[email protected] wrote in
Thats pretty cool man. You are lucky to have such a flexible telecom.
Fecking arsed Versizon has had DSL available in my nearest town for like
5 years. Too few customers they say to bother offering the service. A
couple years ago they ran a fat fibre optic line down 101 and people in
other towns can get direct access to very reliable high speed. NOt us ..
But the rumour is that Verizon is selling off this unit to some other
outfit that got a bunch of Govt stimulus money -- part of the rural high
speed internet cash, so in theory we'll have some high speed within 10
miles of me soon.
If it helps, some of these Ethernet radios can do 40 miles with the
right antenna.
Maybe I'll bug those guys for some radio ethernet .. your setup would be
perfect for me. My problem is even if I hit the local town with the
wireless none of those poor bastards get high speed either.
That's how it is in some places near me as well. In one 12 miles away
by road, folks have power lines and phone service, but are too far out
to get DSL or cable. Plus they don't have line of sight to anywhere
with broadband. One of them wanted to set up wireless Ethernet to my
place, but it was a non-starter for a bunch of reasons. He had to
settle for satellite Internet, which is affordable if you can live
with the limitations.
http://www.copperhead.cc/myrant.htm
There is
another option the other way inland but it'd require at least 2 repeaters
with solar or whatnot to power them .. in serious wilderness. Too much
trouble probably
Now if only they'd get electricty out here too that'd be a bonus. Its
amazing that there are areas in the USA that still aren't on the grid.
Not so amazing when you think about it. There are subdivisions in my
neck of the woods with thousands of vacant 40 acre parcels, and a
gazillion more 2.5 acre parcels that will probably never get the grid.
Most such areas fill in slowly, so there's never enough demand or
money to run many miles of wire to serve just a few. I predict that by
the time sufficient density is there in say, 30 years, independent
power and wireless broadband will be so commonplace that few will want
the mess of overhead wires.
But it does keep the riff raff out
Here's how it is near me: thousands of off-gridders of every
description. All the way from folks living off their vehicle
alternators, to million-dollar homes. *Lots* of riff-raff, believe me.
Every gunnut "survivalist" thinks he can live off-grid so long as
he owns a pickup truck and a camo ball cap.
Down in the valley
below us where the power lines end, there's a minor threat of the grid
leapfrogging up the main county road and bringing more development
with it. The main holdup is the real estate slump.
cheers
-Zachary in Oregon
Hah .. the other thought I had at one point was a wireless receiver on a
helium baloon I could send up several thousand feet. But its highly
impractical + the whole air plane issue .. and useless for most of the
winter with the storms and all
Which reminds me - these days one can often do home power more easily
than good broadband. When we chose our parcel, one of our main
concerns was to verify LOS to the then current BETRS phone transmitter
30 miles away, which was supposedly capable of 9.6k. How times have
changed in less than 20 years.
Wayne