Slashdot Mirror
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 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)
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