With House passage of COPE Act language ordering a fresh FCC stud...
With House passage of COPE Act language ordering a fresh FCC study of BPL’s interference risk to ham radio, the ARRL said it’s working for similar language in Senate telecom bill S-2686. The BPL industry couldn’t get the language…
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diluted or removed from the House bill because utilities were focused on other issues, ARRL CEO David Sumner said. “We're very optimistic that, once the House and Senate version of telecom legislation get reconciled, our concerns will be properly addressed,” Sumner told us. BPL interests wanted to axe the FCC study provision because they have “no solution to interference,” he said: “I don’t know of any utility that is in favor of deploying a [BPL] system that interferes with radio communications.” Many utilities use low band VHF for communications, he said. As for why ARRL wants another FCC study given its complaint that the agency doesn’t enforce existing rules, Sumner said an FCC study required by Congress would raise the “visibility of the interference issue.” Amateur radio always had faith in the FCC technical staff’s ability to understand the interference problem and “effectively address” it if allowed to, Sumner said: “Unfortunately, they have been trumped by policy people who walked into a position on the issue before they had all the facts.” But with recent “changes” at the Commission, he said, “we remain hopeful that this situation will improve.” The United Power Line Council didn’t comment by our deadline.