It is great to see how quickly this story was spotted. Still, peeling away some of the puffery, IBEC proposes to charge $29.95 a month in sparsely populated rural areas for a BPL system that requires a repeater every half mile and provides data speeds “just a few times faster that of dial-up.” That doesn’t sound all that appealing. The concept sounds similar to what was tried in Rochester, MN where the provider proposed to sell the equipment to the municipal power company and let the Muni operate the system in conjunction with the provider. After two extended trials the Muni concluded the potential interest of members did not warrant the financial risk and said “thanks but no thanks.” Assuming we keep an eye on the IBEC/IBM partnership to see if it gets beyond the press release stage, we can wait and see if installation of a real system is proposed. At that point we will be able to look into and address the specific concerns raised by that system. 73, Jay, KØQB -----Original Message----- From: Andy Oppel [mailto:andy.oppel@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 2:01 PM To: arrl-odv Cc: arrl-odv Subject: [arrl-odv:17308] Re: IBM now partnering with BPL provider for rural areas Bob and I have already received at least one e-mail regarding this one (from a Section Manager) and more queries from members (particularly in the proposed service area) are sure to follow. Personally, I have a lot of trouble remembering which technology providers are good guys vs. bad guys vis-a-vis amateur spectrum pollution. Perhaps we should have a simple list of providers somewhere along with what we know about their threat to amateur communciations (something like "high", "low", "unknown"). It would make responding to queries that sometimes come weeks after an announcement easier to field. -- Andy Oppel, N6AJO On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 9:32 AM, <w3kd@aol.com> wrote: Cliff, thanks for that. That story apparently was picked up by the Wall Street Journal as well. At least it is IBEC, which is not one of the toxic BPL companies.... Chris W3KD Christopher D. Imlay BOOTH, FRERET, IMLAY & TEPPER, P.C. 14356 Cape May Road Silver Spring, Maryland 20904-6011 (301) 384-5525 telephone (301) 384-6384 facsimile W3KD@ARRL.ORG -----Original Message----- From: Cliff Ahrens <cahrens@mywdo.com> To: arrl-odv <arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org> Sent: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 9:10 am Subject: [arrl-odv:17305] IBM now partnering with BPL provider for rural areas The BPL saga continues. Here's a link to a report on Yahoo Finance that IBM is partnering with a small newcomer to offer BPL to 340,000 homes in rural areas of Alabama, Indiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081112/tec_broadband_over_power_lines.html?.v=4 Cliff K0CA _____ Instant access to the latest & most popular FREE games while you browse with the Games Toolbar - Download Now! <http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1212904500x1200818240/aol?redir =http://toolbar.aol.com/games/download.html?ncid=emlweusdown00000004> -- ----- Andy Oppel andy.oppel@gmail.com