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Community Sets Up Their Own DSL
Thrazzle Throne writes "The folks in rural Ruby Ranch got tired of lame dial-up server. They fought the phone company for use of their un-used lines and installed
their own Dsl service. Very cool read."
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This is a VERY old story. Nonetheless, it is still quite amazing that a small town banded together to set up their own dsl server, DSLAM, servers, routers and all. I only wish that my neighborhood had done that. Of course, I am too lazy to organize.
There was a small town out in the panhandle of Nebraska that decided they needed good internet to keep all the young people from moving away. They setup DSLAMs out in the country to within a couple miles of every house in the county. They didn't have to fight phone company but they did have to run a lot of fiber.
Here's the google cache: linky linky
This *is* cool because it's geeky, but what makes it even cooler is that the people behind the scenes walk you through what they did to make it happen.
In their working against Qwest they had to settle a couple of issues. The include the forms and paperwork they used to make it happen and these can be used as a template.
What pushes this over the cool mode into the must read are the accompanying technical documents. They have network diagrams, monitoring statuses and more. It's amazing.
The best part of their site is a list of other communities have done the same thing.
The site is dynamite and is full of information! One of the best articles I have seen on Slashdot in a long time.
Click here or here.
Ruby Ranch sets up the DSL, Slashdot effect takes it down...
Better pen up the cattle boys, I can see a slashdot brewin' up on the horizon.
I suddenly find myself wondering if this is the first barn slashdot has ever taken down...
A musician without the RIAA, is like a fish without a bicycle.
And for one last dig on Qwest, here's an often-heard Coloradoan joke: What's the difference between Qwest and Enron? About six more months.
--Chag
Do-it-yourself DSL is no pipe dreamb uz z.html
http://www.nwfusion.com/columnists/2002/0408net
It's even better than DSL on DL speeds. Though maybe more expensive in total for all the houses. But to say they had no choice other than 28.8 is probably a bit of hyperbole...
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
I also remember reading about these folks who made their own neighborhood 100 Mbps fiber network. The screenshot of the FTP download speed is just plain silly. The creator of the page even mentions "and 25-40 Mbps is possible most of the time - that means it is their single hard disk limiting the speed!". :)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Oh bother.
Funny how this server doesn't seem to have held up as well as the iPAQ :-)
I've said this many times before, why are people in this kind of situation rolling out DSL? Why not just lay down new copper in the form of CAT5?
It's dirt cheap. I've done it. Just look at these pics of my neighborhood area network. Currently 10 neighbors share the cost of an internet connection. We also share stuff we've grabbed from kazza, we have a intranet that announces the happenings and events on our street. Very cool stuff. Basically each house has a switch, and we daisy chain houses so we don't run into the 600' Ethernet limit.
I can give a rat's ass about the AUP of my ISP because the question of packet ownership has to be asked. At what point do I own that packet? When I request a document from the web? When it hits my router? When it is on my copper?
People can do this themselves, it's not hard. In a rural area you just replace the AC transformer brick on the switch with a battery/solar panel combo every 600', or you could something that has a bit more distance to it like token ring. Yeah maybe this all sounds silly, but we're doing it out here in silicon valley and it's been working for the last year.
--toq
--Azaroth
About the Coop
The Coop offers DSL service to all homes in the Ruby Ranch neighborhood in Summit County, Colorado.
The Coop was founded in 2001 because no one offered DSL or cable modem Internet access in our neighborhood, and because the voice telephone service to the neighborhood is of such poor quality that it is not possible to get modem connections faster than about 26K bits per second. The Coop is a Colorado nonprofit corporation and is federally tax-exempt under 501(c)(12).
The Coop's History
The Coop has launched service.
By far the biggest challenge faced by the Coop, a challenge that dwarfed any of the Coop's technical and financial challenges, was gaining access to subloops from Qwest under the Telecommunications Act of 1996. (The subloops are needed to connect the DSLAM to the subscriber homes. The buried telephone cable in our neighborhood has some three times as many subloops as are actually needed for voice service, and the subloops we wish to rent are among the hundreds of spare subloops which otherwise would generate no revenue for Qwest.) The course of negotiations was such that the Coop found it necessary to file an informal complaint with the Federal Communications Commission and subsequently found it necessary to pursue arbitration before the Colorado Public Service Commission ("CoPUC"). In the arbitration, the CoPUC found that "all of [the Coop's] proposed equipment is compatible with the Qwest network," and that "Qwest is technically able to accommodate [the Coop's] proposal." The CoPUC found that the Coop is entitled to pay "wholesale" rates for the subloops rather than much higher retail rates. Finally, the CoPUC found that because the Coop will be providing only data services (not voice services) and because the Coop will be offering its services to everyone in its service area, the Coop does not need to be a CoPUC-licensed telephone company. (This is very good news, since being a licensed telephone company would impose prohibitive accounting and record-keeping burdens.) After the CoPUC's arbitration decision there were further negotiations with Qwest, and a signed Interconnect Agreement between the Coop and Qwest has been approved by the CoPUC.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Of cheap internet access. A while ago parts of the community came together to form The colorado internet co-op. In fact, if you look at the network diagram of this group, they use nettrack, which also has a connection to the co-op.
Some of the more prominant Unixers on the co-op board are Trent Hein, and Evi Nemeth (two of the authors of the USAH) was also involved. The CO-OP has played a nice part in keeping colorado up and wired.
Does anyone know whether that "about $450 per month" is the maximum charge? I guess they are about to find out. Sometimes I feel sorry for the slashdotted victims.
Hmm, he must be a Qwest rep to post this story with a link to the cooperative's site. Easiest and fastest way to get back at those pesky consumers: Slashdot their new service!
Attention all planets of the Solar Federation! We have assumed control! - Neil Peart
If it is, 12 poor DSL subscribers have likely lost their connection for a few hours... I wonder if they even know that they are victims of the Slashdot Effect?
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Latency yes, but all of my cable stations (and all of my neighbors' cable stations) come over satellite.
Satellite mixed with a few good lines would work nicely.
Get your Unix fortune now!
The department I work in is trying to put a bunch of "local level" government offices on the Internet. We need broadband speed connections from their offices to our data center. Getting some type of broadband installed in many of these places is absolutely horrible.
In many of these places, there is just no way to send a 50MB file once a day in a cost effective manor. We just had Iowa telecom decide not to offer flat rate ISDN to us because it would be to expensive for them. This was when we called them a week after the promised install date to see why it wasn't installed! It took us MONTHS to get to this point. Would have been nice if they had a couple months ago (before quoting us a price and delivery time) told us they wouldn't do it. We have promised our customer a price and delivery date (which is now well passed.) Iowa Telecom (or whatever their name is) has now offered us a price for ISDN which is more than our promised total price to the customer.
It is hard to believe phone companies can get away with this type of service, or lack thereof. We have now starting selling the service with a bring your own internet access spin. We have missed deadline after deadline due to the fact we cannot get tcp/ip access to these offices at reasonable prices, at the delivery time we are told. We are a "full service" provider, but there is no way we can deal with this crap. I'm sure we are not alone.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
A co-op for DSL! I love it. This reminds me of the Community Antenna Television co-ops that created cable TV. Too bad corporations turned that into a money grab scam. I used to get my electricity from a co-op before I moved, and service was cheaper and more reliable than from those crooks at Cinergy. If the co-op turned a profit, I got a profit sharing check at the end of the year. Someone has proven that neccesity is the mother of invention, not just the potential to get filthy rich. I wish all utilities were available from co-ops and not corporate robber barons who gouge me.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
sPh
I guess the server is on their DSL line as well beacuse its been a Slashdotted.
-Vic
*nick
Gee, didn't I see this story somewhere before?
(BTW, check out Carl Oppedahl's comments to that story...)
... tens of millions of Slashdot geeks! If you squint, you can see the copper T1 glowing red hot!
On a more serious note, I wonder if mod_gzip and a faster server would help out at least a little bit -- make slightly better use of the limited thrput the T1 provides.
most vpn solutions don't work over satelite (2 ip's one for upload one for download) and alternative os's are often out. There are many reasons why splitting a couple T-1's via dsl drops is a good solution. Plus this way you have presumably more controll over your internet experience, eg need more bandwidth, call a motion and if people are willing to pay you get more. Code red got you down, block incoming request on the appropriate ports etc. Plus almost anything interactive sucks arse over satelite. Oh yeah and there is that monthly bandwidth cap and random slow as 56k speed caps etc.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Maybe someone should videotape and mirror the meltdown of the webserver!
Maybe someone with some real education in this area can explain it better. Still, point is, you're probably best off running fiber between buildings to be safe.
Aha! I've been happy with my cable service. I just didn't know I could be that happy!
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
I worked on a project as a consultant a number of years ago... a town decided to wire itself. It was city government sponsored, and they had their own T-1, and were wiring homes with ethernet. Since then it appears that they've really expanded! I wish I could live there. :)Check it out!
http://web.rochelle.net/~city/
I guess I'm a knucklehead, the html formatting doesn't seem to be working when I preview. Ah well, you get the link anyway.
Zeke: Durnit! All of a sudden, the DSL got reeeaal slow, then it stopped altogether!
Ezekiel: Hmmm, my 28.8 connection seems to be connecting fine... let's just surf on over to Slashdot... OH MY DEAR GOD
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
Cause - You throw a dart at a map of the United States.
Effect - Much of the nation can't access broadband if they wanted to.
Solution - For the love of God, DON'T THROW THAT DART!
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
From their FAQ, it really sounds like the biggest obstacle was the lack of cooperation from Qwest.
The Phone companies forget that they are public utilities. They are given certain privileges, not least of which is monopoly power, not so that they can turn a profit, but so that their service can do good for the community. The profit motive is just an incidental factor to encourage them to invest in providing that service.
Hats off to Ruby Ranch for having the moxie to get the thing done. I wish I could get 1.5Mbit SDSL for $60/month.
evanchik.net
That's just funky, to think that the source of one's DSL service comes from a barn. But hey, if it works...
But to say they had no choice other than 28.8 is probably a bit of hyperbole...
In most discussions of this sort the term "cost effective" or "acceptable" is implied, i.e. "they had no other cost effective (or acceptable) choice other than 28.8" is probably not hyperbole. Remember, satelites work for download, upload is still limited to what the phone line can carry, ie. 28.8kb, so satelite wasn't really a choice that would have addressed the problem of speed to their satisfaction (read their website for specifics of why when they systematically investigated the satelite option they rejected it).
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Is Lariat.
Its basically a co-op out in rural wyoming that provides internet access, support, and other stuff to members of the community. Pretty interesting, really. Check out their FAQ, or their Clone Us page which has information on how to create your own local community network.
----
One of us needs to stick ones' head in a bucket of ice water.
- Hobbes
NT/WINDOWS 98 is their main server o/s!
check netcraft...
I hope more communities start doing this & similar services, that should send a message to the phone monopolies.
If you look at their bandwidth stats,
who's gonna pay the bill?
According to http://www.rric.net/faq/speeds.htm, the subscribers pay for usage; slashdot users should be billed to suck up that much bandwidth, eh!
have you been defaced today?
There was an "I, Cringely" article about this last year. Nonetheless, it's still pretty damn cool.
to say they had no choice other than 28.8 is probably a bit of hyperbole...
I very much doubt that. I've lived in a rural area most of my life. Even though I was only about 8 miles from the CO, and on a fairly new all copper loop(1), with 56k capabilities on both ends of my connection, I was lucky to get more than 19.6k and never got more than 28.8k. PacBell is the high end for line quality around here, too, being the major carrier. There are a few parts of the county that are served by GTE, and they are much worse.
I'm guessing that you have never lived in a rural area. You wouldn't believe how bad phone service can be in areas where you can't open your window and spit on your neighbor. Universal Access is satisfied by only the most basic telephone capability on nasty, noisy lines, and the phone company only guarantees 4800 baud. My complaints about line quality were met with "you can get ISDN". I've since moved somewhere I can get DSL, but my mom still lives in the house I grew up in, and the situation hasn't changed a bit.
No, saying that they were limited to 28.8k is probably not an exageration, and is in fact probably a quite generous depiction of the service they were actually getting. It's quite possible ISDN isn't available to them, or if it is it's unreasonably expensive for the bandwidth it provides. If they're in a mountainous area there could easily be line-of-site issues that would prevent them from using one of the satalite based services. Line-of-site is also a problem for radio and microwave (despite what folks would like you to believe about cell phones, they do have LoS issues).
The MSNBC article says these questions are answered on the rric web site, but it seems to be barely limping along at this point.
(1) The new copper loop was paid for by 5 families (including mine) when our self-installed farm lines started getting sketchy about 7 or 8 years ago. It cost us $10k per family for 2 miles of line extension, plus a 3 year service contract with PacBell. PacBell made it a loop a few years later of their own volition.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
The voltage difference between buildings over the same wires appear to be caused by the electrical load in one building being greater than the other at any time. The electrical resistance from the mains generates a voltage drop. Also, when dealing with the higher voltages, the current leakage due to capacitance and corona discharge add up greatly. It happens with 120 volts and becomes very pronounced with 480 volts. With 14400 volts from substations, this becomes a significant portion.
Its best to use fiber optic cable over large distances, unless you like to isolate the circuits and treat the chassis as possible live conductors. The voltage differences across one building can reach several volts. Over different buildings, I'd hate to touch the wires if the worst happened. I have seen 277 volts (one phase of the 480) make it through the ground reference before. If its copper from another building, beware! Don't touch!
Stan: Why's this damn thing taking so long?
Kyle: Stupid slashdot crashed our DSL.
Kenny: MFFMFMMMFMFMMMFMM
Stan: Yeah, this movie of Cartman's mom's taking forever to download.
Cartman: That's it! Screw you guys, I'm going home!
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
As if slashdotting some poor guy's PDA earlier today wasn't enough, the hounds behind slashdot, the worlds #1 DOS trigger, had to go take out an entire community.
Way to go guys!
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
See this article from April 9th.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
Rolling out a community network is a great idea and probably any network geek's dream. But DSL, oh my! Many wireless community networks have proved 802.11b is the perfect technology for this. These guys in Seattle are trying to cover the whole city and IMHO they're very likely to succeed.
So you want to roll out a network in a small city ? UseNoCat Auth for authentication, connect everything to the net, and already you'll be able to read slashdot while sitting in the middle of the street.
Trollem mirabilem hanc subnotationis exigiutas non caperet
The other day I saw something on The Discovery Channel or something similar. After they went back through the tapes of the regional weather radar and the satellite pictures and all that, they discovered that the lightning that hit a guy on a bicycle in Vail, CO, out of a bright, clear sky came from 10 miles away, traveling sideways over a mountain before it got to him.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Technically, this is one of many updates on this story. They're now finally providing DSL service to everyone, and thus they've 'succeded.'
Also, they have nice graphs that show everytime the servers get slashdotted, which is nice.
Wouldn't it be nice if everyone had graphs like this so we could get an idea of how much bandwith is really needed to avoid a slashdotting? They've got a T-1 for the DSLAM/webserver. Which is obviously not enough.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
You can't get ISDN on a farm line. You also can't get most of the other extra services, like call waiting and such. We had to spend the 10 grand for the phone loop before we could even have a chance at getting fleeced for ISDN.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.