FCC
Commissioner's Office Clarifies
'Broadband Nirvana'
Remarks:
from The ARRL Letter, Vol 22, No 45
http://www.arrl.org/
on November 15, 2003
FCC Commissioner's
Office Clarifies 'Broadband Nirvana' Remarks:
The office of FCC Commissioner Kathleen Q. Abernathy http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/abernathy/
has expressed regrets that her remarks in a September speech may have
failed to make Abernathy's concerns sufficiently clear about potential
interference from Broadband over Power Line (BPL).
"We
regret that the Commissioner's remarks may have been interpreted as
suggesting an absence of concern over harmful interference," said
Abernathy Senior Legal Adviser Matthew A. Brill, responding to complaints
from the ARRL and individual amateurs. From a policy perspective, Brill
said, Abernathy is "keenly interested" in seeing multiple
broadband platforms develop, but that she didn't intend to suggest that
BPL "necessarily will emerge as a viable platform or that it does
not present interference issues."
In her
speech to the United Powerline Council's http://www.uplc.utc.org/
annual conference September 22, Abernathy expressed unabashed enthusiasm
for BPL and suggested it was a step along the pathway to "Broadband
Nirvana." Brill noted, however, that near the end of her remarks,
Abernathy--referring to the FCC's approach to PCS regulation--said the
Commission was "right to adopt strict interference rules to prevent
competitors from externalizing their costs. The same principle will
apply to BPL."
Brill assured
the ARRL that "ensuring that BPL and all new technologies avoid
causing harmful interference to licensed RF users is a bedrock position
for Commissioner Abernathy." He issued similar responses on Abernathy's
behalf to several amateurs who had challenged her stance (see "ARRL
Rebukes FCC Commissioner's BPL-Related 'Broadband Nirvana' Remarks"
http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2003/09/25/100/
ARRL Chief
Executive Officer David Sumner, K1ZZ, expressed delight at Abernathy's
recent clarification. "Commissioner Abernathy's affirmation of
this important principle as a 'bedrock position' is most welcome and
reassuring news," he said. From the outset of the FCC's BPL Notice
of Inquiry in ET Docket No. 03-104 last April, Sumner said, the League's
goal has been to hold the FCC to its statement in the NOI that "each
of these authorized services in the spectrum [including the Amateur
and Amateur-Satellite services] must be protected from harmful interference."
"Since
that time the presence of harmful interference at BPL test sites has
been thoroughly documented," Sumner noted, "confirming that
our original concerns were well founded."
ARRL's
extensive comments, reply comments and technical exhibits are available
on the ARRL Web site http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/.
There are additional information and video clips on the ARRL "Power
Line Communications (PLC) and Amateur Radio" page http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/.
More than
5000 comments--many from the Amateur Radio community--have been filed
in response to the FCC's BPL NOI and are available for viewing via the
FCC's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs/.
Source:
The ARRL
Letter Vol. 22, No. 45 November 14, 2003