ARLA/CLUSTER: A FCC suprimiu estudos sobre interferências do BPL.

[João Gonçalves Costa]

Anti-BPL evidence suppressed

The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been exposed for its lack of transparency in that it excluded details from its own technical studies that went against its position in support of BPL.

The FCC has the responsibility for regulating Access Broadband Over Power Line (BPL) technologies, but in setting electromagnetic interference (EMI) in 2004 appeared to observers to take a pro-BPL stance.

Documents released under a new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) now reveal more of what was happening behind the scenes.

In October 2007, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard a case mounted by the American Radio Delay League against the FCC.

The case included a claim that the FCC had withheld the internal studies until it was too late to comment, and had not released portions of studies that may not support its own conclusions regarding BPL.

The FCC claimed that the studies were 'internal communications' that it did not rely upon in reaching its decision to adopt the BPL rules. But in April 2008 the Court ordered the FCC to release those studies.

The American Radio Relay League blew the whistle on the FCC after they sought the study documents under new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that came into being after the election of the election of President Obama in January this year. 

Specifically, the information excluded from the reports demonstrated that Access BPL was NOT a 'point source' radiating RF energy from power lines, but turned the power lines into line sources, which spreads the RF pollution much further than would a point source. Powerlines energised by BPL in fact became antennas. 

In setting the EMI regulations for BPL, the FCC took the position that Access BPL couplers attached to overhead power lines were point sources, which enabled more lenient EMI standards.

The FCC specifically ignored its 2003 studies ". . . that plainly stated that BPL was not a point source".

The ARRL is further studying the documents it obtained until the FOIA.

The above summary from Amateur Radio Victoria news www.amateurradio.com.au is based on a report by Roger Harrison VK2ZRH of Spectrum Digest - an online service that follows BPL developments, and the ARRL fully story at http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2009/05/08/10811/?nc=1