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w8ufo
join:2000-11-02
Evanston, IL | Unproven? Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein played the middle. "We need to be mindful of harmful interference, but we can’t let unsupported claims stand in the way of this kind of innovation." The word "innovation" could likely be replaced with the word "profit" by many critics.
What!? Take a look at »www.arrl.org/news/features/2004/01/20/1/ . There are more studies out there, but the FCC has refused to look at all the facts.
This will disrupt emergency and commercial communications to the point where lives will be lost. The FCC has demonstrated that they care more about "innovation" then they do about human lives.
I am VERY unsatisfied with the FCC and hope that I happen to see them in need of communications. Imagine a situation where phones and other services are out and emergency radio traffic can't get out of an affected area because of the noise. "Gosh, I can't help ya there partner, maybe you need to find BPL to get your wife/husband/child/loved one aid." | | |
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| Re: Unproven? and Unsubstantiated Okay, i am imagining a situation where phones and other services are out.
Lets see.. you must be talking about when phone, gas, and water service goes out.
Cause if the power went out, your arguement, and everyone elses, ends up being a fairly limp and moot point.
Like there also wouldn't be redundencies built in if a crises situation occured. Not even considering that in most of those situations POWER is the first service that fails.
But if the spectrum is urgently needed i don't see why there wouldn't be a built in safety to switch off the service to free up the spectrum from any interference.
I just love the "OMG BPL wi11 m@ke Yer l0ved 0nes 2 B killz0Red" knee jerk posts. People are so quick to shout that BPL will screw up everything when all other services fail and don't even consider that power and subseqently BPL will be one of the very first services to go.
But hey, thanks for playing. | |
| said by RipTides:
Okay, i am imagining a situation where phones and other services are out.
Lets see.. you must be talking about when phone, gas, and water service goes out.
Cause if the power went out, your arguement, and everyone elses, ends up being a fairly limp and moot point.
Like there also wouldn't be redundencies built in if a crises situation occured. Not even considering that in most of those situations POWER is the first service that fails.
But if the spectrum is urgently needed i don't see why there wouldn't be a built in safety to switch off the service to free up the spectrum from any interference.
I just love the "OMG BPL wi11 m@ke Yer l0ved 0nes 2 B killz0Red" knee jerk posts. People are so quick to shout that BPL will screw up everything when all other services fail and don't even consider that power and subseqently BPL will be one of the very first services to go.
But hey, thanks for playing.
Amateurs need to maintain equipment and practice needed skills before a disaster occurs. If the equipment is unusable during regular times, what is the motivation even to buy equipment? Another thing to consider is that emergency stations need to be able to communicate out to areas that do have power.
Another issue to contend with is the propagation characteristics of the HF band which BPL is using. Interference could travel thousands of miles. I doubt anyone will want to track down interference a thousand miles away when a hurricane has just flattened their state.
Also realize that FEMA uses HF frequencies and would be subject to interference.
Your idea of a national off switch for BPL is idealistic beyond belief. How would you test such a system, and how would you secure it from misuse ? This is so fraught with problems, I'm not sure where to begin.
Your argument "when the power goes out, so does the interference" has been debunked many times. Time to stop playing and start researching. | |
w8ufo
join:2000-11-02
Evanston, IL | reply to RipTides
Just because everything is out in an area doesn't mean that surrounding areas will be.....
Look at hurricane or tornado affected areas. A suburb outside of a major city could have an issue. The BPL noise from that city could affect HF traffic out of that suburb.
But hey, the denser areas not affected will shut down, right?
LOL | |
| reply to rf_engineer
Im just trying to calm down the chicken littles who jump around saying the entire emergency system will crumble in the nation at the cost of faster internet. I would rather see productive discussion based on fact, than reading how everyone will suddenly die the day such a system goes online, and how clueless rural joe homeowner must be held accountable for this.
I personally see the whole failure of BPL being based upon interference recieved, not emitted.
I also don't think that BPL will be implemented from one hub nationwide, it will more than likely be done state by state, because of various state statutes and laws. And by having such a state by state system or better yet having controlled smaller areas will put greater control over how the systems is operated and can be "switched off" during a crises. I don't see that being an idealistc view i see it being a "requirement" for BPL to ever TRY to make it as a service.
I also know that satellite uplink and such are replacing HF for emergency transmission. While HF may be used during the first few hours of a crises, the very first thing a crises managment team tries to do, while trying to save lifes, is establish a more secure and stable means of communication.
HF transmission can suffer interference from a multitude of conditions, not only just RF emissions from powerlines.
But as they say, the proof is in the pudding. | |
| reply to w8ufo
On the idea of tornados, they affect a micro size area when they occur. I can't remember the last time a tornado knocked out every utility in an entire 1/3 of a state. Requireing FEMA to come and set up shop for weeks on end trying to straighten things out. Usually tornado prone areas already have crises management in place for such emergencies and when areas are hit its not usually long before phone service is restored along with power. I can be certain that restoring broadband would be their very last concern.
Also, if a hurricane hit i wouldn't doubt for a second that FEMA wouldn't shut down denser areas BPL so it could put emergency communication systems into action. I can be fairly sure before a system like BPL goes live that they would have all contingencies worked out. Sure people on BBR will have to suffer the amount of "OMG i can't believe they cut off my broadband b/c of that stoopid hurrycane" posts. But the feds have alot more control over things than an ISP will ever have.
Like i said i only see the failure of BPL occuring because of not being able to limit the amount of interference it will recieve, which will degrade its usability vs. how much interference it will cause. Isn't that the other side of the coin for the Part 15 rule of the FCC ? That while an electronic object can accept all interference, it also must produce none ? | |
| reply to RipTides
said by RipTides:
Im just trying to calm down the chicken littles who jump around saying the entire emergency system will crumble in the nation at the cost of faster internet. I would rather see productive discussion based on fact, than reading how everyone will suddenly die the day such a system goes online, and how clueless rural joe homeowner must be held accountable for this.
I think we all agree that the world won't come crumbling down all at once with BPL deployments. But realize that everything looks rosy on the surface with these small test sites in controlled conditions. We've measured the interference, and it's there. Some effects won't be apparent until widespread deployment.
Clueless rural joe homeowner won't be held accountable, but it's likely joe neighborhood ham will. It's not within the best interests of utilities to educate their customers on why their service is at the mercy of licensed services. Once this gets to be too much of a problem, the utility companies and their investors are left holding the bag. Who wins?
We've had productive discussions although the forums have gotten to be a boring rehash of the facts and a defense of services that use the bands.
quote:
I personally see the whole failure of BPL being based upon interference recieved, not emitted.
That is a basic tenet of Part 15. But when you live by Part 15, you die by Part 15. To some extent you're a spectrum squatter, living in a house than no one happens to be in at the time. As soon as the owner or leasee shows up, you have to get out.
quote:
I also don't think that BPL will be implemented from one hub nationwide, it will more than likely be done state by state, because of various state statutes and laws. And by having such a state by state system or better yet having controlled smaller areas will put greater control over how the systems is operated and can be "switched off" during a crises. I don't see that being an idealistc view i see it being a "requirement" for BPL to ever TRY to make it as a service.
The switch off concept is totally out in left field. HF signals can propagate thousands of miles. And again, how can you test HF communications systems and train people during non-emergencies if the bands are unusable. Is your need for cheap broadband that important that we have to implement a polluting system with a big off switch for when we get in trouble?
Taking this further, the FCC declares a "communication emergency" for lack of a better term, several times of the year. During this time, Amateurs must avoid several frequencies so that emergency traffic can be relayed out of an area. This usually occurs after a disaster event, such as a hurricane or flooding and last anywhere from a couple days to two or three weeks. So would you be willing to use dialup for a couple days or weeks in this situation? Most people are on the phone screaming at their ISP when web page browsing is slow for two minutes.
quote:
I also know that satellite uplink and such are replacing HF for emergency transmission. While HF may be used during the first few hours of a crises, the very first thing a crises managment team tries to do, while trying to save lifes, is establish a more secure and stable means of communication.
HF transmission can suffer interference from a multitude of conditions, not only just RF emissions from powerlines.
HF is unique spectrum subject to solar and geomagnetic conditions, but most of the time you have worldwide communications capability, without infrastructure. This makes it unique and worth preserving, regardless of Amateur Radio or any other service. Sure, RFI from other sources can intefere with HF, but that doesn't mean we should allow wideband blanketing hash to obliterate large chunks of spectrum. There's value in keeping it clear and useful.
The satellite issue has been hashed out on here several times before. How many first responder teams in your area are equiped with sat phones ? | |
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