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Wanted - 45 Mile Wireless Broadband?

Posted by Cliff on from the when-that-'last-mile'-measures-a-lot-longer-than-you-think dept.

Slashbaby asks: "I am a net admin for a school division that doesn't have broadband Internet. We are a rural school division, so we don't even have a provider in any of our towns. What I am looking for is a way to get highspeed Internet access into our division through either RF or microwave. There is a city about 45 miles away, (max. distance) that has ISP's that would be willing to sell us bandwidth if we can find a way to get it the 45 miles to the schools."

"What I am looking for is either companies or websites that deal with this kind of technology. I have no idea what to really look for, so any help ideas would be appreciated. Our budget for this project would be ~$125 000 CND ($80 000 USD).

We are currently using Direct PC satellite (which is NOT broadband) Unfortunately, they are dropping us in 2003...they are dropping service for rural communities in order to expand service for government funded projects."

7 of 409 comments (clear)

  1. Just buy... by Nutt · · Score: 2, Funny

    A whole lotta cable :)
    Too bad bandwidth through power lines hasn't come out yet. It probably woulda come in handy now.

  2. What about.. by Sp00nMan · · Score: 5, Funny

    I heard Iridium phones are going cheap.. How about purchasing the whole smear and having satellite modems ;)

  3. Field day by JanneM · · Score: 5, Funny

    Have a company sponsor you with cat-5 cabling and cable pipes. Then declare a "Plant A Cable" field day in the entire district, spread the kids out evenly along that 45 mile stretch with shovels and pickaxes, and let them dig! Or you could have a chain-gang-themed masquerade, and have them in striped shirts and fake manacles, with a price to the class with the best costumes.

    Or maybe not.

    /Janne

    --
    Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
    1. Re:Field day by Monkeyman334 · · Score: 5, Funny

      If you really wanted to abuse the children, you should have them carry the packets back and forth.

  4. Porsche-net by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Buy yourself a nice car for $100,000 CDN and a CD burner and offer to drive CD's from the city to your town.

    :-)

    You will get better range and lower latency than sneaker-net.

  5. Use your 'bird' by nowt · · Score: 3, Funny

    Watch those packets fly with http://www.blug.linux.no/rfc1149/

    Enjoy!

    --
    A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess? - Joshua (Wargames)
  6. To the moon and back... by --daz-- · · Score: 1, Funny

    Somehow, we, as humans, can send data at reasonably high rates to some of the farthest places in the Solar System, yet sending Internet wireless over 45 miles seems far beyond our technology.

    What happened to all those technology benefits the Space Age was promised to bring us?

    I'm still heating my coffee with electricity and I still type TEXT message on a keyboard for Christs' sake! We're better than this, let's move it!