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FCC Clears Up Their Powerline Broadband Rules
But It's Too Little Too Late For the 'Great Broadband Hope'

After years of hype as the "great broadband hope" (as former FCC boss Mike Powell put it) broadband over power line (BPL) technology exists as essentially a largely dead niche broadband solution, outperformed by even many modern wireless technologies. The technology always suffered from interference concerns, and the utilities the services were targeted at weren't sold on the idea of jumping into a duopoly market against companies like AT&T that enjoy regulatory capture.

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Despite the fact that unshielded powerlines were simply never good conduits for broadband, the FCC desperately wanted BPL to succeed -- largely to help justify broadband industry deregulation of propped up uncompetitive monopoly and duopoly carriers. The FCC was even willing to bend the rules, in 2004 rushing through rules governing the technology at the behest of BPL gear vendors while trying to sweep interference worries under the carpet.

In 2008 the FCC had their wrist slapped by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, who ordered the FCC to correct omissions made in their original rules. Several years later, this week finds the FCC releasing their updated rules, but according to analysis by the ham radio group ARRL, the rules still don't really adequately address the groups interference concerns. Changes that were made, like increasing notch depth to mitigate interference, still aren't mandatory:
quote:
“We were prepared to be disappointed, and we were,” commented ARRL Chief Executive Officer David Sumner, K1ZZ, after reviewing the 76 page Second Report and Order. “The increase in notch depth is a step in the right direction, but the value of the change is greatly diminished by the notches not being mandatory. The FCC acknowledges that a compliant BPL system will increase the noise floor below 30 MHz at distances of up to 400 meters from a power line, but characterizes that as ‘a relatively short distance.’ How many amateur stations are located more than a quarter-mile from the nearest power line?”
Not that any of this matters -- since there's a dwindling number of BPL deployments in operation, and most of the companies that hyped this technology have moved on to sell utilities on smart metering hardware. The FCC says there's BPL systems in place in 125 ZIP codes across the United States, though the ARRL says this number is packed with many BPL deployments that never made it out of the trial or planning stages. The first and largest BPL deployment in Manassas, Virginia, held up by the industry as the poster child for BPL, was shut down early last year.
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moonpuppy (banned)
join:2000-08-21
Glen Burnie, MD

moonpuppy (banned)

Member

This was never going to work as intended

This was a pipe dream and with cable and fiber going much faster than BPL could and in the same footprint, slower methods of hardline internet service simply will not work.

Even Verizon is looking to wireless internet service (Home LTE.)
Dodge
Premium Member
join:2002-11-27

Dodge

Premium Member

Re: This was never going to work as intended

It was a good idea if made to work. You are forgetting that not everyone cat get cable/dsl/fios/u-verse. There are parts of the country that have a choice between satellite or move somewhere else to get internet. I am sure those people would jump at the chance for a semi decent service.
mogamer
join:2011-04-20
Royal Oak, MI

mogamer

Member

Re: This was never going to work as intended

said by Dodge:

It was a good idea if made to work. You are forgetting that not everyone cat get cable/dsl/fios/u-verse. There are parts of the country that have a choice between satellite or move somewhere else to get internet. I am sure those people would jump at the chance for a semi decent service.

That's right. This is better solution than satellite and there are large areas that will never see dsl/fiber or LTE, but do get electricity.
moonpuppy (banned)
join:2000-08-21
Glen Burnie, MD

moonpuppy (banned)

Member

Re: This was never going to work as intended

said by mogamer:

That's right. This is better solution than satellite and there are large areas that will never see dsl/fiber or LTE, but do get electricity.

Sorry, but that point was dismissed long ago. Just because you have electricity at your home, does not mean you could get BPL. Transformers and filters on the line stopped the signal as well as distance from the injection point. People used to think just because they had phone service, they could get DSL but, like BPL, it was a matter of distance and what was on the line.

Transmaster
Don't Blame Me I Voted For Bill and Opus
join:2001-06-20
Cheyenne, WY

1 edit

Transmaster

Member

Re: This was never going to work as intended

I like how BPL turned out. It was given a chance and it failed. Nobody can whine saying " if BPL was only given a chance it would have worked". It was tried it died for both technical and more importantly economic reasons.

cork1958
Cork
Premium Member
join:2000-02-26

cork1958 to mogamer

Premium Member

to mogamer
said by mogamer:

said by Dodge:

It was a good idea if made to work. You are forgetting that not everyone cat get cable/dsl/fios/u-verse. There are parts of the country that have a choice between satellite or move somewhere else to get internet. I am sure those people would jump at the chance for a semi decent service.

That's right. This is better solution than satellite and there are large areas that will never see dsl/fiber or LTE, but do get electricity.

Besides this being about dead on, this part of the article, "the utilities the services were targeted at weren't sold on the idea of jumping into a duopoly market against companies like AT&T" is just another way of saying companies like AT&T, Verizon, etc. paid off the people it took to squash any investment there might've been made to develop BPL.

WHT
join:2010-03-26
Rosston, TX

WHT to Dodge

Member

to Dodge
said by Dodge:

I am sure those people would jump at the chance for a semi decent service.

There most liekly may be a WISP in your area.

*WHY* is that avenue constantly overlooked?? It's like we don't exist.
jameswade
join:2001-12-09
Hot Springs, NC

jameswade

Member

Re: This was never going to work as intended

No WISP here. There is a nonprofit (MAIN) not far away, but they were more interested in siphoning off grant money yet another source of Internet access for the poor instead of serving us rural grant providers (taxpayers). And their prices, speeds, and caps are now no better than cell data cards!

I thought about starting a WISP out here, glad I didn't looks like the local electric coop got a grant for BPL which caused the local phone company to get off their asses and provide DSL.

So right now BPL is being deployed. More expensive than the DSL, but they have a bigger footprint.

We (like quite a few people around here) are off the grid so BPL would cost us each tens of thousands of dollars for power lines (if we could get the rights of way). USF paid for our DSL line to be run almost a mile to our place.

We actually tried to get a WISP (Aloft Communications) here and invested a HUGE chunk in our life savings, but they went out of business taking our savings with them. And no Internet access here.

A WISP would have been perfect here though...

No real point to this ramble, that's just what happened here...
said by WHT:

said by Dodge:

I am sure those people would jump at the chance for a semi decent service.

There most liekly may be a WISP in your area.

*WHY* is that avenue constantly overlooked?? It's like we don't exist.

biochemistry
Premium Member
join:2003-05-09
92361

biochemistry

Premium Member

Re: This was never going to work as intended

I've tried googling for WISPs in my area on google but get nothing but spammy websites so I think there is a real WISP advertising problem.
Dodge
Premium Member
join:2002-11-27

Dodge to WHT

Premium Member

to WHT
I don't know you or your business model so don't take what I'm going to say personally.

What have wisps done to make population aware of them and how their service is different? To an average Joe wireless is wireless be it wi-fi, cell or satellite solution. If their cell phone doesn't work where they are they are going to assume that nothing wireless works.

It takes tremendous effort to sell an idea to a customer especially when the counter-point is brought by the likes of Verizon that just blatanly declare "we are not building here". A lot of people assume that they can't get anything where they are because the big players declared it to be so.

I don't see stories on WISP "awesomness" popping up anywhere. As a matter of fact I think the most exposure I had to anything WISP related is on this site, and even that was not through news. I am sure there are dedicated forums, publications (I am assuming this one), but how do you reach out to consumers and separate yourself from the Verizon's of the world.
civicturbo
join:2009-11-08
USA

civicturbo

Member

Re: This was never going to work as intended

I totally agree, no slam on the poster but WISPs are a good idea yet unrealizded Idea if you ask most people about them. They need to market them selves, go to a advertising adgency and get options. Self promote, ie doortags, flyers on poles, and at local grocery stores, tables outside public shopping places, booths at the state and county fairs, publicity stunts, talk with the media to get coverage, promotions thru local businesses like sporting events, buy some billboards, these are just a few avenues a startup can pursue. The local chick who makes stuff in her home and sells it at the craft fairs is more well know than any WISP in my experience.
I love the idea of competition for the big duopolies, but I seriously don't know how the wisp ever get any customers, it's like a secret that they exist in some cities.
Blow your horn guys!
said by Dodge:

I don't know you or your business model so don't take what I'm going to say personally.

What have wisps done to make population aware of them and how their service is different? To an average Joe wireless is wireless be it wi-fi, cell or satellite solution. If their cell phone doesn't work where they are they are going to assume that nothing wireless works.

It takes tremendous effort to sell an idea to a customer especially when the counter-point is brought by the likes of Verizon that just blatanly declare "we are not building here". A lot of people assume that they can't get anything where they are because the big players declared it to be so.

I don't see stories on WISP "awesomness" popping up anywhere. As a matter of fact I think the most exposure I had to anything WISP related is on this site, and even that was not through news. I am sure there are dedicated forums, publications (I am assuming this one), but how do you reach out to consumers and separate yourself from the Verizon's of the world.

sparc
join:2006-05-06

sparc

Member

BPL is dead anyways

as Karl mentioned, smart grid is what all the utilities are clamoring for these days. Including trying to squeeze billions out of their state taxpayers to pay for these smart grid upgrades. Just check out illinois and Comed's recent actions for evidence.

fifty nine
join:2002-09-25
Sussex, NJ

fifty nine

Member

If BPL were used to deliver water

It would be like using a pipe with continuous perforations. It'll spill half of the water before it gets to your house, but that's OK because the lines were already there!

And what about the drop in pressure? No problem! just put a booster pump every few hundred feet!

DrStrange
Technically feasible
Premium Member
join:2001-07-23
Bristol, CT

DrStrange

Premium Member

It rose from the dead again?!

Break out the garlic cloves, the holy water and the wooden stakes!

This time, never mind burying the head and body separately. BURN THEM!
W1RFI
join:2003-05-12
Burlington, CT

W1RFI

Member

The reports of its demise are premature

Whenever BPL comes up, some "knowledgeable" soul (or three) always chimes in that BPL is dead. This is far from the case.

In the US, although a number of access BPL trials closed down with a whimper, one company, IBEC, is continuing to deploy BPL systems in rural areas with heavy government subsidy. It is working about as well as other BPL systems in the past, but in areas where there are few alternatives and the US government is paying for it anyway, new systems are being installed as you read this.

BPL is also being considered -- and used -- in some of the smart-grid deployments and what may not have appealed to utility companies not interested in becoming ISPs may appeal to some utilities interested in modernizing their power grid. Now, for important utility applications, using the grid to control the grid is probably a bad idea, but there is still interest

BPL is also being used a fair amount inside of buildings to network computers within those buildings. That's BPL, too, and the FCC rules apply to it as equally as they do to what some here are thinking of as BPL. The ITU-R has developed a series of international standards, colloquially known as G.hn, to govern and control home-networking BPL.

A read of the FCC 2nd Report and Order shows more of the same, with the FCC reaching for every rationale it can muster to justify its earlier decisions. In some cases, IMHO, those rationale strain credibility to the breaking point, even dismissing ITU-R Recommendations as not being sufficiently justified to be relied upon in setting FCC rules. There are mutliple more examples of sidestepping the issues, including dismissing the IEEE EMC Society disavowiing the EMC standards that the FCC did rely on in setting these recent rules changes by a simple conclusion that the power industry and computer industry supported the EMC standard the EMC Society did not, so there is sufficient consensus to warrant using that standard as a basis for rulemaking. It's clear that politics, not science, rule some of these decisions, although the rulemaking is shrowded in an attempt to appear to be scientific and reasonable.

The result is predictable, in that the regulatory certainty that this industry seeks cannot be achieved by such means, and it would be surprising if ARRL did not seek a formal reconsideratioon of these rules,l with an eye toward another appeal if it is clear from the record that the record was not used in a way what satisfies the rule of law that defines how federal regulations shall be created.

In the long run, these sorts of things serve no stakeholder. This is seen in the decisions of the IEEE EMC Society to withdraw as a sponsor of a standard it believed to be technically flawed to rules that will not help the industry avoid interference problems, and will not help it overcome the stigma of interference that will continue to hold both access and in-premise BPL back from whatever potential it may really have.

IMHO, the FCC did not do this industry any favors that help it. There are some in this industry that understand this, although to date, they have not been able to find it in themselves to join in asking the FCC for good rules that effectively address the needs of all stakeholders. Time will tell whether those in the industry that have made thier views known to date will continue to dominate this process, to the detriment of themselves, to those that seek to develop viable BPL technologies and those radiocommunications interests that are harmed by the present rules.

That harm is very real, as seen even in between the rules of this Order, where FCC admits that interference on spectrum that BPL is using is probable within 400 meters of power lines carrying BPL, but then concludes irrati0onally that the interrerence potential of BPL is "negiligible." What radio receiver is NOT located within 400 meters of distribution or in-premise power lines?

Surprsingly, there are things that can be done to allow BPL to exist in some form. These things must incluce the following principles:

o BPL must avoid locally used spectrum. In residential neighborhoods, this includes Amateur Radio, Citizens Band and HF shortwave broadcast

o Its operating level in the spectrum it protects must be filtered sufficiently that it does not degrade the local ambient noise levels

o BPL must be measured correctly to ensure that its operating level and its filtering meet the criterion established by the ITU-R in not excessively degrading spectrum in use near the BPL system

o When harmful interference occurs, regulators and BPL operators must effectively and promptly address it

The FCC and the industry have failed to meet these necessary criteria in almost all respects.

The result is predictable -- the technology is not widely successful and in nearly every balanced article I have seen about this technology so far, BPL and interference are virtually treated as synonyms.

Fortunately, work being done by groups more balanced than the IEEE and FCC is having an effect and organizations like CENELEC and ITU-R may well pick up the slack and help define paradigms that will allow BPL to coexist.

What is ironnic is that smart-grid technology is being promoted as a "green" way to conserve energy resources. True, indeed, and the development of a smarter power grid is a critical and important step. With the rules given by the FCC and the way that *some* BPL is being deployed, the irony is that to preserve one environment, another may end up being trashed.

The operating levels of BPL system are approximately 50 dB stronger than the present levels of man-made noise, in some environments. This means that BPL increases local radio noise on spectrum it uses by 100,000 times. BPL limits equate approximately to the present conducted emissions limits for other devices by 30 dB. This means that one BPL device makes as much noise as 1000 "legal" devices.

With these levels way above the present limits and noise levels, it is not surprising that the synonyms of BPL and interference have stood in the way of this technology.

It does not have to be this way. Some forms of BPL, HomePlug and G.hn, have provided spectral protection for Amateur Radio. Groups like the HomeGrid Forum are looking to develop standards that will be ahead of the rules the FCC is giving this industry. With millions of HomePlug devices deployed, with spectral protection for Amateur Radio, ARRL has not seen reports of interference to Amateur Radio from HomePlug devices. Dialogue with the HomeGrid Forum should result in simillar good results for G.hn technology developed under its oversight.

THESE are the successful models these rules should seek to reach. Those would be the rules that would work for all in this industry, and those "leaders" that are saying otherwise are not doing the industry any favors.

Ed Hare, W1RFI
ARRL Laboratory Manager
IEEE EMC Society Standards Development Committee Secretary
225 Main St
Newington, CT 06111
Tel: 860-594-0318
Email: w1rfi@arrl.org

DaveRickmers
join:2011-07-19
Canyon Country, CA

DaveRickmers

Member

50 miles from Los Angeles, wireless ISP

»www.avradionet.com/