Last summer it came to our attention that the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Utilities Service (RUS) Community Connect Grant Program was soliciting grant applications to bring broadband service to rural communities. I wrote a letter to Administrator Hilda Gay Legg (copy attached) accompanied by a copy of the Cedar Rapids test report prepared by Director Walstrom and his colleagues. As you can see, I stressed the fact that a sound business plan for BPL must allow for significant potential costs of interference mitigation.
A couple of months later I received a phone call from Ed Cameron, Director of the RUS Advanced Services Division. He said I would eventually be receiving a letter in reply, but there were things he could tell me over the phone that he couldn't put in a letter.
Ed told me that he was a EE and was well aware of the BPL interference issues, including its potential contribution to rising noise floors in telephone lines strung along the same rights of way as the power lines. He said he had detected little interest in BPL among the 900 electric cooperatives that receive USDA funding, and that in fact they had received no Community Connect applications proposing BPL. However, he offered to share my letter with his colleagues who handle the Broadband Loan Program. Unlike the Grant Program, the Loan Program is concerned about the ability of the recipient to pay back the loan, and therefore the potential costs of interference mitigation could be a significant factor.
Today I received a letter in reply to mine. Note the sentence: "Whenever a loan or grant application proposes broadbvand service delivery via BPL, we will consider the cost of interference mitigation in our financial analysis."
It's a small but possibly important victory.
Dave K1ZZ
<<usda.doc>> <<usda.pdf>>
