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although it is monthly bandwidth capped which is a pain :(

also, Look reliably provided to us twice the peak speed we paid for which was 4x the speed they said we would actually get.

everything's better here in canadia where the market is not quite so "free" to screw you over :)

You laugh, but these guys actually DO use the CN Tower for their UltraFast Wireless service.

Unfortunately when I looked into it they were maxed out and only offered me DSL instead.

You laugh, but these guys actually DO use the CN Tower for their UltraFast Wireless service.

Unfortunately when I looked into it they were maxed out and only offered me DSL instead.

Disclaimer: I work for the above-mentioned company.

The same thing has been tried here in Ontario (Look TV) and has been at least moderately sucessful..

Of course it helps to be able to beam transmissions off of the CN Tower..

In parts of Ontario and Quebec, you can get your TV signal from a company called LOOK. Full digital broadcast, but you have to have line-of-sight to their microwave tower.

For something like $18/month, you got the "basic" package, which includes all the typical networks and other stuff that basic cable has. That was a selling point right there, easily the cheapest TV package going.

Then, you could start adding additional channels for around $2/month each, or any 10 channels you wanted for $10. Of course, half had to be Canadian channels (stupid CRTC rules.)

My monthly bill was under $40/month, and that's in Canadian funds. Pretty cheap considering that to get the same channels from the local cable company, it was closer to $65/month.

It looks like they have moved to a tier-based system now, though. You get everything except the movie channels for $38/month. Still, that's less than half of what the average american cable bill is.

Sure, al-a-carte was nice, but when you can get -every- channel for the same price as just the ones you want, then you just block the channels you never watch and pretend that you have al-a-carte.

I moved a few years back to a province without LOOK, and I have missed them ever since...

Is this like Look TV?
Available in a few Canadian cities.

For all of you out there that are feeling depressed because you are just out of range of this new service, forget about it.

Look Communications is a wireless tv and internet company (well at least they try) in the Toronto and Montreal areas that are currently using this technology to provide their services and it dam near put em out of business.

From past experience, you are not missing anything. The service is based on line of sight so if there is so much as a tree between your antenna and the CN Tower... sorry, no dice.

llid j-

I pay $35 Canadian a month for Look
It's a wireless microwave link, no caps, static IP, they don't mind if I run a server, and I received over 2Mbps downloading Linux ISO's.

Bell Canada has been a thorn in my side for years. During the dailup years Bell was late to recognize the Internet. In an attempt to catch up it is rumoured that Bell tried to heavly increase the cost of the phone lines owned by ISPs. I believe there were some court cases and the business plan was dropped. Later, I found myself using a new TV system called LookTV. Just when things where going well for them (including a blazing fast wireless Internet access plan) it is rumoured that Bell bought out Look's biggest financial backer and cut their funding. That was a few years ago and Look has yet to recover. The final straw is ADSL. No matter who your ISP is (and there are a few) Bell owns all the lines. At one point it is rumoured that Bell was leasing it's lines to it's own ISP branch at cost in order to drive the other ISPs out of business. I think there was a court case.

>Who's the provider? I'm in Toronto and want to know if that sort of thing is available here. CAN$20 seems pretty damn low.

LookTV. Yup, they should be selling in Toronto. However, their two way service is $40 CDN a month, and I expect that's what they'll want you to sign up for. My town only has line of sight to the Guelph tower, which only offers one way (22 mbps down, modem up), and that's $20 CDN a month. Unfortunately, you have to buy their TV service because the antenna is powered by the TV receiver.

The 22 mbps never peaks that high (hey, it's the net, and my upload is a modem, so it's probably impossible without a 100% UDP download)... it's just my estimate from what I know of their network. I can say that I've had _no_ problems downloading at up to 5 mbps from places that can give it to me (WindowsUpdate, for example). :-)

BTW: Their stuff, at least for me, works like a charm with a Linux box. They just give you a Hybrid cable/wifi modem with Ethernet out. Run DHCP and you have your IP!

I suffered with sympatico 5 gig caps for 2 months... then I switched to LOOK dsl who offer unlimited highspeed (for now)

Needless to say, I'm running kazaa 24 hours a day and leeching divx movies while I can.

So, if they don't offer it any more, then what the FUCK is THIS?

Too bad my first experience with it was less than rosy.

If you want to see a losing business strategy, check out lookTV.

These doofuses seemed to think that the best way to make money is to stop gaining customers. I would say the best way to make money is not to have such a losing busines plan.

They don't list their wireles service on their website anymore, but I remember this quote from heart (it still gives me a chuckle today):

"Due to increasing demand, we can no longer offer the look ultrafast wireless internet service to new customers".

LOL

shortrange wireless ISPs are old news, I thought?

Look.ca has been doing it in Canada for some time, although they've been in rough shape financially - perhaps they're out of business already?

At any rate there seems to be no shortage of 'em in Canada. I can't imagine this is the first in the US, either.

Now, in order to turn this thread / article into something other than another "groan /. is posting old news waaah waaah" I will posit this:

How long until "real" wireless internet is a reality? I mean not point-this-at-the-antenna-a-block-away, but real iridium-style satellite-driven internet? Those of us stuck on dialup in the middle of nowhere want to know! :)

Yep, Look is the bunch - but their an experimental satellite broadband service that you refer to is actually a purely terrestrial radio link.

This means that there is not the annoying second or two type latencies involved in connections via satellite, but rather, is just as fast as a cable modem connection.

Unfortunately (similarly to shared cable and satellite connections) the available bandwidth is shared by all of the users connected through the access point - and when a single wireless access point serves an entire city and surrounding area......

And thanks for the note that they plan to make it available again - but they'll probably need more local station towers before I'll consider it again.

Ah yes, I heard about that Oshawa-area experiment.

Look Communications is a satellite TV provider, competitive with StarChoice and Bell ExpressVu. They were running an experimental satellite broadband service but discontinued it, basically because demand overran supply of bandwidth. They continue to keep their original subscribers hooked up, though, and have a Contact Me When It's Back email on the page above. UltraFast 2 (the original used a modem upstream) gives 3Mbps downstream, 200Kbps upstream, and costs CAN$39.95 a month.

Look merged with Interlog, btw: the Internet side of the biz is basically Interlog's old setup.

If I'm still in Ontario when it becomes available again (no guarantees there :) I'll probably sign up.

Ah yes, I heard about that Oshawa-area experiment.

Look Communications is a satellite TV provider, competitive with StarChoice and Bell ExpressVu. They were running an experimental satellite broadband service but discontinued it, basically because demand overran supply of bandwidth. They continue to keep their original subscribers hooked up, though, and have a Contact Me When It's Back email on the page above. UltraFast 2 (the original used a modem upstream) gives 3Mbps downstream, 200Kbps upstream, and costs CAN$39.95 a month.

Look merged with Interlog, btw: the Internet side of the biz is basically Interlog's old setup.

If I'm still in Ontario when it becomes available again (no guarantees there :) I'll probably sign up.

Is it any wonder why Look TV is having difficulty with financial strategies like this:

"Due to overwhelming demand, we are no longer taking orders for our High-Speed wireless Internet services"

They are a product of the dot-bomb industry. Imagine if Dodge said "Due to overwhelming demand, we are no longer producing the Caravan". Uhhhhhh... Wow... To say the least.

Living in a rural area of Canada, I probably guess that we'll have honest polititians before we ever get any broadband out here from Bell Canada. (The prospects were good for Look TV but their financies are going down the tube.) If a lot of people around the world latch onto something like this, it could help kill diversified ISP markets - everyone would just be feeding off of super-fast connections from the phone companies.

Oh, I'm sorry, that really sucks.

There are a couple of things. If you have a cable TV provider, there is *no reason* why they'd have technical limitations to providing high speed access within their coverage areas - it's just a question of whether or not they're willing to spend all the money to retrofit all the distribution amplifiers to be bidirectional. After all, cable Internet is nothing compared to a TV channel in bandwidth. NTSC and PAL both require about 6MHz of bandwidth for video only; by contrast, through basically the same tricks as a 56k modem uses to get that speed on a 5kHz telephone line, my DSL achieves 1.2Mbps within about 192kHz of bandwidth. One allocated "TV channel" could serve hundreds of users.

Upstream is trickier, of course, but again, that's at least bidirectional RF distribution amplifiers, if not an inelegant but effective kludge like using your existing 56k modem and dial-up for uploading.

I'm judging from that you have either no cable television service nearby, or your CATV provider is pretty backwards. Sorry.

DSL is a very neat hack, but distance tends to attenuate the low-frequency RF carrier that the telco cleverly superimposes on your phone line.

Around here, we've got another option besides a cable monopoly and several DSL flavors: www.look.ca's "UltraFAST 2" wireless high-speed Internet service. Look started out offering a microwave relay-based alternative to cable television or satellite dishes, and when they bought out an ISP, this was the logical extension. I know a couple of their users, and they've been pretty happy with it. One of them is way out in the boondocks so he can't get cable or DSL, but with a little tower in his back yard, he's got line-of-sight to the CN Tower nearly 50 miles away - and therefore microwave "cable" television and wireless high-speed Internet access.

Look has also got points of presence on a few cellular and radio station towers around town, so they're apparently pretty easy to get if you can spot one of their POPs on the horizon.

(He's also an amateur radio operator, so the 75 foot tower already in his backyard helped him convince the installation technician that it would work... [grin])

Good luck getting something like that soon. Like I say, your only excuse is geographical.

For ISOs, I just get someone I know to download for me via a fiber office connection and then bring the hard drive over to my place.

But for normal upgrades, sadly, they STILL cause problems. Even if I start pulling something 500k+ down over the 28.8, some other family member gets pissed because I'm hogging the connection. Such is life. I just have to hope that Look Communications doesn't go bankrupt so that we can sign up for their wireless broadband.

The problem is not technological or even technically speaking economic, but political

Agreed. Very insightful posting - thank you. In my case (living near Toronto, Canada), I'm paying approx $45/CDN per month for cable. DSL is priced about the same. Both are regulated by the gov't. Otherwise, I'm sure the prices would be much higher.

The 'last mile' took ages to implement in the area where I live. DSL wasn't available to most people around me (except myself, because I live across the street from a Bell station). DSL STILL remains out of bounds for some western downtown locations, for example, where I used to work. In this area, the solution was that a company came into the building, purchased a T1, and re-sold bandwidth to everyone else in the building from that pipe. Otherwise, best you could get for a small company was ISDN.

I agree that this limit was likely artificial. In a large city, there should be little that would prevent bandwidth-sharing by wireless.

We have a company around here, Look Communications, which offered an alternative to cable and DSL. I believe it's microwave, and those who managed to get it loved it. Sadly, they ran out of money, and could no longer afford to put up their 'stations' for new customers. They ARE, however, supporting their existing customers, and are not out of business.

If consumers were to take over at this point, and set up the wireless stations themselves, it should be easy to provide bandwidth for all, anywhere in the city. Perhaps a large-ish 10.x.x.x network, where each 'station' ran a DHCP server for 250 machines, and somehow broadcasted gateways (P2P fashion?) would work, with enough tweaking.

Probably one of the biggest issues with DSL is that these companies can't establish their *own* networks. Instead, they have to rely on the bigger telcos to provide the connectivity, and of course that brings all kinds of charges plus the traditional waiting game.

At least that's the issue in Canada right now. There's a few DSL providers out there, but really Sympatico is just about the only viable one. Why? Because Bell Canada owns the network, and they own Sympatico. Other providers have to pay Bell fees to use the phone lines, to get everything set up, and finally they have to wait because Bell is the only company that can service the line if something goes wrong.

Looks like the cards are stacked. Margins are low because they have to compete with Sympatico, who uses the network already in place. Installation can take months because Bell puts priority on their customers over another provider's.

Personally, I'm using Cable (via Rogers@Home, though my usership was recently purchased from Shaw through a geographic trade in service areas). Even a bigger monopoly in this case - there is only one choice.

The third option, Look (I think they operate by Microwave or something, it's wireless) unfortunately isn't accepting any new customers until they sort their financial problems out.

If you don't mind moving to Canada, there is a company(uses flash), which offers direct fibre connections to homes in some new developments near Toronto, with plans to expand into other parts of Canada later this year. These connections allow digital phone service ($19.95/month), 1Mbps internet($38.95/month, with future bandwidth upgrades possible), and digital television through another company. Anyway the deal is that that is the only com-link you need, and you only get one bill for phone, internet, and tv.

Oh, and note that prices are in $Canadian. (to convert to USD multiply by ~.65)

I live by myself.

I don't have a landline. I don't need one. I don't talk on the phone enough to warrant paying an extra $20-30/month for a landline.

Unfortunately, I can't get DSL as a result.

And Look seems to not be offering residential Ultrafast2 service anymore (which is REALLY too bad - 3Mb over sattelite, with a wireless backchannel).

You know what? You have more choice than I do.

I live in a South-Central Ontario community of 80000, with probably about half a million in the region. We're a high tech town, with TWO major universities, tons of high-tech spinoffs and other major player companies. I just moved into a brand new townhouse in what is being billed as the most expensive new community to live in. But I have only ONE choice for broadband.

Yup - Rogers or nothin'. No DSL (Bell has decided to ignore my community for now), just cable. I suppose I could count LOOK, but it's only fast one way, and still ties up a phone line.

So regulated, deregulated, I don't care - whatever gives me more choice is what I want!

"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."

Nice to hear there are more options for rural folk. Look already has two-way internet, with speeds comparable to DSL atleast up here in Canada so they may be the first satellite service with two-way internet but they aren't the first wireless one, I don't know if a similar service is avaliable anywhere else.

Now if I could only get this working in my car!

Check out look.ca if you live in Canada...

They're doing full, bi-direcional wireless in test markets now - but they already have uni-directional with a modem for the uplink, which still works well with laptops.

There is a similar device on the market which doesn't require you to give up your private info, and doesn't require a monthly subscription: ReplayTV.

I'm not sure if Tivo has this feature, but ReplayTV also allows you to pause/rewind 'live' TV broadcasts... it records whatever you are currently watching to allow you to do this. Pretty slick.

I'd buy one, but I'm using an 'odd' TV provider, LOOK TV, here in Ottawa, and Replay TV doesn't support the listings for that yet.

Currently, it's being tested in Toronto, but they expect it to roll out through southern Ontario ASAP. LookTV is a Cable/Satellite replacement (http://www.look.ca/), that currently offers Antenna download, but modem upload, same as the Satellite companies. They are trying to get approval from the CRTC (Canadian Radio and Television Commission, I believe) to allow Antenna uploading. I spoke to one of the techs, and they have permission to perform tests, and they are doing that now (wouldn't tell me where).

LookTV is Microwave based, so you need unobstructed line-of-site to the broadcast tower (it can be minorly ubstructed with trees, but not with buildings), and they don't have full covereage everywhere, but this may be a viable option too, at least for folks in Toronto. Also, if you live in an apartment building, you have to fax them a signed permission form from your owner (that's why I don't have it yet. 8-( ). Perhaps if you look for similar things in your area, it may soon ease your modem woes.

Check out www.internet.look.ca/package.html for more info.

Look is interesting -- they're trying to sell digital video via microwave instead of cable. Note that you only get the $29.95*** price if you are a video subscriber as well as a data subscriber. Their video home page is www.look.ca

The bad news is in the fine print:

Can I stay logged on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?

While our service provides unlimited use, to prevent abuse of the system and potential bottlenecks, if a user has been logged on for 6 consecutive hours or the computer has sat idle for over 30 minutes we will disconnect the user. If you are disconnected you can log on immediately afterwards.

*** Keep in mind, those are *Candian* dollars; multiply by 2/3 to get $US [i.e., it's about $20]

Check out www.internet.look.ca/package.html for more info.

Look is interesting -- they're trying to sell digital video via microwave instead of cable. Note that you only get the $29.95*** price if you are a video subscriber as well as a data subscriber. Their video home page is www.look.ca

The bad news is in the fine print:

Can I stay logged on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?

While our service provides unlimited use, to prevent abuse of the system and potential bottlenecks, if a user has been logged on for 6 consecutive hours or the computer has sat idle for over 30 minutes we will disconnect the user. If you are disconnected you can log on immediately afterwards.

*** Keep in mind, those are *Candian* dollars; multiply by 2/3 to get $US [i.e., it's about $20]

I explicitly got a Non-Rogers solution when I wanted Cable. Nobody can say that Rogers is a warm and fuzzy company, as they have a lot in common with fellow monopolist Microsoft. Remember negative-option billing? For Americans, this was a greedy monopolistic money grab that provoked a national uproar against the cable moguls.

I am really not excited about the fact that ADSL is not available in my area, too. Still using 56k for now.

I'm switching to LOOK!
Wireless TV transmission, PAY BY THE CHANNEL!!! Way cheaper than cable and no Microsoft's forcing me to use their software.

I live in downtown Toronto, where infrastructure isn't updated as often as in the 'burbs. (Why?) I can wait for ADSL (Bell Sympatico HSE) or I can wait for cable (Rogers @home) or I can get something called Microwave digital right now ( Look/Internet Direct)

I ask this because the TV signal I get right now is a line-of-sight signal provided by Look, and getting the internet stuff requires very little extra hardware. In fact it sounds like the thing mentioned about the Empire State Building. (My transmitter is on the CN Tower)

My question is -- does anybody have any experience with Linux and this kind of stuff? You need a regular modem for the uplink line. The downlink is supposedly 1.5 Mbs, but there are various things about it that suck, such as time limits on connections.

However, it's cheap (C$30/mo) and available now.

I live in downtown Toronto, where infrastructure isn't updated as often as in the 'burbs. (Why?) I can wait for ADSL (Bell Sympatico HSE) or I can wait for cable (Rogers @home) or I can get something called Microwave digital right now ( Look/Internet Direct)

I ask this because the TV signal I get right now is a line-of-sight signal provided by Look, and getting the internet stuff requires very little extra hardware. In fact it sounds like the thing mentioned about the Empire State Building. (My transmitter is on the CN Tower)

My question is -- does anybody have any experience with Linux and this kind of stuff? You need a regular modem for the uplink line. The downlink is supposedly 1.5 Mbs, but there are various things about it that suck, such as time limits on connections.

However, it's cheap (C$30/mo) and available now.

I live in downtown Toronto, where infrastructure isn't updated as often as in the 'burbs. (Why?) I can wait for ADSL (Bell Sympatico HSE) or I can wait for cable (Rogers @home) or I can get something called Microwave digital right now ( Look/Internet Direct)

I ask this because the TV signal I get right now is a line-of-sight signal provided by Look, and getting the internet stuff requires very little extra hardware. In fact it sounds like the thing mentioned about the Empire State Building. (My transmitter is on the CN Tower)

My question is -- does anybody have any experience with Linux and this kind of stuff? You need a regular modem for the uplink line. The downlink is supposedly 1.5 Mbs, but there are various things about it that suck, such as time limits on connections.

However, it's cheap (C$30/mo) and available now.