"difficult to imagine," says Jim Haynie president of the 163,000-member ARRL, which is headquar- tered in Newington, Connecticut. Haynie maintains that data signals radiated by power lines will seriously degrade amateur HF and low-VHF communications, both data and voice, at frequencies ranging between 2 and 80 MHz. He notes that BPL inter- ference could also seriously affect national homeland security efforts. Many military, police, and public service radio users operate in the same 2 to 80 MHz spectrum range, and some of these organizations are presently unaware of BPL's potential threat. "In terms of interference potential on HF and low-VHF frequencies, nothing is on the same scale as BPL," says Haynie. Haynie notes that BPL technology already has been deployed in some European countries and that hamoperators there have experienced interfer- ence from the systems. He adds that Japan-responding in part to concerns expressed by its amateur radio community-decided last year not to adopt the technology because of its interference potential. Shark, however, maintains that the ARRL's fears are overblown. "In the tests SO far, there has been no interference," he says. However, Shark does admit that the "potential perhaps THE UPCOMING MOBILE STALL exists that if somebody had a [ham radio] rig right by a transformer, there could be a potential [for interference]." Haynie, however, dismisses Shark's claim. He notes that recent field tests, conducted by the ARRL's lab manager in BPL trial communities in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York, showed strong and sustained inter- ference across all affected ham bands. "Anyone seeing these BPL signals for megahertz after megahertz for miles along a power line should be convinced that BPL-even operating at the present FCC limits-poses a serious threat to all HF and low-VHF communications." 1.3 THE UPCOMING MOBILE STALL Given the fact that POTS is in decline, it only makes sense that the mobile phone service market must be soaring. And it is, although even runaway growt