COMTek: 'No Basis' for Ham Radio Concerns in Manassas BPL Project

COMTek, the communications provider responsible for a broadband-over-powerlines (BPL) deployment in Manassas, Virginia, said in a release today that there is no longer any "documented basis for further ham radio operator concerns" over the city's BPL system -- see the press release at "COMTek: Finetuning of BPL Technology in Manassas Complete, Legitimate Ham Radio Operator Concerns Now Addressed."

The release quotes COMTek Vice President Walt Adams:

"We know of fewer than half a dozen ham radio operator complaints, each of which COMTek has gone to truly extraordinary lengths to address. COMTek stands by our service and the deployment of our equipment. We are not aware of any valid basis for the concerns of those who would deprive BPL broadband to Manassas families and small businesses. The opposition from these almost entirely non-Manassas individuals and their national organization appears to be grounded in a fundamental opposition to BPL rather than any hard facts."

The release also accuses opposers of running a "campaign to turn back the clock on broadband in the United States."

However, a release from the Amateur Radio Relay League from January 18, 2006 (see "Shutdown 'Imperative' in Face of Still-Unresolved BPL Interference, ARRL Says"), expresses a very different point of view in these excerpts:

"After the operator of the Manassas, Virginia, BPL system failed to meet its own commitment to resolve complaints of interference to local radio amateurs, the ARRL again demanded the system's immediate shutdown."

"'It is now apparently unwilling to voluntarily comply with its regulatory obligation to shut the system down,' [ARRL General Counsel Chris] Imlay said of COMTek, following a meeting January 17 between company officials and local radio amateurs."

"The League asserts that COMTek did not want to start the meeting with a local newspaper reporter present. Imlay said the company's 'bizarre action' indicated that COMTek 'was unwilling to subject itself to public scrutiny.'

"COMTek Vice President Walter Adams acknowledged at this week's meeting that its BPL system was causing harmful interference on Amateur Radio frequencies, despite its pledge to permanently notch ham bands by January 15, the League said. Even so, Adams 'specifically declined to take any further steps to mitigate the interference,' Imlay continued, calling COMTek's stance 'totally unacceptable to the aggrieved licensees in Manassas.'

"In its letter, the League said it doesn't question COMTek's desire to eliminate the harmful interference. 'However, the inescapable fact is that the Main.net hardware now in use in the city's BPL system is, and has been proven, incapable of being configured so as to function as intended without causing harmful interference to radio communication.'"

"'These meetings have not produced any solution to the interference problem but have, instead, created the illusion that the problem is being addressed,' Imlay charged in his reply."

"Among BPL systems more likely to be involved in stubborn interference cases, the ARRL said, are those using DS2 or Main.net technology that lack fixed, permanent notches in the ham bands. Utilization of such BPL technology, the League maintains, has resulted in 'substantial, extremely difficult-to-resolve incidents of interference' from BPL pilot programs and deployments to Amateur Radio."

COMTek's Walt Adams says in the company's press release that the Manassas BPL system is the first "full-scale commercial deployment of BPL on a meaningful scale in the United States." The system has over 900 subscribers.

AB -- 1/24/06