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Make Your Own DSL
Logic Bomb writes: "Robert Cringley's latest is a striking set of instructions on how to create your own DSL service, or even your own "socialist Internet Service Provider". A cookie goes to whomever manages to implement this first! :-D" Cringley is on a roll.
I tried to order one of these circuits about three months ago, and apparantly the telco's are on to this. I wanted to connect two buildings, so I tried ordering a "dry pair" from Verizon, and they said they didn't do those anymore.
I ended up ordering a PtP T1, which is only going to increase the cost of replacing the aging 56k circuit, now connecting the two buildings, by $110. Not bad considering the increase in bandwidth.
Oh, but wait -- if it's "my" business, aren't I paying for the magic "Internet backbone" there, too? He must mean someone else's business. But isn't that a little ethically dubious? Nah, I guess not... we're getting over on Da Man, after all. Damn telcos! I'll show 'em...
Breakfast served all day!
Yes, except that then you coulld say, start up a local internet co/op in your neighborhood/apartment/housing project. Offer service for 30 bucks a month and if you get enough takers (approx 17 subscribers) you can afford a REAL T1 line to the net. With only 20 or so subscribers, chances are good that when you load up a webpage youre the only one doing so at that time. As long as no one is hosting linux distros, youre golden (and of course you can have a clause in your service contract to charge for thruput). Everyone gets cheap high speed internet access, and you get to make some money on the side.
I think his point is valid.
If I had a dry pair to your house, we could shuttle info back and forth very effectively, right? If we both had a 802.11b point, then so could our neighbors, for about a couple miles or whatever the range is. You now have 30, 40 people hooked up to each other.
If one other person in each of these clouds also had a dry pair to another house elsewhere, and their own bridge, they could connect pairs of clouds... linked dumbbells, as it were. Each point would link up 10 or so houses, until a grassroots net could spring up, catering exclusively to the town. All it would take is one individual, perhaps working collectively with 20 other people, to get a high bandwidth connection, say a T1, or whatever, even a 'normal' 2mb DSL line, and this gathering of clouds hooked up by dry lines would be connected to the larger 'net. He doesn't mention this in his article, but it's a reasonable next step.
It's about communal, grassroots, bottoms up, emergent behavior type internet, and not the traditional top down subscription based allocated and doled up bandwidth that is the norm.
GPL Deconstructed
Cringely got it right, in my last business, the area was out of dedicated "Data Lines", so PB had to send out an install tech who really knew what he was doing, i was looking over his shoulder and noticed that he was using our alarm lines...the tech told me almost exactly the same story as Cringely, including that if you called PB and asked for a pair of "guard lines" you'd be told they didn't exist or that they were all assigned in your area.
SOME THINGS TO NOTE:
since this is a point-to-point connection, your throughput will vary with the quality of your wire pairs
you might also need to perform line balancing, as some of these wire have been in the ground/air for a LONG time
if you have big power transformers or other "leaky" devices near your wires, your S/N ratio could be terrible
AND, LAST BUT NOT LEAST, anyone can just simply t-splice your line to get 100% access to your communications, with maybe just having to perform a simple impedence adjustment...
BUT, still cool for all of that BTW, when "Boardwatch Magazine" still had Jack Richards they ran a very similar (but more detailed) piece on this about 3 years ago
Peace, Love to my Homies
Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
The alarm line trick as been around for ages. Usually using the line to cross connect a CSU/DSU like it was a frame circuit. The problem isn't technology, it's quality. High speed datacomm expects certain line quality in order to do what it needs to do. Things like quality of the line, minium data throughput, etc are all defined in the tariff. Problem with these types of lines is that the tariff basically says the line should pass a simple continuity test and that's it. Afterall, that's all an alarm needs. So, if you get a real noisy line, you're sunk.
As an experiment that's fine, but don't let a business depend on this because you'll have no recourse with the Telco.
Funny, I thought the 'dry pair' stuff was the boring part of the article. I happen to be in telecom and that's all a no-brainer.
;)
What was fascinating was the potential (admittedly) limited uses for roll-your-own DSL. Read the Lariat homepage - what an amazing project for a small town!
I think the main points of the article are:
1) There are lots of last-mile solutions, and they don't all have to come from your ILEC.
2) Innovative uses of these solutions can have come really cool results - like Lariat, like paying for only one broadband connection, like establishing a neighbourhood network then networking these networks... makes you think
I work at a phone company (a big, big one, with an ampersand in the name) and this is absolutely not BS.
In fact, we're now selling voice services over dry pair lines using DSL. If we can do it, you certainly can. As long as you don't give up before you even start...