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In NZ, Sharing Ethernet With A Whole CIty

ryuko writes: "Normally LANs are used by a single organization at best, but Wellington's 13-square-mile LAN comprises many of the city's businesses. The city council garnered a UNESCO Digital Access Award in recognition of its achievement in installing the 1,000 Mbps network. The full article is here on ZDNet. Drool ... gigabit internet ..."

4 of 282 comments (clear)

  1. Too much money makes Jack a dull boy by MosesJones · · Score: 5, Informative

    "We never had the luxury of spending lots of money," says Naylor. "We needed to be able to make do with less."

    So in other words, all of the people elsewhere with massive budgets have been conned into buying large amounts of expensive kit to get less for their money than these guys.

    Brains 1 - Suits 0

    The most impressive thing about this is the simplicity of it. This isn't next gen tech or anything this is just someone who had the smarts to think

    "Hang on we supply electricity via a distributed network rather than Point 2 Point, why can't we do the same with the internet... hang on its cheaper as well"

    Real issue here though is that the City backed up the smart guy rather than getting CorporationX to do it, had then gone for the latter route they would be right where the rest of us are with our T1s to the Telco backbones.

    I predict this won't happen in big cities because they have too much money to be sensible.

    --
    An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
  2. I think the real question is by Ionized · · Score: 5, Insightful

    why hasn't anyone thought of this before? I could certainly see broadband catching on as a public utility type of thing, instead of a luxury thing. Much how telephones and then cable television did in the past. Not only would it allow for cheaper overall costs, but having a citywide intranet @ gig-e speeds would be amazingly useful for telecommuting/VPN, gaming with friends, or any other number of good stuff.

  3. Article inaccuracy? by Luminous+Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    As another cost-cutting measure, Citylink uses a generic computer running Debian Linux and SMTP management software [...]
    Hmmm... Shouldn't that be SNMP as in Simple Network Management Protocol?

    Straight from RFC 2962:

    There are currently three versions of SNMP. SNMP version 1 (SNMPv1) protocol is defined in STD 15, RFC 1157. The SNMP version 2c (SNMPv2c) protocol is defined in RFC 1901, RFC 1905 and RFC 1906. Finally, the SNMP version 3 (SNMPv3) protocol is defined in RFC 1905, 1906, RFC 2572 and RFC 2574. See RFC 2570 for a more detailed overview over the SNMP standards.

  4. Why Our Tellecomunications Company sux by KingM · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Reading articles like this just make me so damn depressed. In South Africa, we have a major problem with our Telecommunications company. They're a monopoly who controls absolutely every single aspect of communications in this country. We are being held back by huge laws which prohibit the use of any other internet connection system or device if it is not using Telkom's infrastructure. The worst thing is that the best connection we can get to the internet in this country is ISDN if you can't fork out the megabucks for a Leased Line solution. What absolutely grates me more is the mere fact that they close down companies who attempt to run alternative connection systems. Wireless providers start up but get shut down very quickly thanks to the Telkom legislation. Connecting to your neighbour is also illegal if you take a cat5 cable and run it over the wall! By the mere definitions in the legislative clauses Telkom enjoys the right to force you to rent their equipment only. And when you have 3.5 million people connecting to the internet over a duplexed 45meg pipe to the international spectrum, it must measure up to the worst infrastructures for Internet enabled countries in the world. And we're supposed to be the gateway to Africa?

    I hope that someday things will change and we can also have a 1000 mbps LAN connecting our cities.