Slashdot Mirror

One more thing: I especially dislike the name, since it conjures images of Thoreau sequestering himself away from the bustle of society (rather than paying extra for a multi-megabit connection to the rest of the world).

- I went to the web because I wished to live deliberately...

A group of apartments that targets techies

WaldenWeb has a few apartment complexes in the Houston area; they run an OC-3 from an ISP to their NOC, and run OC-3 from their NOC to each of their apartments. My apartment has 3 RJ-45 drops (only one of which I can make active at a time, but that's what a hub is for). Rent is reasonable, Internet access runs about $50/month.

You can find some geek apartment complexes in Houston that are very nice. They are at http://www.waldenweb.com/. They have some really nice places with really fast internet access and the price is actually very affordable. Really nice apartments. Nice pools, jacuzzis, cyber cafe, LAN Parties, etc....

In Houston, TX there is a trio of Apartment
complexes that are all linked via an OC3. Each
Apartment can have either a 10mbps or a 100mbps
connection and either 1 or 2 static IP addresses.
(You can buy more if you like.) In addition each
room in every apartment is wired for cat-5 utp
ethernet cable.

There are even hookups outside by the pool.

Walden Apartments

There are a small number of "Internet Villages" popping up around Houston. Walden Internet Villages are offering a really big pipe (45 Megabit) to every resident who lives within their walls (there are even network drops poolside!). If having something roughly 30 times faster than DSL isn't enough, they also pride themselves on fostering a strong sense of community with LUGs, Quake Servers, Organized Lan Parties, mini-conferences on new technologies, etc...

This popped up on Slashdot once before as a similar GEEK HOUSE posting. You can also check out Walden for yourself.

My only concern: How could you ever walk away from that much bandwidth?!?!?

PhotonSphere

I live in the Houston area as well. Since I live in an apartment complex with a T3 attached ( Walden Internet Village), I haven't needed to purchase ADSL from Southwestern Bell, but have looked into it for friends or on the off-chance that I need to move from my current apartment. My friend called for ADSL service and then after about 5 weeks they came out to hook up his line since their maps indicated that he was in an area where service was possible. Upon arrival, they discovered that something about the way his apartment complex was wired precluded the possibility of getting ADSL. Of course, they then suggested ISDN instead. The sad thing is that he was going to move into my complex with the T3 but decided to sign another year lease when he heard that he could get DSL. The moral: don't get your hopes up. There are lots of variables. Treat DSL like the article mentions: like a package ordered from a catalog and forgotten until two months later. The tech guy from SWB said that on average, about 20% of apartments or homes that look like they would support ADSL actually cannot. However, the few friends I have that have ADSL love it. While they haven't been getting the 900K that the above posting purports, it is much cheaper and quicker than ISDN ever was for them (especially since here in the south, ISDN is so expensive compared to other areas).