Marvin Bloomquist, N5AW, PhD in Electrical Engineering, ham radio operator, Burnet, Texas

On October 14, 2004, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a press release announcing that it had that day "adopted changes to Part 15 of its rules to encourage the development of Access Broadband over Power Line (Access BPL) systems while safeguarding existing licensed services against harmful interference."

On December 6, 2004, in an interview with Broadband over Power Line World Michael Bates, V.P., Sales and Marketing at Broadband Horizons, the company providing BPL service in Burnet, Texas, said that radio frequency (RF) interference from his company's BPL deployment wasn't a problem and that they were working with local amateur radio enthusiasts proactively to see that it didn't become one. You can hear what he said by clicking here.

On December 8, 2004, Broadband over Power Line World received an e-mail from Marvin Bloomquist, who holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering and is also an amateur radio operator in Burnet (ham radio operator's license N5AW), taking exception to some of the points made in the interview with Michael Bates at Broadband Horizons.

On December 10, 2004, Mr. Bloomquist appeared as a guest on Broadband over Power Line World to discuss concerns raised by the amateur radio community in Burnet about the BPL installation in their town.

During that conversation, Mr. Bloomquist reported on an informal test conducted in a Burnet parking lot near the power lines carrying the BPL signal which found that the BPL transmission "pretty much completely covers up the 2 megaherz to 22 megahertz" part of the radio spectrum, the part reserved for ham radio operators.

Mr. Bloomquist said that cooperation between the ham radio operator community and Broadband Horizons was not as close as Mr. Bates had indicated it was in his interview. He also said that contrary to the impression that Mr. Bates encouraged in his interview, Broadband Horizons was not going to be providing a lot of BPL access to farmers and ranchers, due to the expense of delivering this service to widely-dispersed users.

The intention of Broadband Horizons, according to Mr. Bloomquist, was to provide BPL in small towns without alternative means of acquiring broadband access, not to bring it into sparsely-populated reaches of the countryside.

Mr. Bloomquist pointed out that, unlike the case with BPL, which generates RF interference with the ham radio spectrum, wireless internet systems run in a spectrum band that does not cause such interference. He also mentioned that the RF signals generated by BPL could conceivably radiate over long distances, and cause interference far from their source.

He also commented on the possibility of "reverse interference," whereby amateur radio broadcasts could themselves interfere with the transmission of data over BPL riding along the power lines.

Mr. Bloomquist mentioned a company called Corridor Systems, which uses power lines to bring wireless (2G, 3G, Wi-Fi) access to underserved areas as a possible alternative use of power lines to deliver broadband access, instead of using BPL.

He indicated that communications between Broadband Horizons and the local ham radio community were not very smooth, but that he would be willing to participate, on behalf of that community, in a joint appearance on Broadband over Power Line World with a representative of Broadband Horizons to discuss and possibly help resolve the outstanding issues between the company and the amateur radio community.

He also voiced his support for the position taken in the December 9, 2004, Broadband over Power Line World interview with Texas State Representative Phil King, chairman of the Regulated Industries Committee in the Texas House of Representatives, that government ought not to be encouraging the use of BPL (or any other particular technology) but that technological and economic considerations ought to determine which types of systems would be deployed.

Mr. Bloomquist said he disagreed, accordingly, with the position taken by California Public Utilities Commissioner Susan Kennedy in another Broadband over Power Line World interview, in which she said she'd be working to encourage the deployment of BPL in California.

This may, of course, represent a mis-reading of Commissioner Kennedy's position, since she, like Texas Representative King, seems to be a strong supporter of getting government out of the way so that exactly the forces preferred by Mr. Bloomquist, technology and economics, rather than politics, can determine the speed and nature of technological deployments.

But what better use could there be of all these media than the vigorous discussion and disputation of precisely these issues?

To that end, you can listen to Mr. Bloomquist's remarks in their entirety by clicking here.