"no more than 150,000 BPL users in the U.S." Right, Try "no more than 5,000." It drives me crazy to see BPL cited as a viable method of delivering broadband to rural areas. It isn't so, and anyone who passed high school physics should be able to understand why. Oh, well. We're past the point where poorly researched consumer articles will have any effect on BPL's future. Most utilities have looked at it and decided to pass. Dave ________________________________ From: Cliff Ahrens [mailto:cahrens@mywdo.com] Sent: Fri 3/2/2007 12:30 PM To: arrl-odv Cc: Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ; Pitts, Allen W1AGP Subject: [arrl-odv:15273] Re: ComputerWorld article on BPL with comments from ARRL A friend of mine in the IT/computer industry sent me a link to a ComputerWorld article entitled "Broadband over powerLine is ready to explode." The following is a quote from a portion of the article, which contains information from ARRL's Allen Pitts: "Actually, regulation has been an issue since the first experimental BPL modems were turned on, due to complaints of interference by ham radio operators. Allen Pitts, spokesman for the ham radio parent organization, the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) in Newington, Conn., said that the utilities installing the latest technology (including the ones in Cincinnati and Texas) are not a problem since the frequencies they use are "notched" to avoid ham frequencies. But there are a number of older BPL experiments that continue generating interference, he complained, causing problems not only with ham operators but with emergency services that use older equipment in the FM ranges. In fact, he said that the ARRL has filed suit against the Federal Communications Commission to force the government to act against them. Indeed, the ARRL follows the BPL situation closely [http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/], and counts 34 trial BPL systems that have been shut down, often because of interference complaints or because they were judged uneconomical. Another 54 systems are currently operational and 19 more are pending." Here's the link to the full ComputerWorld article: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&arti cleId=9011985&source=NLT_PM&nlid=8. If that link doesn't work, here's a TinyURL link: http://tinyurl.com/2y7eb5 Cliff, K0CA