By David Gewirtz
If you've been following our Broadband-over-Powerline (BPL) coverage these past weeks, you can see we've come up with more questions than answers. As part of our attempt to expose all sides of this issue, we've been looking for true experts who can help us understand the issue.
As part of that research, we turned up Glenn Elmore. He had written a number of extremely lucid open letters to the FCC and he appeared to have a very good handle on the issues. Upon tracking him down, we learned that Glenn's in a unique position.
He's both an industry person, as founder and Chief Technical Officer of Corridor Systems and a radio amateur -- call N6GN and licensed for 45 years. Furthermore, Corridor's technology, although providing very high rate information transfer over powerlines is by no means conventional "access BPL" as described by the FCC. Access BPL rulemaking was limited by the FCC to apply only below 80 MHz, at Corridor's request.
We're very grateful for Glenn in helping us understand this issue in far more depth than we've been able to thusfar. As a radio amateur and a BPL researcher, Glenn's getting us answers as close to the core of the problem as we think we're going to be able to find.
I recommend reading through to the very last question. Glenn discusses some limits of EV-DO, the new wireless technology in the new Palm Treos and Windows smartphones. It's a discussion we've never seen before and it showcases some important limitations of that technology.
David:Let's start with some details about you. I know you're in a unique position as an industry expert and an amateur radio operator. Can you expand on your background and your work with BPL?
Glenn:Certainly. The bulk of my career was spent with Hewlett-Packard where I worked for 27+ years in the R&D lab developing and designing various types of RF through 50 GHz test and measurement equipment, including signal generators, network analyzers and spectrum analyzers. In 2000, I left HP/Agilent and started Corridor Systems.
My interest in amateur radio started well before my professional career and was no doubt responsible for encouraging it. I was first licensed in 1961 and have remained licensed ever since. I've had an amateur extra class license since 1972 and my call sign is N6GN.
