Broadband over Power Lines (BPL)

Taken from the D2 List:

From: AMA District 2 Discussion [mailto:AMA snipped-for-privacy@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM] On Behalf Of Dave Mathewson Sent: Saturday, February 14, 2004 8:06 AM To: AMA snipped-for-privacy@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM Subject: BPL - Broadband Over Powerlines

At all the club functions I have attended over the last nine months or so I

have made a point of mentioning BPL (Broadband Over Powerlines), and the

potential negative impact it may have on radio control modeling. When this

was first proposed to the FCC, AMA prepared a document outlining our

opposition to BPL, as did several other organizations. It appears as though

these objections didn't have the impact we were hoping for.

On Thursday, February 12, 2004 the FCC indicated they are issuing a NPRM

(Notice of Proposed Rulemaking) regarding BPL. This is generally a step

toward FCC approval. The AMA President, Technical Director, Frequency

Committee Coordinator, and AMA's legal counsel spent much of yesterday

working together to determine how best to proceed. A notice should appear

soon on AMA's Website.

FCC NPRMs include a period for public comment. It may come to the point

where we may suggest to our members that they take advantage of that

opportunity.

We will post updates here, as well as on our District 2 Forum, as we get

them. In the meantime you can visit the AMA Website at

formatting link
to read our initial response filed a couple of

months ago. For more information on BPL and the FCC's position you can visit

formatting link

If you have any specific questions fire away. District 2's Frequency

Coordinator, Dan Williams, who is also a member of the AMA Frequency

Committee participates in the discussion forum on our website and will be

happy to answer questions of a technical nature (since that's out of my

league!). You can post a question for him over there at

formatting link
in the "Frequency/Interference

Issues" section.

Dave

Dave Mathewson

AMA Vice President, District 2

7271 State Fair Blvd.

Baldwinsville, NY 13027

315.727.4275

315.635.1039 (Fax)

Reply to
JR
Loading thread data ...

I don't understand what problems AMA would have with BPL as it should run at a different freq than the 72Mhz we currently use. That and I for one would rather not fly in the vicinity of high power lines anyway.

FWIW

Reply to
Black Cloud

BPL - Broadband over Power Lines. The range of frequencies will cover the spread from 2Mhz to 80Mhz. Seems to me that covers 72Mhz ! ! ! !

If the BPL crap is allowed, the interference that it creates to amateur radio, and that which it gets from same, will cause its very quick demise.

The amateur group ARRL (similar to AMA) has already shown that a simple 100W amateur transmitter will totally blast the BPL signal and make it completely unuseable.

David

Reply to
David AMA40795 / KC5UH

It already is pretty much unuseable.

Other technologies exist and arecoming on stream. It will die the death.

It doesn't reaslly work and probably never will.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

I can amen to that! When I lived in Pasadena, my little mobile Kenwood 220 rig at 25 watts would completely obliterate the picture on HBO to my end of the block. If the cable shielding is that ineffective to block incoming RF radiation I doubt it will do much to prevent RF radiation from leaking out. In Sunland, the cable lines there would periodicly emit a signal (was carrying a local FM radio broadcast, KIIS FM), that would wipe out the squelch on that same Kenwood, even in CTCSS mode. I would have to turn my rig off to get any peace. I think most modelers would be unhappy if their planes took a hit due to somebody sending IMs on AOHell!

Reply to
Fubar of The HillPeople

The real reason the ARRL is worried about BPL is not because of interference from BPL, it is interference _to_ BPL.

Historically, when amateur radio affected commercial interests, amateur radio lost every time.

The r/c hobby is in a much worse predicament, because our use of the frequencies is shared and not protected. Nothing to stop FCC from finding in favor of commercial interests at the expense of the r/c hobby.

THAT is what's scary about BPL.

Not that it doesn't work any too well, nor that it is likely to be a seriously 'leaky' system, but that it will be prone to interference from non-commercial users like us and that we'll have no say when the r/c interests are ignored by FCC. Cheers, Fred McClellan The House Of Balsa Dust

formatting link

Reply to
Fred McClellan

You nailed that one.

I'd also like to throw in pagers into the mix. With them in the neighborhood of our frequencies, we should get some help from those guys.

OTOH, BPL is really, really attractive in rural areas, and wont die as easy as some people are hoping.

Reply to
John Alt

There is third generation microwave kit coming along that will punch a tight beam up to 20 miles on very low power. Power lines will not adequately transmit broadband speeds at those distances without a lot of expensive kit and high power at both ends.

In teh UK, the power lines are being re-equipped with optcal fibes in teh earyh line to get excellent coverage: Then local dsitrribution is done by phone lines (expensive) and latterly low power microwaves in eoher tight beam for point to point, or using 'wifi' nets in clustered locations. This has had problems to date because the current WiFi power and frequenciues are suscpetible to absorption by water in rain, fog and wet leaves. Newe power levels and frequency changes are imnproving this.

Transmitting broadband down unshielded power lines is a recipe for disaster. Not only will it splatter everything else, but as pointed out it will pick up anything else.

Let nature take its course.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

There is no real need for BPL as technology is already overcoming the distance problems with ADSL over phone lines. I have a good friend that works at the NOC for a major west coast supplier and they already are using these techniques to connect subscribers over 10 miles from the switch. He suspects that distance will cease to be a problem in a few years.

Reply to
Paul McIntosh

Maybe you guys should check out:

formatting link
It's the Power Line Communications Association web site and it has quite a bit of information.

Reply to
C.O.Jones

But the real advantage to BPL is the last mile of wire is already installed. Traditionally the so called last mile of connectivity, Central office to customer, is by far the most expensive to install and maintain. Eating up as much as one third of the allotted budget. BPL, having the grid already there, maintained and budgeted, is flashing big dollar signs to providers and customers alike. Just imagine, every room in every home and office will now, suddenly be wired for the internet at no extra charge!

Reply to
C.O.Jones

of course, all these comments ASSume that there is a carrier or provider WILLING and ABLE to provide an alternative form of service.

There ARE places where dialup is STILL THE >There is no real need for BPL as technology is already overcoming the

Reply to
Bob Cowell

Right, all this is really to understand, even for non-tech types. So what I don't get is why the discussion has gotten as far as it has. BPL should have come up in discussion as "one" possibility, discussed for about 2 minutes, and then quickly DISMISSED as an option considering all the bad stuff that "we" seem to understand so easily. I don't understand :-)

MJC

Reply to
MJC

Except that I doubt that ANY of the transformers installed for stepping down high voltage transmission line current to household current will pass the HF signal, so there will have to be some kind of bridge circuitry at every stage of transformation. Transformers (coils) are low pass filters!

Reply to
Paul McIntosh

You don't appear to understand the problem we have.

BPL bears no obligation to prevent interference to shared secondary users of the spectrum : US.

They only have to prevent interference with other primary and protected secondary users : r/c is neither of those.

From the perspective of the BPL proponents, r/c interference is literally a non-issue.

BPL interference with r/c could be devastating to a flying site, but the BPL folks don't have to worry about that problem 'cuz it's not _their_ problem, it's OUR problem.

Alas, we are shared secondary users of the 72/75 MHz spectrum, and thereby have no protection against interference in that spectrum.

BPL proponents know full well we r/cer's have no say in the matter at all. Cheers, Fred McClellan The House Of Balsa Dust

formatting link

Reply to
Fred McClellan

Still a good deal less expensive than running coax, fiber or whatever to each and every room in each and every home or business.

Reply to
C.O.Jones

| Alas, we are shared secondary users of the 72/75 MHz spectrum, and | thereby have no protection against interference in that spectrum.

R/C users have to accept interference, yes, but we're not secondary users of the 20 khz chunks of the 72/75 mhz bands that we use. Or, at least if we're secondary users, there is no primary user.

(We share the 72 mhz band with pagers and who knows what else. It's dividied up into chunks -- 20 khz for us, 20 khz for them, 20 khz for us, etc.)

Still, BPL is bad. It's a disaster for ham radio -- it would effectively ruin anything that involves weak signals under 80 mhz, and it's a possible disaster (it depends on the specifics) for us.

Reply to
Doug McLaren

True, but if you are 30 miles off the main road and your power has to go through the average of 2-4 step down transformers from the main trasmission line, I doubt that ANY provider will go through the expense of installing all the MDMs necessary. You will still be without broadband.

Conversely, the technology is emerging to bring broadband to virtually any house with a phone line.

Reply to
Paul McIntosh

| Except that I doubt that ANY of the transformers installed for | stepping down high voltage transmission line current to household | current will pass the HF signal, so there will have to be some kind | of bridge circuitry at every stage of transformation. Transformers | (coils) are low pass filters!

Coils are indeed low pass filters, allowing low frequencies through and attenuating higher frequencies. And transformers are basically just two coils really close to each other.

However, they've got some way of making it work, and I doubt it involves equipment at each house's transformer. Perhaps the signal is strong enough, and the receivers sensitive enough, that any attenuation caused by the transformer is not a problem.

BPL has already been deployed in some places. Obviously it does work, at least to some degree.

Reply to
Doug McLaren

The problem with coils and transformers passing HF is the farther you are from the pass frequency, the more it is attenuated. Of course, these transformers are designed to work well with the 60hz AC in the US. Passing

72mHz would seem to be impossible.

If it ever makes it mainstream we'll see how well it works with all the other interference available!

Reply to
Paul McIntosh

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.