broadband riding the power lines in texas, page-9

ABC thumbs down to BPL

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) strongly believes Broadband over Powerlines (BPL) should not be allowed to interfere with existing and future radiocommunication services.
The ABC in a submission to the Australian Communications Authority expresses fear that BPL interference is highly likely in some circumstances to annihilate broadcasting services.

The national broadcaster said the evidence available to it indicates that BPL is highly likely to interfere with existing broadcasting transmissions.

It said, "…permitted emission levels under all existing and proposed BPL standards would be of sufficient level to cause interference and loss of service to broadcasting signals in rural areas, and, under worse case conditions, in suburban areas."

The ABC submission to the ACA discussion paper on the Management of Interference from Broadband over Power Line Applications, also notes that BPL interference with broadcasting services could potentially disrupt emergency information broadcasts.

And has the potential to affect Digital Radio Mondiale services currently being considered as a way of delivering digital radio to rural and regional Australia.

"Broadcasting is a protected service," it said. "The ABC is strongly of the view that obligations should be placed on BPL operators to alert the public when a BPL service is commencing and/or operational and that interference may occur."

The ABC describes as "a major concern for HF broadcasting" the fact the BPL emissions are likely to propagate via the ionosphere and have the potential to interfere with receivers thousands of kilometres away.

It told the ACA that "In such circumstances, it is likely to be difficult to identify the source of interference, let alone take action to have it suppressed."

The ABC also commented on In-house BPL and radiation from it causing interference to broadcasting. While such systems may work overseas, it said, they can cause problems to Australia’s unique frequency allocations.

The bottom line is that the needs of radiocommunications services should take precedence over BPL with its unplanned by-product emissions