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County-wide Wireless Broadband
An anonymous submitter sent in this story about a Maryland county providing wireless broadband to everyone, well, almost everyone, anyway. The article doesn't mention how much the service costs, and I don't see anything on the network's website either. There is a good page of information about the network, though.
The correct link is here
It clearly states the price on the web site. It is "almost free"
The government has now scrapped tempest and optical time-domain eavesdropping techniques.
They report the technilogies as being "no longer required [now that those fools broadcast everything]".
-... ---
It looks like they use a bunch of provides and tieit all into their network. Man... if they did this where I lived I would nut my shorts...
High Speed wireless access
The High-Speed Wireless network is the core of the ALLCONET network providing high-speed access to all members with little or no ongoing charges. Speeds are multiples of current T1 technology, installation is simplistic, and security is irrefutable.
Allconet implements a 10 Mbps backbone thought Allegany county encompassing 7 strategically located towers. The ALLCONET network uses 3 types of equipment to implement a 10 Mbps backbone with 2 and 3 Mbps spurs to building locations.
Breezecom - Breezecom was selected because of it's multi-point ability and 802.11 compliance. Breezecom operates in the 2.4 Ghz frequency range and is a frequency hopper. This unlicensed frequency hopper is excellent at avoiding frequency collisions and load balancing in multi-point installations. Security is achieved by Breezecom by using both DES 3 a frequency hopping ID. This a 3 Mbps unit offering actual throughput of 2.34 Mbps. The cost of this unit makes it an extremely fast and cheap alternative to T1 access. Coverage of this unit is typically 2-4 miles in a 30 degree arc. Software developed by ALLCONET allows 24 hour signal strength and traffic monitoring. Antenna alignment problems are often discovered and corrected before network performance is affected.
Speedlan - Speedlan 2 was selected because of it's price vs. distance factor and multi-point ability. Speedlan operates in the 900 Mhz or 2.4 Ghz frequency range and is a direct sequencer. This unlicensed sequencer is excellent at avoiding frequency collisions. Multi-point installations are switch using a 42,000 MAC address table. Security is achieved by using both DES 3 a unit IDs. This a 2 Mbps unit offering actual throughput of 1.78 Mbps. Coverage of this unit is typically 4-9 miles in a 25 degree arc. Software developed by ALLCONET allows 24 hour signal strength and traffic monitoring. Antenna alignment problems are often discovered and corrected before network performance is affected.
Speedlan - Speedlan 10 was selected because of it's distance and speed. Speedlan 10 operates in the 2.4 Ghz frequency range and is a direct sequencer. This unlicensed sequencer is an excellent choice for speed and security. Security is achieved by using both DES 3 a unit IDs. This a 10 Mbps unit offering actual throughput of 6.78 Mbps. Coverage of this unit is typically 9-20 miles in a 5 degree arc. This is a point to point unit and is only used in ALLCONET for backbone links.
Wavespan - Wavespan was selected because of it's distance, speed and frequency. Wavespan operates in the 5.8 Ghz frequency range, is a direct sequencer, and makes an excellent alternative in a 2.4 Ghz rich environment. This unlicensed sequencer is excellent for speed and security. Security is achieved by unit IDs and extremely directional antennas . This a 10 Mbps unit offering actual throughput of 8.78 Mbps. Coverage of this unit is typically 7-9 miles in a 1.5 degree arc. This is a point to point unit and is only used in ALLCONET for backbone links.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
My reading of their website is that the costs of network operations are covered in county taxes. This is a great way to encourage those who may not have broadband access to make use of the service, since they're paying for it anyway. Granted this is the position of the technically inclined. Those less technically inclined might take umbrage at paying taxes to facilitate a service that they may not choose to use. Of course, the same argument has been made by senior citizens and those without childrand regarding town and county taxes fupporting schools, where they may not have any children in attendance, but since in that case, the arguments have been easily rebuffed, I suppose the arguments against county taxes going toward provision of network access, could be just as easily if not more easily rebuffed.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
My girlfriend is from Cumberland, and she's a total non-geek. She won't believe it when I tell her that her hometown is mentioned on Slashdot.
Cumberland is very far out of the way, though. It's a small city in the mountains of western Maryland. You can't even get decent cellular phone reception out there. In fact, I don't think they have any digital coverage at all.
The cost of living is low there, and it's a nice place to live if you like the small-town atmosphere and don't mind semi-rural communities too much. However, the lack of high-tech jobs and broadband does inhibit some people from moving there. It's good to see one of these factors being removed. Perhaps it will bring more telecommuting to the area!
This looks like a fabulous technical setup, and I must admit I'm a bit envious. Up here in rural New Hampshire, I can't get broadband either (besides high-latency satellites) and wireless looks like the best solution.
There doesn't appear to be any commercial interest in doing so, despite sputterings from several companies. I'm assuming this is what happened in Allegany County also, then someone at the government took the bull by then horns.
When the government decided everyone should have electricity, a different situation emerged - they incentivized private industry to get it done, through tax incentives. However, when the government decided everyone should have books, they opened libraries. When they thought everyone should have better TV they granted short-term monopolies. When they thought everyone should have telephones, they granted long-term monopolies.
This project has many qualities of the above examples, and I'm not sure it's going the right way. Electrical transmission systems and libraries can afford to evolve as quickly as most government buracracies move, and that's not a problem. With the Internet, it might be a problem down the road. For a historical example, in some locales, governments did grand those long-term telephone monopolies to small companies, effectively paragovernments, and many people in those small towns are just now getting service reasonable enough to use with a modem. Will a government-run agency be able ot adapt fast enough when they next big thing comes along?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
1. I'm inferring that anyone who can point a dish at one of the towers can get a wireless signal. How is IP allocation, et al handled? Can one connect the dish to an ethernet hub and connect to multiple machines, or would NAT be required?
2. How much does the CPE gear cost? What percentage of the homes in the area have a clear line of sight to a tower?
3. Do the users get public or private IP addresses?
4. How will abuse issues be handled? I didn't see an AUP at first glance...
My girlfriend is from Cumberland, and she's a total non-geek. She won't believe it when I tell her that her hometown is mentioned on Slashdot.
And by your own admission, she won't care, either.
"And like that
I can't speak for the person you replied to, but if you asked me the same question, I would reply:
Because I would not like to see the government get involved.
My philosophy is for minimal government, and that government should only exist where it would not be possible to do something otherwise. Here is a few examples:
The United States Postal Service: There was a definate need here to send packages back and forth across the nation, and the governement was definately right for stepping in and fulfilling the need of our young nation. However, now we still have the USPS and the need is not there. There are other couriers who would be able to deliver your packages more quickly and cheaper than the government. Many people do not see this point, because they are subsidizing the post office, and it "seems" like it is often cheaper. In reality, your tax dollars pay for the "cheaper" price. If non governement couriers (i.e. Fedex, UPS, etc) were to get the big chunk of business that the governement currently has, we would see cheaper rates, better service, and we would have a choice. There was initially a need for the governement to have a postal service, now there is not.
Another example is the recent switch of airport security personnel to be government employees. Does anyone feel safer just because the government is doing the security now? I sure don't. In many cases, it is the exact same people doing the job. The governement did this for one reason: control. Having more control over the security workers is a good thing, but at what cost? The price we pay for the government to control things is a slow-moving, slow-correcting animal.
Now, sure I would love to have high-speed wireless access in my community, it would be awesome. but it would do two things:
1) It would not allow for any competitors to come in and start their own service. Competition is good. Ultimately the consumer would get better service at a cheaper price.
2) Service would most likely lack. In this, I mean new areas would be slow to be covered with wireless access because of all the red tape needed to secure additional governement funding as projects grow. Customer service would likely become lackluster as there is no need to provide a high level of service if you are the only game in town.
So, I would rather see corporations move in and let capitalism and all it's effects (good and bad) rule over what kind of service we get. It may not always work, but in my opinoing, if the government does not HAVE to provide a service, they should let competitors provide it.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
I live next door to Allegany county and I really hope this spreads. I'd love to have government subsidized broadband available. I think Allegany county has about the best chance of any county in the nation to make this work. First off the Maryland government is big on internet access for the masses, in almost the entire state there are local dialups for lynx bassed web access. Additionally the Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates is from Allegany county, so he can help to push state money through for this project.
"You can't fight in here! This is the war room" --Dr. Stra
Just thought i would add my input. I have been to allconet. I was a co-owner of a wireless isp in pa. DDG Wireless and we got to go down and spend a day with the guy who designed and maintains the system, Jeffry Blank. He was very nice and showed around the whole town, showed up all the network stuff.
Basically this all started because in maryland libraries can recieve a free T-1 i think it is. Basically Jeff started by hooking up some of the schools and stuff. Only charges for equipment, and like 10 bucks a year for maintenence..
Anyway. its a great system..Check out Allconet monitoring. they do not use custom software to monitor the network. They use Netsaint. Although Jeff is an avid contributor to the plugins for that. I use his check_breeze.pl and some others that he wrote.
All in all. if you get a chance go by and take a look. Its beautiful country and they Jeff is doing some amazing things with wireless.
Just goes to show what can be accomplished by not being a totaly money grubber.. heh.. some things that are cheap are good.
thanks