Allright I have just heard enough of interference and cannot take this anymore. The financials of BPL are ***TOTALLY**** ***TOTALLY*** ***TOTALLY*** flawed and hardly anybody has paid attention. Some people seems to think that itf the interference problem is solved, BPL is a fine solution. How did we get there? Let's take the media back here and please read on.

1 - DSL, Fiber and Cable equipment gear is reaching price commodity status while BPL gear has not gone though neither standardization and standards bodies yet. Related skills are also reaching commodity status while BPL still requires truck rolls and specialized people handling power lines. Wireless equipment gear is also reaching price commodity status alongside with the skills required to have a wISP in the rural areas. Deployment expenses would further increase in these areas with the internet backhaul costs, the larger number of BPL repeaters required and low subscriber density. CAPEX people will not let that through.

2 - Liability issues associated with disrupting powerline (&broadcast) services are daunting. Safety issues with BPL subscribers (&operating staff) are just as difficult. Although some lawers may benefit from this, the onus will be on the BPL Operators and Vendors and potentially their muni clients to defend themselves at great expenses. Lawers will not let that through.

3 - Not having a bandwidth roadmap, the technology is doomed to early obsolescence with tremendous writeoff costs and lots of people losing face. Skilled network planners will either work on more promising technologies or will not let that through.

4 - OPEX cost of adding a line is highly dependant on line topology and BPL repeater power levels; capacity of line also depends on notches and inbound interference that can dramatically decrease throughput; OPEX cost of acquiring (&provisioning) a subscriber is unknown. OPEX cost of maintaining 5NINES availability is unknown. Subscriber churn rate is unknown. OPEX troubleshooting cost of keeping a subscriber (e.g. loopback test) when threatening to churn is also unknown. OPEX cost of Maintenance Of Line (MOL) takes a whole new meaning under BPL and is totally unknown. Technical trials and market trials do not appear to have solved these issues and they can't hand this over into operations. Pilots have not matured beyond handling a handful of subscribers reached though underground powerlines. Skilled operation staff in will not let that through.

5 - In light of the above, costing a BPL subscriber service at $30 month looks most suspect. After the Enrons and likes, accountants will not let that through. Serious BPL investors will ask for these figures and will not let that through either. In light of a very suspect Return On Investment (ROI), elected officials in municipalities will not let that through, even if they really wish to generate revenues out of this.

I am looking forward to a media story where someone states that there are problems with BPL deployment far bigger than interference whether solved rightly or wrongly. Deploying BPL would suck precious financial resources and create a financial mayhem worse than the RF wasteland. We just can't afford to do these kinds of mistakes in these tough times. BPL investors and media, please educate yourself on the ROI financials side and smarten up out of this techie talk.

Must we let the system screw the dumb BPL investors (including munies) or should we educate them in better allocating their hard earned dollars?

Forum-mates: please help me out. Am I overreacting?