WIA Attends Sydney BPL Conference

WIA representatives Keith Malcolm and Phil Wait attended a BPL conference in Sydney this week, hosted by telecommunications industry analyst Paul Budde of Buddecomm.

Speakers from New South Wales based Country Energy, Tasmanian based Aurora Energy, and Bender Information and System Technology of Germany, presented updates on the current state of BPL developments. Hugh Milloy from ACMA discussed options for the ongoing development of a regulatory environment.

Putting aside the considerable amount of hype which has emerged in the E-media since the conference, our view is that little new information was presented to the meeting.

The trial operators are predictably enthusiastic about the results of their trials so far and plan further BPL rollouts in their respective states.

Network monitoring and management applications such as remote service connections and disconnections, early fault detection, and telemetry are increasingly seen as major benefits.

Interestingly, niche markets in industry, aged care facilities, community housing estates, marinas and security systems are emerging for BPL. However these applications often use underground power and their interference potential may be lower.

ACMA discussed options for regulating BPL. In particular they announced a review of the BPL Trial Guidelines following responses to their Discussion paper and information gained during the past year. ACMA is "hastening slowly" and await a stable trial environment before attempting emission measurements of the Aurora system in Hobart. The WIA is also of the view that measurements taken when the technology is changing would be of limited value.

The meeting extended into a wide ranging round table discussion and once again the WIA made its view known that "there are significant radio frequency (RF) issues with the Aurora site, and with BPL in general." Responding to a question `why Australia should be seen differently to other countries or to Europe?� we explained the RF problem was particularly bad in Australia because the nation is "a very heavy user of HF radio communications and a lot of services exist in Australia that don't exist in Europe."

The WIA continues to develop its position, and continues to engage in the ACMA process.

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