Wither the FCC?

It Seems to Us . . . The Third Battle of Bull Run By David Sumner, K1ZZ ARRL Chief Executive Officer June 1, 2006 [ARRL] Manassas, Virginia is best known as the site of the First and Second Battles of Bull Run during the American Civil War. Today there is another battle being fought in Manassas. On one side are the City of Manassas; COMTek, the franchisee that provides Broadband over Power Line (BPL) service to a few hundred customers in the city; and Main.net, the Israeli manufacturer of the city's BPL hardware. On the other are radio amateurs who live in and pass through Manassas and who have the right to not receive harmful interference to their licensed stations.

BPL has been an ongoing issue in Manassas for the better part of the 21st century. Snake oil and posturing is about all that has come out of it, on both sides of the argument unfortunately. While there are some legitimate issues, one line from this article really jumped out at me - and it was at the end:

Further delay simply serves to undermine the [FCC's] credibility.

It jumped out at me because it really is laughable. The FCC lost any credibility it had years ago and it has never really regained it. One has only to look at the (continuing) debacle over the sale and reapportionment of radio spectrum to see this. From the sale and then the cancellation because of default for some of the 3G spectrum to companies that were little more than financial shells, to the insanity that everyone is going to have to have a high-definition television so that first responders can use their radios, to the silly fines imposed on broadcast TV for language that can be hear on any playground in the country, the FCC has not only lost its way in managing and enforcing the radio spectrum, but they have become little more than a marketing agency for every big business that needs, wants or uses the radio spectrum to make money.

The Amateurs in Manassas are upset. The City is upset. The residents will be upset when then realize that their city government, which recently said it could not afford to hire an Emergency Manager because there wasn't enough money but continues to carry the charge for a failed network installation, thus costing them State matching funds for disaster preparedness. The ARRL is upset. COMTek will be upset when its shareholders tell it to stop pouring money into this failed experiment, but the one group of people who should be really upset are not, and that is the people of the United States. But their lack of concern is understandable. After all, it is an issue that only affects a handful of people...except when all else fails.