  We present a BFKL phenomenology of structure functions in the framework of
the generalized BFKL equation for the dipole cross section proposed by us
recently. We show that the HERA measurements of excitation of charm at $Q^{2}
\lsim $10 GeV$^{2}$ allow determination of the intercept of the BFKL pomeron. A
comparison with the experimental data suggests a large contribution from the
nonperturbative cross section for colour dipoles of large size $r$.
