Two months ago, Tom Frenaye asked if we knew where the Kerry campaign stood on BPL. The Kerry campaign has made no statement either pro or con with regard to BPL. However, last Thursday the campaign released a nine-page paper on "Investing in High-Tech" that includes universal broadband deployment. The announcement is at http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0624.html and the paper itself is at http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/pr_2004_0624b.pdf. The technical focus is on wireless broadband, including access to unassigned TV channels as recently proposed by the FCC. A search of the Kerry Web site for "power line" and its variants got no matches. Of course, none of this suggests that Senator Kerry is opposed to BPL, only that he isn't promoting it. However, he is promoting ultra-wideband, which has the potential to cause us some heartburn (though not the same as BPL). As for bringing broadband to rural areas, the paper mentions a "marketplace solution that was successful in bringing broadband to Western Massachusetts." A bit of research revealed that the reference is to Berkshire Connect based in Pittsfield, http://www.bconnect.org/. Basically it is a purchasing collective that aggregates demand for telecommunications services to negotiate the best price and service for its members. I called and spoke to the Business Manager, Sharon Ferry, to ask if they were using or planned to use BPL. She said that she was familiar with BPL but that they were not using it and didn't see it as a solution. They use a combination of fiber and wireless broadband to reach their customers, who are small- and medium-sized businesses (including home-based businesses) rather than consumers. She said Berkshire Connect is in the process of analyzing broadband requirements in all of Berkshire County and will look at BPL only as part of their due diligence. She was interested in hearing about the interference issue and I sent her the appropriate URLs. I'm just providing this for internal information to address Tom's question. The ARRL itself, and its officials when acting in an organizational capacity, can play absolutely no role in distributing candidates' statements or otherwise becoming involved in a campaign. Dave Sumner, K1ZZ