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Broadband In Rural Areas?
MStirling asks: "OK, here's the deal. I live in the middle of nowhere. DSL is out of the question because the CO is like 27k feet away from my house. Cable is out of the question because the cable company would make me pay to run the line half a mile over the highway and after I paid this inital cost, they'd proceed to let my neighbors steal my bandwidth without having to pay the same gigantic fees. We're talking several thousand dollars just to get the line, not including the all important arm and a leg for the installation fees, monthly service, or what the one local ISP (who currently holds a monopoly on the cable modem market) charges. Right now I'm stuck on a 56k dialup, which has never seen a connection rake higher than 28.8k. What I want to know is if there is some other option I haven't looked at (Besides DirecPC because that's one way service and they charge by the hour) or something in the pipeline that will solve my problem. Any info you could come up with would be appreciated."
rural internet access is a pain. However,
if you can get creative and use some solutions
to your benefit you might have a chance. Most
of these ideas are off the top of my head but
a lot of them depend on how big your pocketbooks
are. If you don't mind spending the money then
it is possible. whether it's worth it is
another story completely.
1.) wireless. I'm talking some sort of line
of sight. microwave will cost a couple grand
but sometimes you can lease it. It's a line
of sight deal so you might need a tower.
2.) have friends in town? You could piggyback
on their cheap broadband line by installing
a NAT box (linux of course) and sharing the
cable/dsl line. Once you have the IP access
get a 56kb or t1 line from your friend's home
to yours. A point to point 1.5mbit line in
the same LATA usually costs about $200 a month
plus $10 - $20 per mile. throw in a pair of
used cisco 2501's from ebay and you have your
own WAN for about $1500. It's expensive but
it will sure look good on a resume.
3.) Use a point-to-point DSL line and combine it
with #2. Here in uswest land you can get a
DSL line from point to point. Make one end
your house and the other end your IP service
and you might be in business. On the other
hand I think this stuff goes through the
CO too so distance might still be a concertn.
on the plus side it's 1/4 the cost of a t1.
bottom line is that this stuff tends to be
expensive. Living in the country has its
rewards sometime but being on the technological
bleeding edge ain't one of them. Do you have
anyone nearby who could help shoulder the
cost? one you've got a connection out in the
sticks I'm sure you will be the envy of your
neighbors (at least until the cable company
strings line anyhow and then you're the proud
owner of a white elephant WAN.)
good luck.
--chuck
Yes, ISDN is old technology and not all that fast (only 128kbps raw and I generally get 170 kbps compressed) but it's better than 28.8kbps. I get ISDN for $59 a month. Add to that a 3Com OfficeConnect ISDN router with built in four-port hub, NAT and a bunch of other nifty features for $300 (or close) and you've got a nice setup.
In my area I get a 200 channel hours of use a month for the base rate and a penny a minute per channel above that. In the two years I've had ISDN, I've never used more than 200 channel hours. (If I ever spend more than 200 hours online a month from home, I've got bigger problems than a per-minute charge; I've got a lack of life problem.)
I've looked into DSL but since I'm 20,540 feet from the CO, I'm limited to 144 kbps. For comparable cost at the number of hours I use, it just ain't worth the hassel of changing the server over.
Have you looked into ISDN?
InitZero
Interestinly enough, just this week I've conceived the idea of starting a wireless ISP in my town. Even though I'm Add to the above: within a few mile radius is farm country, but with many lakes that "rich" folks live on. I'm thinking put a radio on some poor farmers Silo, in exchange for his internet access, and sell to the city folks so they have a the ability to work from home.
I'm still in the early stages, but it looks like the above plan is workable. (Anyone know a good upstream ISP for me work from? I've already found a buisness T1 customer and I'm not up yet)
Note: I'm not the orig. poster, but a little web surfing found these links that are probably what he or she was refering to:
c hoice (TM) (choices are things such as SkyBlaster, SkySurfer, WebSat, etc..)
gilat is gilat.com
and isky is isky.net.
I hope these are what the orig. poster inteded, but to help you out here I can tell you that isky is has no price on the site stating, "Exact pricing will be finalized nearer to our late 2001 service launch," but they have all sorts of neat info on their satilite locations in the sky so you'll know where to aim your playstation missle if you are upset at the service.
Gilat didn't jump up and hit me in the face with pricing or any ordering informaion for that matter, but I'm probably just not clicking on the right silly-sounding-word-that-sounds-like-every-other-
Wheeeee
You know what really pisses me off? These Telcos keep advertising how they are changing the world and connecting every single corner on the planet when in fact they provided little more than a lousy service, as a rule, and only where it is profitable.
Apart from this rant, in the meantime I think you should take a look at how to improve your modem connection. I have a 56k PCI card that never gave me more than 14.4k. Theres no ISDN where I live and DSL is US$150,00/mo (not guaranteed to work above 64k!). No cable either (half a mile away). I can't afford a direct connection for home use.
So I bought an external USR and I could get 28,8k. I then replaced some 100ft of old wiring by a new twisted pair (which I overtwisted mysef) and went after what was going on. I had to replace my voltage stabilizer (you know, those switched bastards) and I could get 33,6k during the night and anything between 40 and 49k during the day. Odd, isn't it? It turned out that the dimer I have in my room (which probably works by generating a square PWM) was injecting a hell of a noise in the electrical circuit of the entire house. Turn the damn thing off and the connection gets clean. Unplugging the phone from the line when you connect is also reported to work in some cases. I saw a page about modem fine tuning a couple of months ago, I think it was 4 or 5 links away from the modem How-to, but I can't find the link now.
Good luck.