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Last Mile, High Speed Help for Upper Michigan?
toaztke asks: "I've been charged with a quest by one of my employers. I am to sit on a regional committee and figure out how we can get high speed internet access all across Michigan's Upper Peninsula. For those of you not too familiar with the far north of this state one word can describe it all: 'rural'. So what I would like to know is if any Slashdot readers have any ideas/suggestions for me. Please send anything that crosses your mind my way. If you want more information on the project, just visit the Link UP website."
Convince the local Cable company to install the needed infrastructure for cable modems. If they local Cable company sucks get the region to change providers. I have Charter Cable In Auburn, MA...these guys are great 3 different speed offerings, the also offer 5 static IPs as a Business Class service, and they have recently added SOHO Class which is 1 Static IP....At any service level they pretty much don't care what you do with the line, servers ok!(Hell they send my mail to the account I have on the mail server I have connected their cable line. And they know its there!)
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
I am assuming by "rural," you are saying that there is no existing cable infastructure, and as such the cable company will be useless. I think you have two options here, either rely on satellite for "broadband" or, seriously think about implementing a large scale wireless network using authentication schemes to access the network. Any place that can recieve radio signals, (IE 99.9% of the populaion) can be hooked in. There are many areas around the nation that have set up community nets this way, fairly inexpensively.
-k
Ditch wired access: the labor costs are too high. Think more like a really big wifi network, trunked up to an even bigger distribution network. The community wireless paradigm is pretty good, and you might even find that someone has hacked up a wifi equivalent to a DSLAM - a nifty box that connects to an ATM fabric and shoots off wireless trunks to wireless distribution hubs, which in turn, feed wireless access points either in customer's homes or along public right of ways and in public spaces.
There are two key technologies that I think are needed; the wireless access module that interfaces with the fiber or pots backbone, and the box that is both a point-to-point trunk mux/demux/retransmitter and a wifi access point to hang on a telephone pole out in the middle of BFE. I think it should all fit into a box the size of the ones used by the cable company for their digital signal booting equipment (they look like a little beer fridge hanging on the pole).
The frequency spectrum for the trunks ought to be enough to get a five or six mile line of sight shot, even with the weather and the fog in the UP. Microwave is pretty power and infrastructure heavy, and the antennas aren't very discrete, but maybe a small SHF frequency radio with a good directional antenna.
Sure, using wireless forces you to actually use PKI and IPSEC, but everyone really ought to any way.
The business model could be one with a infrastructure owned and maintained as a utility, and the access and services provided in flat fee packages by ISP's that actually compete for customers. Perhaps there could be a minimal service, like an e-mail address with a small quota and a finite use account could be the right of taxpayers if the gov is footing the bill for install and maintenance of the infrastructure.
This company was mentioned on /. a while ago; I don't have THAT link, but here's a link to their home page at: Midcoast Internet Solutions (MIS). For more details, check out their about page which provides info on their dialup, ISDN. DSL, and wireless solutions.
MIS provides high-speed wireless internet access along the mid coast of Maine (USA). The up-front fee is kind of stiff, ($795; but there is a $300 discount with a one year commitment) but that gets you service at $50/month at speeds up to 20 times 56K dialup access. (Taken from their High Speed Wireless Internet Access page.
DISCLAIMER: I've not personally used this service, nor do I have any financial interest. But I did grow up in Maine and the thought of high-speed internet access in an area of breathtaking scenery (and much lower home prices than the Boston area where I am now) is VERY tempting.
According to Motorola site, Canopy is a low-cost solution (if compared to 802.11) to deploy a wireless broadband ISP. No license needed, it operates on 5.25-5.35 GHz and 5.725-5.825 GHz. 10 Mbps, 2 miles Multipoint, 20 miles P2P. Somewhere (not on Motorola site) I've read of $30.000 for a starter kit that supports up to 200 users.
If you go here, it's plain to see that this isn't a simple problem. Hell, I used to live in a rural suburb of Grand Rapids, and it's ridiculous hard to get decent dial-up service there.
Judging by the tele-comm infrastructure maps (off the link above), it looks like the best thing to do would be to tap off that fat pipe from Chicago to Houghton, and get a pipe running east-west accross the U.P.
Of course, I guess it depends on whether you're trying to bring service to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who lives up there, or if you're just trying to connect major cities and leave the plebes to the cable/telcos.
BTW, it'd be really tough for wireless to work up there; Not only is there still alot of Fe in the ground, but the U.P. isn't exactly flat. You'd have really short line of sight, unless you went satellite.
I doubt anyone here is a telecomms expert or knows enough about the industry and the technology to make any useful suggestions: the kind of answers you are going to get will probably involve well-tuned Pringles cans, or something equally unreasonable, like laying fiber all over the place in rural, residential areas.
Good luck in your search, but I doubt anyone here will be of much help. Find and talk to some experts.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I've heard of a company that uses broadcasters based on top of grain silos around rural Illinois and Iowa. I'm not familiar with UP agriculture, but this might be an option. My uncle uses them in Illinois and has had excellent service.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
Most rural homes don't have cable.
Joe
Joe Batt Solid Design
Wiring the Upers, eh? Well, it may be rural, but there seem to be an abundance of bars. After all, anytime you ask for directions, it's always in relation to the bars. So all you have to do is run a T1 or so to every bar (not a small expense, to be sure, but sure better than wiring everyone), and set up a wireless access point with an antenna and booster. That might not cover the whole penensula, but it should cover most of the homes & businesses, and a good deal of the hunting grounds (don't know how important that will be for a few years though given the deer elimination this year).
And if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm kidding.
-"Zow"
I haven't done the propagation checks, but I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that the 5 GHz stuff has much worse attenuation than 2.45 GHz. For a dense urban area where interference and raising the noise floor is an issue, attenuation is good (it keeps users out of each other's hair); for a rural scheme where you are regularly linking over hops of several miles, it's very bad.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
As a former Yooper (U.P.er), I can vouch for the tough winter blizzard and bothersome rain storm as well as the VASTNESS of the pine forest with NO CIVILIZATION in between towns.
This is as rural as Virginia purported to be back in 1710.
Wireless is out. First snowstorm will not only knock the Pringle cans, but the sturdiest Yagi antenna also, unless you buy those "Octogonal Radar Dome" to protect the elements from the elements.
Cable is out. no cable company in their right business mind will touch such an incredible low-density of a rural area that even makes Montana rural community look like bustling cities.
DSL is out. More than 90% of the customer lives outside of the CO radii (and that is using the best SHDSL technology)
I wouldn't say S.O.L., yet.
This would be an excellent time for taking advantage of local railway's right-of-way for dropping fiber lines and setting up multiple Point of Access.
Marquette is a good starting place for OC-3 vector point.
Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, via microwave, might get you a decent DS-3 link.
I don't think there is any decent speed left by going across the Mackinaw Bridge, unless someone lights a fiber up to Mackinaw City and then Microwave them over. Then, I was pretty sure they've laid fiber across the bridge but not sure if they are lit yet.
I work for Charter Communications and I know for a fact that we provide Pipeline cable internet in the U.P. I realize that some of the rural areas may be off the plant but with time most small towns will be connected to a headend that can deliver internet services. My hometown of Crandon, Wi (near the U.P.) was just hooked up from our Rhinelander headend, just give it some time.
Having just returned from vacationing in the UP, I can assure you that the results of such a test are: "No Service".
You're right on with the satellite idea. We live in rural Iowa and because of the trees on our property that is our only high speed option. We haven't been able to afford it yet though, and I bet that is true of a lot of the people in poor rural areas. Satellite is expensive! Last I checked it was $300-$800 to setup and $90 a month (cheaper if you only have high speed one way)! Another idea is DSL for rural people who are in close proximity to towns. A nearby town to us offers DSL for rural customers up to five miles away from the office.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
1) Pay through all available orifices to have fibre run to wherever you want it to go.
2) Move the people to a damn city.
Rural folks get many advantages over urban folks: lower cost of living; less pollution (air, water, noise and light); lower crime and so on. Why do yo uthink you can have the advantages of living in a city (running water; paved roads; high speed internet), too?
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E_NOSIG