Today's Wall Street Journal carries a brief article about an agreement reached between TV satellite provider DirecTV and Current Group LLC to market BPL Internet and VoIP service as part of a bundled package. I'm sure that will stir some concern in our community, but there is no reason to panic. As a longtime DirecTV customer I can understand why bundling and marketing Internet/VoIP service with their TV satellite service makes sense for DirecTV. They have similar agreements with several phone companies to resell Internet service. The Wall Street Journal article makes no suggestion that the DirecTV agreement will bring BPL to new areas. It is simply an agreement to market the service in areas that Current is already building out, i.e. for now, Cincinnati and Dallas-Fort Worth. ARRL's only concern about BPL is the interference potential. In that regard, the approach that Current has taken to date -- limiting its use of the medium-voltage lines to 30-50 MHz and using the HomePlug standard to avoid the HF ham bands on the low-voltage drop -- has been satisfactory. If the FCC mandated what Current has been doing we would be quite happy. In short, we can be glad that DirecTV chose to align itself with a BPL company that has taken the interference problem seriously and has a good track record of avoiding interference in the amateur bands. Dave Sumner, K1ZZ