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Wireless along the Maine Coast

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the walking-along-the-beach dept.

eggboard writes: "The coast of Maine started getting lit up by wireless over long distance back in 1997. Now hundreds of users, some of them dozens of miles from the connecting ISP's HQ, use plain old 802.11, 802.11b's predecessor, to hit nearly 2 Mbps of throughput. Cable Internet is broken out there; DSL unreachable; ISDN expensive. Other communities are also adopting tower-based point-to-point, bridge and repeater wireless to bring broadband to rural and small towns. Is this the way to drag lesser-populated areas into the modern economy, and promote deurbanization?"

4 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. Being Done in Iowa by Rura+Penthe · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My uncles who live in Iowa have talked frequently about this sort of thing being done there. However, the companies are using old unused silos and other structures that are already standing to reduce costs and make it easier to get the network up and running more quickly. :)

  2. Good and bad sides. by BlowCat · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Better wireless connectivity means more telecommuting jobs. This means less driving. Less CO2 in the air. Good for people (adults). Good for mooses. Bad for plants that need CO2. Bad for children in Maine, who don't see anything except their town and the the computer monitor. Many families in Maine visit Boston just one or two times a year, let alone New York or Washington.

    That's ecology - you fix one thing and break another.

  3. Re:Honestly by grammar+nazi · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I agree. Deurbanization = bad thing.

    Especially in Maine, one of the last states 'wilderness' states and here we are going to decentralize everything and put wireless network towers up in the mountains.

    It's not as refreshing when you hike to the top of a remote mountain and find a cel tower at the top. At least you can take the service drive back to the bottom, but it takes away something from the serenity. Maybe it's the phone call from your girlfriend wondering why you aren't spending the afternoon with her. You wouldn't have recieved it if the tower wasn't there.

    --

    Keeping /. free of grammatical errors for ~5 years.
  4. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion