the ARRL says, interference to local Amateur Radio stations
continues.

"The Manassas system currently causes harmful interference, and it is not
compliant with applicable FCC Part 15 regulations, including Section 15.5,"
the ARRL said in a 16-page filing to the OET and the FCC's Enforcement
Bureau. "Whatever actions either Manassas Power or Communication
Technologies Inc might have taken to relieve the problem have not been
successful, and it persists to the present time. This is precisely the
situation in which the system must be shut down, pending successful
resolution of the severe interference."

Two years ago, the ARRL put Manassas officials on notice that the League
would act on behalf of its members to ensure full compliance with FCC
regulations once the city's BPL system, then in the trial stage, started up.

The ARRL and the complaining Manassas radio amateurs--George Tarnovsky,
K4GVT, Donald Blasdell, W4HJL, and William South, N3OH--cite interference so
severe that "no communications can be conducted in the amateur allocations
subject to interference," said the ARRL, which accused the city of
"stonewalling in the face of repeated complaints."

"The parties cannot be said to be working this out cooperatively, since the
City of Manassas and its BPL operator are currently in full denial," the
League said.

Correspondence and reports from Tarnovsky, Blasdell and South outlining
repeated contacts with the BPL operator and a lack of effective
resolution--and even public denial--of the interference, accompanied the
League's filing. All three hams suggested city officials and COMTek have not
acted in good faith in addressing the interference. Efforts by the BPL
operator to "notch" band segments have proven ineffective. "Our continued
monitoring of the Manassas BPL system has shown they continuously open the
notches and/or increase signal levels, subsequently interfering with
licensed services again," Tarnovsky asserted. "This can only lead to one
conclusion--they are not taking the interference issue seriously."

Field tests conducted not only by Manassas radio amateurs but by the US
Department of the Navy established that the city's BPL system "was an
interference generator at distances of hundreds of feet from the modems on
overhead power lines," the ARRL wrote.

The FCC adopted new Part 15 rules to govern BPL deployment a year ago this
week. Manassas earlier this month formally inaugurated its citywide
deployment of the high-speed Internet BPL system, which it touts as "the
first large-scale commercial BPL deployment in North America." The city
receives a portion of BPL subscriber revenues to offset its costs of
installing and maintaining the system.

A copy of the League's filing to the FCC is available on the ARRL Web site
<http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/filings/Manassas-BPL-complaint-10-05.
pdf>.

Additional information about BPL and Amateur Radio is on the ARRL Web site
<http://www.arrl.org/bpl/>.

To support the League's efforts in this area, visit the ARRL's secure BPL
Web site <https://www.arrl.org/forms/development/donations/bpl/>.

ARRL OBJECTS TO BPL DATABASE ACCESS LIMITS

The new Broadband over Power Line (BPL) Interference Resolution Web site
provided by the United Power Line Council (UPLC) and the United Telecom
Council (UTC) now is open <http://www.bpldatabase.org/>. But the ARRL has
taken strong exception to limitations the site's administrator, UTC, appears
to be imposing on the number of allowable licensee searches. A note on the
Web site cautions that each licensee "is allowed to search a limited number
of times each month" and advises them not to conduct random database
searches lest their access to the database be further restricted. ARRL CEO
David Sumner, K1ZZ, said the provision is inappropriate and the database
fails to meet the letter or spirit of the Part 15 BPL rules.

"This notice is totally unacceptable to the ARRL and should be equally
unacceptable to the Commission," Sumner said October 14 in a letter to FCC
Office of Engineering and Technology Acting Chief Bruce A. Franca. Sumner
noted that the new Part 15 rules speak of a "publicly available" and
"publicly accessible" database. "It is unacceptable for the database
operator to attempt to discourage the public from making full use of the
database by threatening to ration access," he asserted.

The FCC this week formally announced its designation of UTC as the Access
BPL database manager as mandated under Part 15 regulations governing BPL
that the Commission adopted one year ago today. The regulations spell out
specific interference-mitigation requirements for BPL systems and mandate
the new "BPL notification" database. The database is designed to provide
information for FCC licensees to contact BPL system operators in the event
of harmful interference a system may be generating.

Part 15 requires the database to include the name of the Access BPL
provider; frequencies of operation; postal ZIP codes served by the specific
BPL operation; the manufacturer and type of equipment and its associated FCC
ID number; contact information, including both phone number and e-mail
address of a person to facilitate the resolution of interference complaints,
and the proposed and/or actual date of Access BPL operation. BPL operators
have until November 19 to comply.

Sumner also said that requiring users to enter a ZIP code before gaining
access to the database "is clearly contrary" to the requirement that the
database be available to the public. "All of this information must be
accessible and available to the public without having to enter a ZIP code,"
he contended. "The ZIP code is simply one element in the database, not the
basis on which access to the remaining information may be restricted. There
can be no restriction to the public's access to any of the information
contained in the database."

FCC rules require that BPL system operators supply information for the
database no later than 30 days prior to initiation of service. The
information must be available to the public no more than three business days
later. Sumner argues that making the database searchable only on the basis
of ZIP code conflicts with the advance notification requirement.

"This advance notice is required so that licensees may document the radio
frequency environment prior to activation of the BPL system," Sumner said.
"For the information to be available only in response to the entry of a ZIP
code renders the advance notice requirement meaningless and blocks the
achievement of the objectives for advance notice" spelled out in the FCC's
October 14, 2004, BPL Report and Order.

Sumner said the inadequacy of the ZIP code requirement is further
illustrated if a user happens to enter a ZIP code that apparently does not
match the database. This yields the message "No BPL Operations Found in Your
Area." It also directs users to contact the UPLC, providing written details
concerning the nature of any interference and of the user's licensed
operations, including location, frequencies, type of operation and a brief
description of the interference.

"This, too, is unacceptable," Sumner wrote. "UTC apparently intends to
restrict the availability of information to the public according to its own
definition of 'need to know.'" He said no FCC licensee or other radio user
is obligated to share such information with a third party, "and most
certainly not as a condition of access to information that is required by
FCC regulations to be available to the public."

Sumner called on Franca to immediately inform UTC to revise and correct its
BPL database system and bring it into full compliance with Part 15 no later
than November 19.

Because ARRL is operating a Motorola Powerline LV BPL system at W1AW in
cooperation with the manufacturer, the League is a BPL operator under Part
15. The ARRL has requested a user name and password for administrative
access to the database.

Material from The ARRL Letter may be republished or reproduced in whole or
in part in any form without additional permission. Credit must be given to
The ARRL Letter and The American Radio Relay League.