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.

The two Civil War battles were not decisive. They served mainly to establish that it would be a long and costly conflict. Even so, it would be wrong to draw parallels to the present day. Thousands will not be killed and wounded on our 21^st Century technological battlefield. The world will little note, nor long remember BPL. Yet, what's happening in Manassas today is an important test of truth vs. hype.

The story of BPL in Manassas begins in May 2002, when the City of Manassas launched a field trial to test BPL technology using equipment provided by Main.net. Based on a positive report of the test results from its Utilities Department, in October 2003 the Manassas City Council voted to grant a 10-year franchise to an unknown company called Prospect Street Broadband to expand the field trial and offer high-speed Internet service to the entire community of 35,000. At the time the utility estimated it would take 120 days to roll out the entire system. The City was told it could expect as much as $4.5 million in revenue -- an utterly fanciful figure -- from the 10-year franchise.

The City knew about the interference issue. Because the Main.net equipment was known to be problematic, a few days after the franchise was awarded I wrote to the Mayor of Manassas to advise that "tests conducted by ARRL technical personnel have shown that the system planned to be deployed in Manassas causes harmful interference to the Amateur Radio service" and that the ARRL "will ensure that there is full compliance with the FCC regulations."

On January 20, 2004 the United Power Line Council reported that Manassas BPL was "set to go commercial this week" with 2200 homes passed. But all was not well. On April 8, 2004 the City of Manassas terminated its franchise agreement with Prospect Street Broadband and put the franchise out for rebid. The bid documents showed that Main.net equipment costing $140,000 had been installed to serve 200 accounts with the cost, according to the Manassas Journal Messenger, "temporarily shouldered" by the Utilities Department. (The Manassas budget continues to include a $20,000 annual amount for "debt service" relating to the BPL project.)

In July 2004 the City granted a 10-year franchise to COMTek, a telecommunications and information systems technology company with no apparent BPL experience. Three months later, and just two days prior to the FCC's decision on new BPL rules, then-FCC Chairman Michael Powell and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Pat Wood participated in a carefully orchestrated (and, the ARRL maintains, illegal) media event in Manassas. COMTek, which loves to issue effusive news releases, put one out touting Manassas as "the most successful BPL deployment in the nation." A few days later COMTek promised that its BPL network "will be available to every home and business in the City by first quarter 2005."

In fact it was not until the fourth quarter of 2005 that COMTek, again with great fanfare, announced citywide deployment. That was too much for the long-suffering hams in the Manassas area who had been trying for months to get COMTek to fix widespread interference caused by the Main.net BPL equipment. They brought their complaints to the FCC but were told to work it out with COMTek and the City. They continued to try, but talks broke down in January 2006.

The FCC finally acted on March 7, ordering the City to address one of the several pending interference complaints and requesting additional information from the other complainants. COMTek and the City provided incomplete and inadequate responses on the deadline date of April 6. This did not stop COMTek from issuing yet another misleading news release, claiming that "rigorous FCC-mandated testing" had shown that the interference "does not appear to arise from COMTek's BPL operations." In fact, COMTek's attorneys admitted to the FCC that the lab had not complied with the FCC's measurement guidelines and said that another report was being prepared for submission more than a week after the deadline.

A review of the timely filed lab report shows that it is deeply flawed. As a measure of the interference to radio communication emanating from the Manassas BPL system, the test results are meaningless. Using the test equipment described in the test report to check for radio interference is like using an oven thermometer to check for a fever.

Let's be clear: The existence of BPL inter-ference in Manassas can be verified by any 12-year-old who can tune a short wave receiver. If someone isn't finding interference it's because they don't want to find interference. You can hear what the BPL interference in Manassas sounds like by visiting this link.

BPL systems are not all alike. Some BPL installations, notably in Cincinnati, operate without causing widespread harmful interference.

It is long past time for the FCC to do its duty in Manassas and implement §15.5(c) of its Rules: "The operator of a radio frequency device shall be required to cease operating the device upon notification by a Commission representative that the device is causing harmful interference. Operation shall not resume until the condition causing the harmful interference has been corrected."

Further delay simply serves to undermine the agency's credibility.