said by PDXPLT :

Well, that's close but not quite true. Licensed services in a portion of spectrum have primary allocations or secondary allocations, but they are rarely exclusive (some of the radio astronomy bands probably being the only ones). Licensed-exempt users under Part 15 are the bottom of the totem pole, but they are explicitly permitted under Part 15 to radiate RF power in certain bands as an intentional, unintentional, or incidental radiator. This can even lead to some degree of interference, so long as such interference does not lead to the level of "harmful" (that's why those electric drills can remain on the market), and in addition, the license-exempt user must accept harmful interference from any source.

I know ARRL lawyers disagree with this portion of the law, and argue in nearly all of their filings with the FCC that the Commission has no authority to authorize Part 15 operation in the first place. But they've been trying for over 25 years to win that point, and haven't done so yet (I suppose that's why the position the ARRL takes in press releases to the public and their membership is a much more reasonable one than this official position they take in the FCC filings. Or maybe they have no idea what their lawyers are doing).

BTW, UTP telephone wring is not perfectly balanced, and radiates some as well. With the rollout of VDSL expecially, there was concern about harmful interference in the HF band. Unlike much of the BPL community, however, the DSL community took up the issue head-on, and did technical analyses and field measurements that ulimately resulted in the ham bands being notched out of the VDSL spectrum. Leaky coax cable systems are also frequently an issue.

Bottom line is that it's too bad that these idiot BPL operators in Virginia decided to try to use PR rather than engineering to deal with the issue, and ended up giving all BPL a bad name. It's too bad that the BPL technology supplier used for most of the BPL trials in the U.S. also didn't care about interference. But if you look at Cincinnati, where Current Technologies has been operating for quite some time, hams are OK, airplanes aren't falling out of the sky, and emergency communications services work just fine. So apparently there is a technical solution to these issues, if the willingness to implement it is there, along with the required engineering expertice.

said by GhostFreeman :

Dig deep and i'm sure AT&T is involved, like that other market they managed to get shut down.

said by GhostFreeman :

Dig deep and i'm sure AT&T is involved, like that other market they managed to get shut down.

said by rf_engineer :

BPL has no wireless spectrum to stay in - it's a wired network therefore it has no frequency allocations....just like cable and DSL which deliver broadband just fine without wrecking spectrum.

said by driscollw80 :

Bottom line, stay in your spectum. What would happen if Ham screwed up BPL ?

said by ropeguru :

And to add to that, suppose there is an emergency somewhere other than Manasas, but it is the Amateur Radio people in Manassas that they need to communicate with. Then there wuld be issues.

said by David95037 :

Q: If the power goes out in an area, BPL interference will go out as well, so Hams could then provide emergency services, so what is the problem?

A: 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.

From the BPL FAQ;
»www.qrpis.org/~k3ng/bpl.html#21