RE: ARTICLE IN CINCINNATI ENQUIRER BUSINESS SECTION REGARDING FCC RESPONSE TO INTERFERENCE Jennifer C. Kerr of the Washington, DC Bureau of the AP wrote an article that appeared in the Cincinnati ENQUIRER (Business Section D5) this morning. It was captioned "FCC onto cell-phone interference." Although this indeed relates to the FCC response to interference from cell-phones it involves interference to public service (police, fire, etc.) communication. The article outlined how FCC had brokered a fix between Nextel and the public service agencies to avoid interference to these agencies. My take is that even though this situation specifically involved readily identifiable and continuing interference with police and fire communication, it has already taken five years for FCC to get this far and the problem has not yet been corrected. Is this gross lack of speedy action by the Commission anything we can put in our hip pockets and use when warranted? Jim Weaver, K8JE Director, Great Lakes Division ARRL 5065 Bethany Rd., Mason, OH 45040 Tel.: 513-459-0142; E-mail: k8je@arrl.org ARRL: The reason Amateur Radio Is! MEMBERS: The reason ARRL Is! -----Original Message----- From: Art Goddard [mailto:w6xd@comcast.net] Sent: Friday, July 09, 2004 9:14 AM To: arrl-odv Subject: [ARRL-ODV:10865] Re: Meetings at FCC on BPL Dave, an experimental license and Amperion equipment is involved in the Cottonwood, AZ, BPL system. Ed Hare made confirming measurements there on July 1. The BPL signal was S-7 at a distance of 1-1/2 miles and S-9 +60dB in the neighborhood. Why don't we test OET's assertion that exp's get more prompt attention ASAP? Getting another case in FCC's lap and another system shut down soon after Cedar Rapids might help our cause. 73, Art W6XD ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ" <dsumner@arrl.org> To: "arrl-odv" <arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org> Sent: Friday, July 09, 2004 8:51 AM Subject: [ARRL-ODV:10862] Meetings at FCC on BPL On Tuesday and Wednesday, July 6-7, Chris Imlay and I had three meetings on BPL at the FCC (Paul Rinaldo joined us for one of them). Unfortunately, because of scheduling problems (there was an important FCC Open Meeting on several controversial topics on the 8th) it was necessary to have them over a two-day period, but we felt it was important to begin meeting with Commissioners as soon as possible after the close of the reply comment period in Docket 04-37. Our first meeting was on Tuesday afternoon with Commissioner Kevin Martin and his legal advisor on spectrum issues, Sam Feder. We followed a script Chris and I worked up in advance. We started by giving them each a copy of the ARRL comments and reply coments in the NPRM proceeding. We emphasized that our only concern is interference. We're not touting or denigrating any particular technology. We support universal broadband and the principle of a level playing level field for broadband delivery systems, but that must include taking the relative interference potential of the various delivery mechanisms into account. We said that BPL interference is real and has been shown time and time again; it isn't merely hypothetical. We then gave them copies of the Cedar Rapids BPL Steering Committee technical report that documents the interference at Jim Spencer's station, W0SR. We emphasized that Alliant Energy and Amperion couldn't eliminate the interference after 12 weeks of trying and that Alliant ultimately cut the test short, in part because of the interference. We also gave them a thick compilation of the other BPL complaints we knew of that had gone to the FCC in one form or another. We used the Cedar Rapids case to illustrate that the existing rules/procedures/limits provide inadequate protection. The existing limits are much too high to preclude interference and were set for short-duration, narrowband emissions, not for long-duration (or constant), broadband emissions. Commissioner Martin said he understood this point, which from my perspective made the meeting worthwhile by itself because this point is more easily made in person than in a written argument. We pointed out that the NTIA says, "Interference risks are high under existing Part 15 limits." We mentioned that the interference is a problem not just for amateurs, but also for other HF users and low-band VHF public safety users. We supported the technical content of the NTIA Phase 1 study and only disupted their claim that technical solutions to all of the interference issues exist (unless shutting the BPL system off and keeping it off counts as a "solution"). Finally, we said that the mitigation procedures proposed by the FCC, while a step in the right direction, don't go far enough -- the NTIA's recommendations are an improvement -- and do not protect mobile stations, who need lower emissions limits in order to have meaningful protection. To be effective, mitigation must be immediate -- but at present interference complaints are being shunted aside and none has been adjudicated by the FCC. We left behind copies of my correspondence to Enforcement Bureau Chief David Solomon about the Cedar Rapids case as well as an advance copy of the August QST editorial, which addresses what constitutes "harmful" interference. Other than the comment mentioned above, the only feedback we got from Commissioner Martin was that he had not realized interference was such a problem for us. Curiously, Sam Feder asked us what we'd been hearing from the other offices. We told him this was our first meeting on this round, so he asked us to give him feedback after we had completed the other meetings. We got the sense that they knew the Chairman was pushing BPL but they did not offer any pro-BPL arguments; Commissioner Martin is known for being non-committal in such meetings. Chris and I feel we made effective use of the time, although it's hard to know how much we accomplished. On Wednesday afternoon we had two meetings. The first, for which Paul Rinaldo (who had just returned from an EMC Symposium in Wroclaw, Poland) joined us, was a combined meeting with the Enforcement Bureau and OET. We had requested separate meetings but they scheduled it as one meeting. David Solomon was the ranking FCC official present and brought with him Joe Casey, Chief of the Spectrum Enforcement Division and Joe's Assistant Chief, Brian Butler. They were joined by Bruce Franca, one of the Deputy Chiefs of OET, and Ron Chase, Chief of OET's EMC Division, Technical Analysis Branch. Anh Wride, the engineer who has been doing most of the work on BPL for OET, was on the list to attend but did not; we don't know why. In this meeting we went straight to the Cedar Rapids case. I outlined the history, beginning with Jim Spencer's noticing the interference in his receiver and cruising the neighborhood to find the BPL installers at work a few blocks away through the 12 weeks that followed until Alliant terminated the test. We again handed out copies of the Steering Committee report. David Solomon was defensive, arguing in effect that there hadn't been enough time following my June 14 "request for intervention on an emergency basis" for the FCC to investigate and take action before the test was terminated on June 25. Bruce Franca was also a bit combative, saying that there is "some debate" as to what is harmful interference (which was my cue to bring out the August editorial). Paul Rinaldo also countered with a technical explanation, which Franca acknowledged was "one way" of looking at it. Solomon's bottom line was that they take this seriously, but that if we get action in two weeks we ought to be pretty happy. We said that isn't good enough, that if BPL is deployed widely with the existing limits the FCC will be overwhelmed with interference complaints that it doesn't have the resources to deal with, and that a lower limit coupled with truly effective mitigation procedures was only reasonable. Perhaps significantly (although I might be reading too much into this) Franca did not respond with a defense of the existing limits as he reportedly has in the past. We said we had heard that BPL complaints were being shunted to OET by the Enforcement Division; their answer was that they "work together" and that how a complaint is handled depends on whether an Experimental License is involved (which apparently was not the case in Cedar Rapids). Aside from that, we learned that they are working on the repeated complaints about the Progress Energy test in North Carolina and presumably we should be hearing something about that soon. Despite our differences, the meeting was cordial and I think we got the point across that Cedar Rapids is the tip of the iceberg and if BPL is widely deployed, the FCC staff who deal with interference complaints are passengers on the Titanic. The third meeting was in Commissioner Michael Copps's office with Paul Margie, his spectrum and legal advisor. Here Chris and I felt we had a more synmpathetic ear. We went through much the same spiel as with Commissioner Martin. Margie asked us if we had to choose one interference case for action, which would it be; Chris said that until a couple of weeks ago it would have been Cedar Rapids, but now it was North Carolina. Commissioner Copps joined us for a few minutes, Paul advised him of that, and he agreed that they should get after the Enforcement Bureau about it. After the Board Meeting Chris and I plan as early as possible to complete the round of meetings with Commissioners Adelstein and Abernathy and finally with the Chairman (or more probably, with someone in his office). We anticipate the last of these meetings may be a bit frosty. Chris and/or Paul may want to add their own observations. Dave Sumner, K1ZZ