Ham Radio to the rescue: ARRL catches NTIA cooking the books for the broadband report!

We’ve already given a good bit of coverage to the overly optimistic picture painted by the NTIA in their report Networked Nation: Broadband in America 2007 that was released on January 31, 2008. Those civic minded hams who have been a hyperactive opponent of BPL or powerline broadband deployment have also brought a huge discrepancy said deployments to our attention:

Five years of experience in dealing with BPL systems as a radio interference source have given the ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio, considerable insight into the BPL industry. Based on that experience, the ARRL has concluded that the FCC’s figure of fewer than 5000 BPL customers is entirely credible. Therefore, the ARRL set out to determine the source of the “estimate” of 200,000 current BPL subscribers.

We contacted TIA and were advised that the figure came from a market study prepared by Wilkofsky Gruen Associates Inc and based on research conducted by In-Stat, a unit of Reed Business Information.

So we contacted In-Stat and asked how the figure was derived. They responded: “The 200,000 number for BPL subs did not come from In-Stat. In our US broadband forecast, we estimate about 231,000 broadband subscribers in the ‘other’ category besides DSL, cable, satellite. Other includes BPL, but is not solely BPL.”

We then contacted Wilkofsky Gruen Associates. They responded: “Our source for the BPL figures was In-Stat.” When In-Stat’s denial was shared with them, they responded, “It was our understanding that BPL was the principal component as it was the first item listed by In-Stat.”

TIA was invited to comment but declined to do so. (from ARRL)

The ARRL also requested that NTIA revise the report, with no response so far.

If the agency can be so deliberately far off the mark with BPL numbers, it really calls the entire body of the report into question. It’s astonishing to me that the tech and “mainstream” media has so willingly missed this! More independent, non-governmental bodies need to review and question this report. More noise need to be made. Any volunteers?