ACP WORKING GROUP F 12th MEETING
(Montreal, Canada, Aug 23-27, 2004)
Agenda Item: 9 – Other Business
Introduction of Broadband Over Power Line in the United States
(Presented by the United States of America)
SUMMARY
March 26 President Bush established a United States national objective to make broadband available and affordable to every American by 2007 and called for responsible technical standards to be developed for broadband-over-powerlines (BPL).
1. Introduction
1.1 Spectrum regulation in the United States (U.S.) is accomplished cooperatively by the National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA) for federal government systems, and the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) for private sector systems. As planned broadcast-over-powerline (BPL) systems would cover radio spectrum regulated by both agencies, planned BPL rules are being developed in a negotiated manner. As part of this process, the FCC released a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) on February 23, 2003, and a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on April 26, 2004, which requested information and comment on a proposal for the deployment of BPL systems to operate on an unlicensed basis under Part 15 of the FCC rules. The FAA spectrum office’s analysis concluded that there could be a potential impact to National Airspace System (NAS) services if BPL is deployed without analysis of this impact being completed.
2. Discussion
2.1 BPL is a system that uses existing electrical powerlines as a transmission medium, to provide high-speed communications capabilities, by coupling RF energy onto electrical powerlines serving homes. The FCC identifies two BPL Physical network layers that would operate in the 1.7 – 80 MHz frequency range: (1) In-House BPL (which uses low voltage lines between electrical outlets and step-down transformers); and (2) Access BPL (which uses medium voltage lines (600V-40kV) between step-down transformers and substation). (Power Line Carrier systems, a related technology operating in the 9 – 490 kHz range, operates over high voltage lines between substations and generators facilities).
2.2 The FCC has requested input on proposed requirements to Part 15 of the rules, necessary to facilitate the deployment of this technology. FAA and ARINC, based on preliminary analysis, have asked that regulatory provisions be adopted to protect HF Aeronautical Mobile (R) bands from BPL.
2.3 NTIA in coordination with government agencies (including FAA) performed Phase 1 Study (http://www.ntia.doc.gov, under “Publications”) which is a technical investigation of compatibility between BPL and federal systems. These investigations are being used in the development of a regulatory infrastructure for the implementation of BPL. NTIA also provided comments on the FCC NPRM (available at same web site).
3. Conclusions
3.1 NTIA, in coordination with US Government agencies, has completed Phase I of the BPL investigation efforts that mostly encompassed Access BPL.
3.2. NTIA identified five major focal areas for its Phase 2 investigation of BPL. These are: additional requirements for BPL compliance measurement provisions; propagation and aggregation of BPL emissions via ionospheric propagation; treatment of frequencies that NTIA identified as requiring special consideration (e.g., via coordination or exclusion); reduction of powerline noise intrinsic to BPL deployment; and re-evaluation of interference risks taking account of all NTIA recommendations including BPL use of adaptive power control.
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