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A DSL Co-op in Your Neighborhood?
Steve Hamlin writes "In reading on Slashdot about the
increasing cost of cable broadband (and DSL is no cheaper), I ran across
this article about a neighborhood that put together
a co-op for DSL broadband. From a DSLAM housed in a barn to microwave relays, a frame relay T-1, and problems with Qwest, the whole deal."
Why is broadband access so expensive, so bad, or so innaccessible in the U.S. that it makes something like this necessary? It just seems like our broadband options are going from bad to worse, and I cringe at the idea of eventually having to do something like this just to get decent, affordable access. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay TW by the megabyte for broadband access for long like the expensive old days of AOL.
That sounds great, but you don't know what the hell you are talking about.
Cable providers do not purchase bandwidth in T1 size chunks. They buy OC-48's, OC-192's and split it through their own network (most of which was funded and built by the TV side of the business) In a mid sized market, broadband costs the cable company about $12-17 a month, while you are charged $40-70. Plus they are making money on the cable modem lease.
The cable companies biggest expense is depreciation on equipment purchased 3-5 years ago.
Your notion that bandwidth is so expensive is not really that accurate. Monopolistic telephone companies charge inflated rates for T1 service because they can. Broadband will be similar soon as the cable companies flex their monopoly muscles to the end-user's detriment.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
We are in NYC and have co-op apartment in a 5 building complex with 400+ units. The co-op arangement means that the units are owned collectively by people who live here, so the decision was made by people live here and who have very much the interests of those who live here in mind. Our course, many of the people who live here are not taking full advantage of the bandwidth (there are many little old ladies who emigrated from Eastern Europe post WWII here.) In a sense, their maintenance is subsidizing the rest, but even those who do not use it or do not use it much are very pleased with what it has done for the resale value of the apartments. ("Free high-speed internet included with unit.")
Before we did this, we tried to figure out how much it would cost per unit, but that was hard to get a true cost since much of it was one-time costs like wiring and the firewalls and hardware, and since much of the setup and planning was done for free by people who live here. Even the most pessimistic estimates, though, put it at around than $10/mo /unit long-term, way less
than the $50/mo
cost of cable modem "service", which had been
the only previous option. Since around
one in five units already were paying for cable
modem service, with more people signing up
each month (that was two years ago), it was
cost-effecive and a significant improvement in
many respects.
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
Anyway, his opinions on patents are not directly relevant to getting your own DSL coop running. Just understand that the guy behind this one is a high-powered, media-savvy lawyer who knows how to deal with his counterparts in government agencies and corporations. Given the kinds of cases he appears to have been involved in, I suspect money is no problem either. Somehow I think mere engineers like us have no realistic prayer of getting nearly as far.
No, our webserver is nowhere near to being busy. The bottleneck just now (see http://www.patents.com/mrtg/dillon3.html ) is our T1 line. You will see our T1 line, normally never anywhere near full, is quite full, I expect trying to keep up with all of the SlashDot visitors.
http://www.freenetworks.org/
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