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First National 802.11b ISP
JScarpace writes "The chairman and founder of Earthlink,
Sky Dayton, will introduce his newest company today, a wireless ISP called "Boingo" which will resell 802.11b access being provided by smaller ISPs around the country. Sky hopes to build up Boingo the same way he built up Earthlink -- by buying or partnering with enough smaller providers to offer a national service." An overdue idea and a stupid company name. Course it'll never get to me... the
downside of living in the sticks. Those of you in real cities may be one
step closer to the dream. update yup, another duplicate. Pre coffee
story posting should be forbidden. Ah well, maybe the flamers will get it
out of their system early ;)
one step closer to the dream.
...of sniffing all of my neighbor's traffic, rather than just that of the ones with enough money to buy their own access point.
Security seems it would be an issue with this sort of setup. Anyone know how he's handling it?
--saint
B.O.I.N.G.O
Badly Overdue Implementation of Networking Given Out
Ok, so relevant ones are boring. Surrealism ahoy...
Big Orange Invincible Newborn Gibbon Observer
Butt out! I Now Gyrate Openly!
Bendy Octopus In Never-ending Girly Outburst
www.onlinescam.com - May contain nuts
Fellas (-who-are-complaining-that-this-is-a-repeat):
There are 2 separate stories about wireless ISPs related to Earthlink. The previous story is about the announcement, by Earthlink, of a fixed wireless service that would use a roof-mounted dish to provide access. It's not clear it it would use 802.11b or something else. But the key seems to be that it's fixed.
The other story (i.e. this one) is about Sky Dayton's announcement of a new company that will be some sort of aggregator for 802.11b service from various ISPs around the country, and provide mobile service (a la Ricochet/Metricom, which Dayton derides in the little miniinterview/PR linked to above).
These certainly *seem* like different stories, don't they.
I live 'in the sticks' (Iowa). The city I work in only has 30,000 people. It somehow managed to nab @home while it still existed, 3 wireless providers, and 8 dialup ISPs (Including Earthlink via Buyout). I live in a town of 3,000, and next april the DSL goes live, and will start to annialte the 3 wireless providers there (what a waiste). One of which is Prarie Engery Cooperative.
Basically what they do is partner with all the power companies around here, and make deals to provide Dialup and Wireless. But somehow I don't see the math working out. They have 5 customers paying $50/month (ouch) for 128k, thats $250/month income. 128x5=1.5Mbit~. Obviously not everyone is on at the same time, so they probably are getting by with a 512K line, which in Norht Iowa is around $600 a month.
Another ISP is offering 3mbit wireless... they only have 2 T1's, which is 3mbit roughly, so how can they offer 3 mbit to each customer? Oh, thats right, beacause their equipment only tags up about a 600k throughput! Sad.
Anyway, I don't see how anyone can efficiently provide high speed access affordably in 'the sticks'
Can all fish swim?
I thought that was what the thrust of this article was. Something about it being easier to do in the sticks, what with a more predictible customer base, personal contact and service for clients, not having to ramp up to a HUGE base so quickly, ability to front-load all the investment costs, etc..
In a related story, the IRS has recently ruled that the cost of Windows upgrades can NOT be deducted as a gambling loss.
If this takes hold in a big way, I'm having a hard time imagining people adopting 802.11a outside of the enterprise space.
802.11b seems suffficient for most applications which might have a net pipe upstream rather than direct local connections to servers.
I expect we won't see people using 802.11a equipment to take advantage of the promised 54Mbits (more like 10 to 25 in practive and at a shorter range than 802.11b) until the 802.11g spec gets finalized. 802.11g will create a compatibility layer between 802.11a and 802.11b, which occupy seperate spectrum space.
-carl
. We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines, you know that ain't allowed - Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
I don't really want to run an ISP, but when you are 5 miles up a mountain road with no hope of cable or DSL, you have to start getting creative. As it is, some guy down the street tried to convert his cabin (burned down and then rebuilt as a much nicer place) into an executive retreat. As a part of his master plan, he had QWest drag up some lines for high speed access (probably a T1 capable line). His plans fell thru, but they might be my hope for something better than 33.6 ;-)
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
I'm banking my money on two Satellite-modem up-and-comers.
www.wildblue.com should have hopefully reasonably priced satellite modem access, even though the ping-times will be high (300ms+). Download speeds of 3Mbps. It's supposed to be available in mid 2002. But if it's like DirecPC, it will suck, big time, and everyone will get FAP'd all over the place. Nevertheless, it's my only real hope at this point.
www.teledesic.com is supposed to be available in 2005. Low ping times (comparable to T1), super-fast throughput (64 Mbps), but whether or not it will fly (pun intended) is questionable, IMHO.
-Slashdolt
I currently live in a city of 250,000, and my broadband choices are ISDN and cable. Fortunately, I happen to live inside the small radius of digital-ready cable service, so I have decent connectivity.
I'm getting ready to move to a small city in Nebraska, and my access options are completely amazing (to me, at least). Fifty dollars will get me 512k wireless or 640/272k DSL, both with static IPs and unfiltered inbound traffic. I was afraid that I'd be stuck with a 26400 dialup, but I'm actually getting a good upgrade for less money.
Living in a small town doesn't have to mean losing service, as I'm pleasantly discovering.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
An overdue idea and a stupid company name.
;-)
Hmmmm - who said that? Oh yeah, it was a guy who calls himself Commander Taco.
security is always your responsibility, not the hardware vendor, or isp, or anyone else. your responsibility.
be empowered, take control of your destiny, use ssh. :)
so I won't be giving him a dime for anything.