Brett Kilbourne, Director of Regulatory Services and Associate Counsel, United Power Line Council

Brett Kilbourne is the Director of Regulatory Services and Associate Counsel at the United Power Line Council (UPLC), an organization whose slogan is "Driving the Development of Broadband Over Power Line Solutions for Electric Utilities and Their Partners," and which is, according to Mr. Kilbourne, the primary trade association of utilities actively offering or planning to offer broadband over power line (BPL) to their customers.

Mr. Kilbourne appeared previously on Broadband over Power Line World (BPLW) on November 30, 2004, in an article entitled "Brett Kilbourne, United Power Line Council official, discusses broadband over power line."

Brett Kilbourne spoke again today with BPLW and provided some updated comments regarding current issues impacting the deployment of BPL, from the viewpoint of the BPL industry.

He said he basically agreed with the conclusion of a report from the New Millennium Research Council, issued February 24, 2005, which was that "Broadband over powerline (BPL) technology may be 'primed for real growth in 2005 and beyond' across the United States."

Mr. Kilbourne said that his organization strongly supported the right of municipalities to either offer broadband Internet access themselves or to allow private, third-party providers to use municipally-owned infrastructure to provide such access. He explained some of the issues involving the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), municipalities, and states seeking to prohibit the creation of muni-broadband systems.

He said he considered wireless and BPL technologies to be complementary ways of delivering Internet connectivity and that BPL was and would continue to be competitive on both price and speed in areas where Internet access was already available to end users through cable and/or DSL.

He also said that BPL and WiMAX were also complementary technologies, and could be combined in arrangements where WIMAX provides the backhaul and BPL the "last mile," especially in rural areas.

Mr. Kilbourne discussed in some detail the relationship between the BPL industry and amateur radio operators, many of whom have complained that BPL deployments cause radio frequency interference (RFI) problems for them in their operations. Asked if he thought these complaints could hinder the deployment of BPL on a local or national level, he said "yeah…my concern is that you're going to have, whenever there's a deployment, people complaining automatically….To the extent that that does happen that's going to discourage folks from getting into this space, I would think. It takes a pretty stiff back to stand up to that kind of…, I don't know, 'opposition'."

You can listen to this conversation with Brett Kilbourne, Director of Regulatory Services and Associate Counsel at the UPLC, in its entirety, by clicking here.

For a complementary interview with Dave Sumner, ARRL CEO, click here.