The Federal Communications Commission has denied another petition filled by the national association for Amateur Radio, formally the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), challenging the FCC’s rules for Access Broadband over Power Line (Access BPL) systems.
The December 2011 Petition for Reconsideration alleges that the FCC’s Second Report and Order (BPL Second Order) fails to acknowledge the “substantial interference potential” of Access BPL systems to amateur radio communications, and requests the FCC modify the Access BPL rules to include “mandatory, full-time notching of all amateur radio allocations to notch depths of at least 25 dB.”
Amateur radio providers have long claimed BPL—a technology for transferring broadband signals over electric power lines—has the potential to cause large-scale interference of amateur communications. BPL providers have long countered this claim with an argument that the conditions the FCC has imposed on BPL are more than adequate to protect amateur radio against risk of interference.
According to the FCC, the petition was dismissed on the basis that it “[did] not raise new arguments based on new information in the record or on the commission’s new analysis of limited points as directed by the Court [US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia], nor does it demonstrate any errors or omissions in the commission’s previous decisions.”
The commission also maintained that its previous rulings “strike an appropriate balance between the dual objectives of providing for Access BPL technology—which has potential applications for broadband and Smart Grid uses—while protecting incumbent radio services against harmful interference.”
The FCC initially adopted rules for Access BPL systems in 2004 and reaffirmed them two years later after reconsideration was sought by the ARRL and other organizations. In 2007, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia remanded the rules to the FCC for reexamination after the ARRL alleged the FCC failed to satisfy the notice and comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
A “Request for Further Comment and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” was issued by the FCC in July 2009 to address the issues remanded to them by the court, and was followed by the release of the current “Second Report and Order (BPL Second Order)” in October 2011.
