FCC: MANASSAS REPORTS NO INTERFERENCE/ANNOUNCES G2 UPGRADE

Tuesday, April 18, 2006


In response to a complaint by an amateur operator, COMTek reported to the FCC this month that an independent FCC-certified testing laboratory could find no interference attributable to BPL in the specific ham radio frequencies. According to COMTek, the testing lab conducted on/off tests of the system, and found “an almost identical level of interference in the ham bands covered in the complaint to the FCC, regardless of whether or not the BPL equipment was in operation. This means that, while ham radio operators may have detected the interference reported to the FCC, it does not appear to arise from COMTek’s BPL operations.” In response to COMTek’s news release, ARRL posted a story to its Web site quoting the local amateur operator that the interference is “still there”, basically ignoring the larger question whether the interference is from BPL. ARRL didn’t attempt to explain why the report measures an “almost identical level of interference” even when the BPL system was off. Instead, it criticized the type of equipment that was used to measure the emissions, and noted that the report is preliminary. For its part, COMTek said that it will continue to test in the coming months.

COMTek also announced that it would upgrade all 600 of its overhead BPL devices to G2 in July. COMTek Vice President, Walt Adams said, “The COMTek decision to upgrade its overhead BPL equipment in Manassas reflects our longstanding commitment to provide the best available hardware and services for our rapidly growing customer base. BPL in Manassas is a real success story that shows that the 'first wire' to homes is a viable means of delivering affordable broadband to homes and businesses that otherwise face limited alternatives and unnecessarily high prices.” The G2 equipment reportedly uses a modified HomePlug chipset that delivers 14 mbps and includes features such as QOS for VoIP. The G1 equipment uses spread spectrum and is not interoperable with the G2 equipment. It also disclosed that it “expects to announce that it has reached the 1000th customer milestone in Manassas during the spring or early summer of 2006.”


read more at http://www.uplc.org/