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Wireless Internet Co-Ops?
einstein asks: "How many other geeks out there are purchasing high speed commercial net connections to the remote areas they live, and then selling access to their neighbors to help cover costs? I know of a remote area with about 20-30 house all of which could access a wireless lan connection to share a 1.5 ADSL connection. I'm planning on bugging the neighbors to see if there interested soon, and I'd like to have some idea if this has worked for other people. So, who's doing this in a Co-Op fashion, and how is it working?" This probably won't be possible with most residential DSL providers, however would they let this fly on their commercial lines?"
You're obviously joking right? Seriously.. 1.5 Adsl for 20-30 houses?? That was a mistake right?
...that you could get away with it over a commercial line. Certainly it seems like an excellent idea, particularly if you have neighbors who aren't inclined to run their own servers and so forth...
I'm doing it now with my ISP's commercial connection and there seems to be no complaints on their part...
These are the good old days you'll be telling your children about. Make them worthwhile.
If you plan to do this, not only does it have to be a business/commercial class, the TOS will also have to allow you to resell the bandwidth. Just one more thing to check into.
And you might want to make sure the 1.5 ADSL has a good upload speed, because if it's something like 90k, that's going to fill up really quickly. (One person uploading could bring the speed down for everyone quickly.) If you get DSL, I'd probably look into SDSL.
I recently did this with a DSL connection to my condo. I have mostly ghetto neighbors, we can only get IDSL here (144K up/down), and I only need it for e-mail and casual newsreading.
It's $120 a month, a bit pricey, so I talked to a few neighbors, and told them as long as they won't leech or kazaa or download massive amounts of porn, they can jump in with me.
I have it as a commercial account, asked if there is a limit to the number of users (no), and let about 10 of my neighbors on.
Built a simple gateway that keeps track of ONLY the number of bytes take by each user (in order to see if anyone is abusing it). 3 months, no problem.
I dunno what exactly I'd do if someone DID start leaching, since I have no real contract, but then again, I have the switch in my condo, so all I need to do is pull the plug.
You'd be surprised how far a low-ping quality IDSL can go for as many people as are on it. Its definitely far and away better than ISDN or dial-up, even with 6 or 7 people browsing the web at once.
Oh, and when I need to download something big, I remote access a client who has a few T1's worth of bandwidth, and download it there, then dribble download it to my PC at home.
get a T3 and start a damed WIRELESS ISP for the area.
http://www.englishfirst.org
If you're truly serious about bugging the neighbors, may I recommend www.spyworld.com?
Got friends?
I haven't looked up other providers other than RR-Austin, but I would guess that most allow the resale of their services. A quick look on Roadrunner's site in Austin found something related in their business class of circuits. Though the writer isn't technically a developer or MDU it is sort of the same thing that he/she is wanting to accomplish. The drawback is the price; the business class circuits are always going to be much steeper in price (though this may be balanced out if enough people were interested). There are probably other more specific TOS's out there for other providers.
Reselling high capacity commercial circuits is extremely common. I don't see the difference between what the author suggests and the regular ole' mom&pop local isp and their modem banks.
I'd be concerned about liability. What if one of your neighboars does something sleazy and/or illegal like scanning for vulnerable servers and r00ting them or sharing tons of music or movies on a file sharing network and the RIAA sends a cease and desist letter? You might get your service terminated because one of these bozos does something stupid.
The above post is an editorial, the poster cannot and will not be held responsible for all or in part for it's contents
...show a man your broadband connection, he will surf for an hour. Share with him your broadband connection, and you'll be his tech support for life!
Internet service has cool scruples
This article speaks for itself.
"his probably won't be possible with most residential DSL providers, however would they let this fly on their commercial lines?"
This would fly on a residential line. Depending on the distance from the CO/RT a residental user could get a 7/1M package from the ISP for around $300 and then split it with probably 10 people.
From my experience with Qwest, they wouldnt care.
forget it.
other than that, good luck with the neighbors. It's not like any of them care whether you personally are alive or dead.
And all the people said, What a shame that he's dead, But wasn't he a most peculiar man?
80N
I used to work for a backbone company, and I have never seen a contract for commercial connections that do not allow you to resell the bandwidth, so this shouldn't be a problem.
Just keep in mind that if one of your 'users' does something like send out spam or does illegal activites, you may be held responsible since it's your/company name on the contract with the ISP (hence get contracts drawn up for your users who will connect, in which case you'll need to do some type of monitoring in case the cops show up investigating a possible crime).
In other words, cover your ass.
It's better to burn out than to fade away
However if you start up a not-for-profit company, which is jointly owned by the people who want to use the service the ISP probably can't do a damn thing about it.
The main problem you can face is leaching. If possible set up VPN software so that they have to log in with different passwords. If you monitor their usage, you should be able to ensure that nobody leaches or shares the bandwidth with their friends.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"A few of my friends in Tasmania are working on this sort of thing. It's meant to be a public access wireless network that allows users to be on the same network as everyone (theoretically) else in Tasmania. It doesn't have an internet access point, yet, and from what I've heard, when an internet gateway is established, at some point in the future, there will be a small fee for access. The URL is as follows.
http://www.tas.air.net.au/
Commercial lines have very few restrictions, so im almost 100% sure this would be allowed. With residential lines there are so many restrictions it's crazy.
Check out Ruby Ranch Internet Cooperative Association at http://www.rric.net/
/. a few months ago about ruby ranch.
there was also a story on
As the power flows in, the screen grows warm, another day starts, I'm at work again...
I know three co-ops doing this in the mountains oustide of Boulder, CO.
I know of a remote area with about 20-30 house
all of which could access a wireless lan
connection to share a 1.5 ADSL connection.
If you can get ADSL there it isn't remote.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
You could play a fun game with them, though. Start up a co-op with 20 (say) people. You're person #1, and the connection is in your name. Person #k does something stupid and you get cut off. Kick person #k out of the co-op and then get another connection under person #2's name. Continue until only reasonable people are in your co-op.
I own a smallish ISP in Florida. We have been looking at this for some time. The problem is the cost of getting the neighbors equipment. Wireless equipment starts at around $100 and goes up from there. With the Phone companies and the cable companies trying to knock each other out with signup free offers this is a hard sell. Comcast is offering free sign/equipment and $20 per month until the end of the year. $40 after the end of the year. Also as stated most cable and DSL providers prohibit sharing of any kind. Some even go as far as to say it constitute "theft of servervice". Also setting up the antennas and running the coax cable inside and hooking everything up is a a very labor intensive problem. Also the range of the low end equipment along with ever present "line of sight" problem would mean selling to a fairly small radius (1/2 mile is what I think would be safe). This would mean finding enough people within this radius to make it worth while. We tested a pair of Linksys WAP11's with homemade antennas in point to point mode and got a very solid connection at 1.1 miles (across the river where we had clear line of sight) We tried starting one of these in the neighborhood where my head tech lives. We distrbuted flyers inviting everyone (about 30 people) to come over to his house for a meeting to answer questions and see the equipment needed. No one came. I am about to try here where I live and use a door to door sales technique. Since I own an ISP (www.cyberstreet.com). I am aware of the need to log everything. We would assign everyone a static IP so we could quickly track down any spammers/ DOS attacks. This would even be easer than doing this with dynamic dialup. But make no bones about it, this is a lot of work. We are activly looking for people in South West Florida who want to do this in their neighborhood. We would supply the High Speed connection and the local rep would make contact with his/her neighbors. We would take care of logging and most other server issues. I will make a future post if this goes anywhere.
I've been trying to set this sort of thing up in my neighborhood for about a year now, but it seems tough to get it started. The plan is to purchase a T1 line and split the bandwidth with the community up here using a wireless POP. The problems are basically:
1. Cost of the T1 is about $1200/mo including the local loop, free setup and router.
2. Cost of initial setup is about $10K for all the wireless antenna and equipment capable of penetrating the trees and such where we live
We live in a rural community near Lake Tahoe that will never get DSL. Distribution via wireless is difficult because of all the trees (we live in a forest). This forces us to use high-gain antenna at both the POP and the client. With our startup costs, the costs of the T1 and the client costs of about $500, it is hard to convince enough of the locals to sign up. Most are second homeowners that only use their house on weekends and holidays and don't feel like coughing up $500 and $70/mo. We figure we need about 20 people to break even.
One nice aspect is that the longer we wait, the better technology gets. The new Motorola Canopy system (check old Slashdot) seems interesting. The price of bandwidth also keeps falling. I expect that I'll probably end up splitting the T1 with just a couple of people using hand-strung fibre. It will probably be easier to find three or four people close by willing to spend $200-300/mo anyway. Besides, I have a real job and I don't feel like playing ISP with all my spare time!
Dan
http://www.doconnect.com
http://www.flarg.com
I just moved into the area and figure if there one place I might find a wireless network to get in on it would be the Silicon Valley.
No it's true! He was crushed by a beowulf cluster of "BSD is dying" posts.
--everytime you learn something a piece of your brain is replaced by something that someone else said
and I have a 1500/128 DSL connection that costs $52.00 per month. Four of us share this connection (and the cost of the DSL). Fortunately, when the condo was remodelled six years ago they used cat 3 wire for the phone connections. All I did was connect a 10 base T mini hub up to two unused cat 3 pairs going to each condo. The hub lives in the common area and is powered by an unused cat 3 pair. I plugged the hub into my Linksys router/switch, which provides firewall and DHCP. An added bonus for them is that they get to access my MP3 server which has 5000 plus songs on it. Each of us has broadband and it costs each $13.00 per month. All in all it seems to work out just fine..and we're even thinking about upping the connection to 7100/768 if we can get the fifth person interested. Alas, that would cost each of the five $40.00/month though.
I remember seeing an article somewhere regarding this exact issue. In a semi remote area of Colorado, 8 families set up there own ISP for themselves. After the initial equipment costs (with all the dead .coms, equipment can be found relatively cheap), it came to like 20 or 30 bucks a month to cover all costs. It really pissed of one of the baby bells, since they would be using the lines that baby bell installed. I believe that the baby bell tried to sue and lost since they have to share the lines according to the FCC rules.
Anyway, if you are to worried about leeching neighbors, get a satilite connection. While not as fast as DSL or cable connections, it still beats the hell out of dial up.
-Out the PC, over the LAN, through the server, down the T1, nothing but 'net-
I know of a remote area with about 20-30 house all of which could access a wireless lan connection to share a 1.5 ADSL connection.
Wouldn't it be funny if one of your neighbors agrees to split the ADSL connection with you and then sets up his own wireless network and convinces the other 18 neighbors to split his half with him.
Check out Joltage, This is exactly what they do... They have a software for Linux and Windows that lets you charge people for access to your broadband and they take a cut... Pretty neat..
Nah, not new here, just haven't seen anything like this before... I browse at 0, so it's quite possible that it's all be modded down to -1 before I saw it. I noticed that the parent of this got modded down while I was researching and writing my reply.
I would mourn the loss of karma, but I'm still at "excellent"...
I want my number back, dag nab it.
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
Give a man a fish and you feed him for an hour. Hit him with a fish and he'll go away and leave you alone!
Well Rob? You gonna remove "funny" now?
If you plan to do this, not only does it have to be a business/commercial class, the TOS will also have to allow you to resell the bandwidth. Just one more thing to check into.
Just have the co-operative sign the agreement; creating a small legal entity (a non-profit or llc) is farily easy to do. Then, you arn't reselling as it is membership based; like a company with employees.
It should be illegal for ISPs to restrict what you do over the line. They should be protected from lawsuits for the content... and so should we if we choose to resell.
Telephone companies are not liable for what people say over their lines. (I think... and hope) The internet is similar.
I am trying to read the constitution again... I hope there is somethign that makes it unconstitutional to act like that, also hopefully there is at least a law that makes it illegal to have crappy TOS(terms of service) and not have the liability that promotes bad TOS.
Reselling it should make you be an ISP, and that should (maybe: is) allowed
Please use [ informative / summarizing ] SUBJECT LINES
Flame me here
Ruby Ranch bears no resemblance. They're basically a co-op ISP with their own T1 connection. Their big issue was not their upstream provider -- a bandwidth wholesaler that assumes most of its customers are reselling -- but forcing the local phone company to lease them the necessary local loops.
Check out Seattle Wireless and NoCat. They are quite advanced in similar projects.
Good luck, and make sure it's legal before you do it.br. Mihai
I am getting ready to do this in Silver Springs, Nevada. Right now I have a Omni-Directional antenna on my roof and one connection about three miles away. We get about 5mbits/sec on the connection to my server. We are using Linksys WMP11 cards, a cantenna's at the client site. So far its working perfect.
We have about 70 people interested in joining. I'm going to charge $35 per connection. The T1 is going to cost me $1313 a month with a $1200 setup. I have a 32 mile loop (included in price). I have all the server equipment to get started. I figure it will be about $150-200 for the customer to get hooked up. The linksys WMP11 is about $65-80. The Dish is about $45-60. The cable is about $20-40. We can setup cantenna's for most people. Since this is the desert, no trees. All I want is about 100 customers. That is about all I can handle.
So far everything is working out great. I have a few more tests to do with more people on the line and if everything works, I'm ready to start.
The main problem I'm trying to figure out right now is how to have user logins. I can go VPN or PPPoE. I am leaning to PPPoE right now. All I need is a login with password to verify people and not allow free rides. I think this is going to be the hardest part.
I am going to write all the plans on how to get things going when I get things going so that other people in other places can do the same.
The above is not worth reading.
Then it dawned on me... I've been thinking for a bit that I want to install a wireless LAN in my neighborhood (even using 802.11a, so I get 54+ Mbps, as opposed to the usual 11), and be a sort of ISP for the neighborhood. Places like D-Link offer "Turbo" modes that can do 72 Mbps; wouldn't you pay $75/month or something for a 72 Mbps "broadband" connection? Even if you use the $3,000/month figure for an "ISP" Cogent line, I'd only need to find 40 customers at $75/month, and I'm breaking even. And I bet that the actual bandwidth usage would be VERY small; even Slashdot doesn't pull 72 Mbps sustained.
The nearest Cogent-served city is almost 100 miles away, and a lot of my neighbors are the "No thanks, I like my AOL" type, but if Cogent ever comes to town, this is something I'd very seriously consider.
________________________________________________
suwain_2
I've been bugging my neighbors, but have yet to overhear any conversations about sharing Internet accounts...
Oh you mean bothering them!
The colleges don't seem to care about their students either personally or collectively...and the students about their education...though it is so expensive these days for so little...so I suppose they're watching their wallets -who says you get what you pay for?
I wonder if this sort of connection could eventually lead us to the "local nets" that Vinge describes in his new novella.
Start with 'net connection sharing, and eventually add local services, if it got big enough small buisnesses might even join in, and provide the small scale comercialization that might work on a local net (as well as help support it).
see there. for business dsl, distribution seems feasible.
I am running a small wISP from my home using Linksys WAP11 (v.2.2) WAPs. I have one here at home, and am attempting to get the second set up at a small store I own roughly a mile (LOS) away. I have been attempting to increase my range (right now I have 3 customers, but I have very little coverage area, so I can't attract more), so I am working with external antennae.
I have two 15dbi gain omnidirectional antennas that I'm attempting to use, connected to the WAPs by a 75' run each of LMR-400 (-3dbi every 40ft) cable. The antennas are from Comet, but are very similar to the Hyperlink 15dbi omni antennas for 2.4-2.45ghz. The issue I'm seeing is this: When I connect the 15dbi antenna to my WAP, I see no change in signal strength. Even if I don't use the 75' cable, and switch to an 18" pigtail, I see no change in the Signal Level on my Orinoco PCMCIA card. None at all. When I put the second antenna on the PCMCIA card (15dbi on the wap, 15dbi on the laptop) and it's all of 20 feet away, I see a marginal gain in signal strength. By marginal I mean my strength goes from -82 to -78.
Considering what I know about wireless and radio, I should be seeing a better gain than that. I am currently waiting on a 5dbi omni to test with to see if it helps at all, in case the two antennas (bought concurrently and of the same make/model/manuf) are bad or were mis-labeled. One of the few questions that I have raised is as follows: I live about 75 yards from high-tension power lines. These are tri-phase lines, that should cause harmonic disturbance based on 60hz. I'm wondering if they aren't causing any problems. They shouldn't, (sixth harmonic and all that stuff) but I don't know what else to make of this. (I do plan to take the antenna and WAP and laptop elsewhere to test in the near future). In any case, short of buying a parabolic or patch antenna for the point-to-point to my store, or adding an amplifier (geez, those things are pricey), I am hoping someone can give me some idea what the issue is. I have submitted this to the BAWUG (www.bawug.org) users group mailing list, to no avail. I've also searched the web, high and low, for more information.
A couple of other questions I have are:
1. Does anyone know what the default power output of the Linksys WAP11 Version 2.2 is, and is there a way to alter it? (at 100mA my setup will still be FCC-legal).
2. Short of pole-mounting the box (and pissing off my HOA) I am using long cable runs. Even if I shorten the cable run to 18", I see no change. Any thoughts on why that might be?
Any help would be appreciated. If someone can give me the help to get this working, I might be willing to throw in a small reward of some sort.
Thanks!
With most APs now supporting 802.1x, authentication and billing, not to mention additional security, is quite easy to achieve. Look into 802.1x and various implementations of EAP which requires wireless users to authenticate with a RADIUS server. In the case of Cisco's implementation of EAP it's trivial to setup however for the most part if the AP supports 802.1x you can choose serveral different EAP implementations. Some suck (Microsoft's implementation is x.509 based and requires Active Directory) others as simple as specific client software and then the RADIUS server. This takes care of accounting too so you can track users bandwidth usage. Cisco's RADIUS server is called SecureACS and support's Cisco's APs in for EAP-Cisco (LEAP) which is one of the better implementations as several other vendors are started to say they will support it. Funk Software also has Odyssey which supports EAP-TLS (Supported by XP) and EAP-TTLS. TTLS is WAY easier to manage but not as easy as the Cisco solution. You can check out FreeRadius which supports both EAP-TLS and EAP-MD5.
For a general overview on 802.1x security check out the 802.1x Blackpaper at ArsTechnica.
I just finished designing a LEAP (EAP-Cisco) implementation for a customer of mine only a few weeks ago. The ArsTechnica blackpaper is a pretty good read for someone who doesn't do this very often.
The biggest benifit to all of this outside of the authentication is the RADIUS billing. This way you can very easily enforce bandwidth caps.
Enjoy.
Syn Ack.
I am in the same situation but I am one of the customers (wish to be anyway). There is a small wireless ISP a few miles away from where I am. The only problem and the reason I am still using a crummy modem is because of the bloody trees around my house.
To get over all the trees, it was approximated that I will need to purchase some sort of tower that is about 70ft+. Only problem is a tower of that height costs a ton ($1000+). Atleast I could not find one at an affordable amount. So right now I am waiting until March when I get my bonus and I am going to buy the tower.
But I must ask, is there some sort of antennae that would be powerful enough that trees would not matter? Or does anyone know where I can get an affordable tower?
Please help a poor broadbandless family (with children I might add).
See the following link for an article related to the original question.
c n/ 20020709/tc_cn/942323
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/
Basically it states that it is illegal to share a connection your service with others outside of your immediate household. In some cases even with your immediate household. It is the same as sharing your cable service between others in your neighborhood. It also states how isps are cracking down on this with sniffers.
Just to provide some links to others doing this sort of thing:
Colorado Wireless Exchange: http://www.cwx.net/
Bill Cherry, gets wireless from the local Internet cooperative and then is provinding access to his neighbors for a fee. Don't really know that it's a coop, but it's similar to what you are doing: http://www.cherryfarm.com/
Sean
see the forums at http://www.rfglobalnet.com for another source on signal issues.
Of course, there are loads of wireless community groups out there, with varying methods of deployment/philosophies/etc. You might look here and start browsing the different groups to see how they run things.
NoVAWireless might be a place to look at -- they seem to be involved with organization of clusters of small, neighborhood-based WISPs.
The WAP11 Ver 2.2 is supposed to put out 100mw. It's possible that your test setup is simply to close together and your saturating your receivers. Also make sure both are in the clear so you don't get reflections that could combine out of phase with the main signal. I had this trouble when testing helical antenna gains indoors. Moving outdoors into my yard seems to have fixed this problem. I have been able to get the older WAP11 Ver 1.1 to work at over 1 mile with great results using home made helical antennas. See picts at:
http://explorer.cyberstreet.com/photos/antenna
I have found some very small USB clients on ebay for $40 that I have had working through over 30 feet of USB extender cable. These unit are very small (smaller that a pack of cigs) and have a removable antenna (sma connector). I am working on weather proofing them for pole mounting.
This line:
Rob Malda chugs penis in fan fiction slashes
doesn't scan well though--it has 12 syllables instead of 11. Perhaps change it to:
Taco chugs penis in fan fiction slashes
?
Check out , they are providing broadband, relatively cheap. You might also consider Motorola Canopy for the wireless part , the equipment is small, no big dishes required.
--- I would prefer a prehensile tail....
Do your self a big ass favor and rid yourself of the LMR. Search the web for POE Power over Ethernet. Build a couple POE connectors and put the WAP11 on a short cable 6 in from the antenna. Of course you will need to put it in a waterproof container but that is easy to do as well.
Got Code?
No sense in all of the stupid radius servers, authentication ppoe....Build a simple linux bridge firewall and filter out all but valid mac addresses. Can it be spoofed sure it can, but I am damn sure going to know if someone is doing it very quickly. The great thing is that it will lock down the network and will not piss off your clients.
Got Code?
for access control :
linux + PPoE server / PPoE (windows/mac/whatever or a 'dsl' linksys router client)
n/t
I've looked into different solutions from non-line-of-sight systems to homebrew LOS solutions with pringles cans. The next step is to tour a few places and test these networks out in the real world. We're small and don't have a huge amount of cash to spend, and will initially support up to 50 small business offices, maybe 250 users at the outset.
Anybody out there have a wireless setup (yeah, I've done a google search and have a few sites to visit on my list) they're particularly proud of that I should add to the list? East Texas and all of Louisiana are easily accessible.
collegeterrace.net is a neighborhood non-profit wireless ISP co-op in Palo Alto, CA. We are insisting on being above-board with our ISP about how we are using our internet service, explaining up front that we are an internet service co-op and will be sharing service among members, and signing up for the service under the name "collegeterrace.net" so they can't claim ignorance about what we're doing. (The last thing we want is to be shut down by scary lawyers.) We just got our "Business DSL" service activated by Sprint, then 3 weeks later heard that Sprint is getting out of that business, so now we're searching for a replacement DSL service. Too bad, it was a decent deal --- 8 Mbps down / 1Mbps up for about $180 per month.
Long-term if we can get enough paying co-op members we are looking at leasing dark fiber from the city to get us to PAIX. Granted, this is a pretty atypical opportunity for a group like ours: not everybody lives in the path of a publicly owned fiber connection a couple of miles from a major internet interconnect point.
earl
When I put the second antenna on the PCMCIA card (15dbi on the wap, 15dbi on the laptop) and it's all of 20 feet away, I see a marginal gain in signal strength. By marginal I mean my strength goes from -82 to -78.
If you're talking -82 to -78 dB then that is by no means a 'marginal' gain. Remember, a 3dB gain is like DOUBLING your output power. Also, get the transceivers a little ways away from each other, more than 20ft atleast, and see what happens. I also highly agree with the other guy that suggested using power over ethernet and getting rid of the coax. You lose a shit load of signal in that cable. You figure if you're putting out 100mW, and then losing say 6dB over 75ft of cable plus the connectors, that's only 25mW into the antenna. If you calculate that out as far as ERP (effective radiated power) at the anteanna which provides 15dB of gain, it's something like 800mW. If you get the transmitter right there at the antenna and don't lose the 6dB in the coax/connectors, you'll have something like 3.2W ERP. A substantial difference.
I'm a member of a community called New York City Wireless..(www.nycwireless.org, iirc)
:)
I heard about this community from a guy named Bill Weikling (spellng?) he's the dood who set up the entirely large co-op in hawaii. (NON PROFIT)(http://www.workingwireless.com)
The users of this community, now that is has gotten larger are getting a lot of flack from local providers. And the funny thing is that the bandwidth (whether purchased for home use, or for business use) is given away for free to the wireless users.
the logic is that the business users purchase their bandwidth at a set rate, and they should be able to do whatever they wish with it. But they are still getting flack for it... odd, isn't it?
This is a great project, and although it's free, I would hate to see it go. It's fun to walk into manhattan and turn on your laptop... and get a signal
------------
Sase
"It's the opposite of that."
A bunch of geeks in northern Colorado got together and started their own wireless Coop to solve exactly this problem, but it's probalby not what the poster wants.
But it's still feasible and if you're intersted in setting something like it up, you could talk to the members of the Coop to find out what their experiences were in getting it going.
Colorado Wireless Exchange.
Build it yourself visible light wireless link:
r onja/index.html
http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~clock/twibright/
We are doing it in the UK, but we are aiming at about 500 users in the locality. There are ISP that specifically allow you to resell bandwidth. There's no ASDL in this village yet, so we are using 128k ISDN for the time being and a leased line is coming soon. The leased line is expensive though, hence the need for more people.
I live in Austin where there is a good deal of student housing for the 100,000 college students that live here. Many, many, apartment complexes purchase high-bandwidth DSL or commercial Cable Modem connections (in excess of 2Mbit/sec) and then add about $20 to the standard rent they charged before installing the connection. These places set up routers and give everyone an internal IP address. One place I know does give real external IP's behind the firewall, but that is the exception. Either way, they are saving the tenant an average of about $20-30 per month by redistributing the connection, and the two prominent companies, Southwestern Bell and Time Warner, not only don't seem to care, but encourage this as use of their own commerical setups.
Anyone thinking of doing this may want to take a look at forming a Limited Liability Company to protect yourself. I know in Michigan it only costs something like $80, is a 1 or 2 page form, and only requires adding Schedule K to your personal taxes (you could even take advantage and write off your equipment and service costs possibly).
Research it, though... I AM NOT A LAWYER.
You do know that the pattern out of a 15dbi omni is *extremely* flat. 3 degrees flat. Unless the other side is within that 3 degrees, you'll probably get the poor signal you're seeing.
I happened to read an article about Allegany Co., MD, setting up it's own wireless broadband system - a rural county which has virtually NO chance of getting any broadband from a big telecom company in this lifetime. And this is the case with most of Appalachia as well. I just tried to remember where that article was and looked it up - it was in the Baltimore Sun and so if you try www.sunspot.net and search on Allegany and wireless it should pop up for the next week or so.
I also remember reading over a year ago an article by Cringley about getting a wireless DSL connection by finding someone down a line of sight from him who he could pay to get it, and then setting up an access point and an antenna - I think his set up cost him about $1000 plus paying for the other guy's connection.
Anyway, as long as you buy a commercial connection with a contract that allows you to resell, and set yourself up properly legally for your area, it should be no biggie technically to set up. Financially and technically, you have to cover yourself if your customer decides to oh...say do something illegal. Or set up a webcam and broadcast 24/7 and other fun stuff like that.
I live in a housing cooperative that owns or is affiliated with 4 contiguous houses on our block in downtown _____ [midwest us city] and I actually have strung cat 5 betwwen our buildings . We share a single residential DSL connection and enjoy switched 10/100 cat 5 to our desktops. Wedecided on wiring cat5 as opposed to 802.11 becuase of health concers among our members.
Used to live in Reno... used to go camping out at Lahontan, that would be cool driving through there knowing that all the little houses and trailers with antennas are getting a better connection than my cable modem...
Bleh!
If you're hung-up on the whole idea that the mailman is acting on behalf of a govt. agency and not a truly "private business" -- how about this scenario?
I receive a phone call from a guy who asks me to assist him with robbing a bank. I agree, as long as I get 60% of the money.
Afterwards, we're both caught. Can we name the local telco as an accessory to the crime? After all, it was their service that made it possible for us to communicate about the crime.
I think not.
Same with an ISP. I really feel that legally, there's no good reason they should be responsible for their users. Any legal cases ruled in this manner were wrong and subject to question.
Sure, people will come to the ISP first if someone hacks a system using their service. The police may well come to the telco requesting a trace, or a list of numbers a customer called too.
In the case of the telco, it happens that govt. already passed specific legislation forcing them to give police/FBI access to call traces/monitoring. Otherwise, the telco could simply say "Sorry. We just don't keep track of that type of information." and there'd be nothing they could really do about it.
Being a govt. regulated monopoly, the telco doesn't get that option.
Some of the Internet's most basic functions assume a lack of monitoring, in fact. Usenet newsgroups are probably the best example. If it was designed so the identity/location of original posters were always logged someplace - you wouldn't see much of the traffic it gets each day.
Go VPN, not PPPoE
I am one of the founders and the treasurer of one of these coops--Magnolia Road Internet Coop (http://www.magnoliaroad.net). We are in an area that is not served by cable or DSL. We have two T1 lines, with Frame Relay and ISDN for backup. We recently completed our trial period and have over 25 subscribers to start with a large waiting list. Due to the uneven terrain the wireless is distributed via several repeater sites.
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" -- Dr. Strangelove
If your going to try and be a wISP, join in the isp-planet.com forums. isp-wireless@isp-wireless.com WAP11's work for some people, not for others. They are a VERY bad pice of hardware, random lock up, droped connections, search the BAWUG.com lists' for more information. Dont add antenna's to hardware that it is not FCC certifide for. That only makes more noise(thats bad) in the 2.4 ISM and makes it harder for a real wISP to fuction. Also the FCC gets upset and makes rules that prevent us from offering better service. ala 802.11a is very well stamped for indoor use only. If your going to be a service provider you have to have some form of QoS. WAP11's and cantenna's might be nice and cheap, work well today, but what about tomorrow? the day after?? You install crap, you get crap back. I would not use a cantenna for a paying customer. I am working the business model out for doing a community isp right now. They live out where they have no chance of getting dsl, 25 miles or so from town. I would rather pass them up then give them something thats little better then dialup. Remember 11b is much like a wired lan with a hub. 1 client talk's at a time, but the speed is much slower. 11b with cisco gear gets 6.5mbps. The cheaper hardware is lower, some doesnt do better then 2mbps. If you realy want to do this, get a consultant. Don't ruin it for the rest of us, keep it legal. CrackersnSoup
He made no mention of amplifiers, so he is running WELL within the FCC requirements, esp. if using a cantenna.
You can run 802.11 up to 1 watt into an omni legally. (Over 100 mW you need to have automatic power control though - To keep the minimum power required for minimum 11 MBps operation.) You can run even more than 1 watt ERP with a directional - I don't remember the exact rules, it's in a HOWTO/FAQ somewhere, but for every 3 dB of gain in your antenna, you only have to reduce input power to the antenna by 1-2 dB (I forget how much, but it's less than 3).
In this case, he's using Linksys WMP11s - FCC certified, and in no way are they being run in excess of the FCC regs for the band. The WMP11, like almost any Intersil Prism[1;2;2.5] card, runs only 25-30 mW - Even having to reduce input power by 3 dB per 3 dB of antenna gain, he is still within limits for a 15 dBi antenna (quite a bit of gain, good for many kilometers LOS). Given the regs, he's good to 20 or 25 dBi of gain legally. Only the larger dishes can hit this range - Cantennas definately cannot.
Let's not forget that with good antennas on both ends, he can have 20-40 dB of total path gain if he wishes with an omni at one end. (15 dBi omni, 20-25 dBi directional is realistic. 10 dBi omni and 15 dBi directional is much easier/cheaper and will still give you incredible range.)
Plus, it looks like he IS setting up a "real" wISP - Including a 32-mile T1 loop. If you can't compete effectively with an (expensive) setup like his, maybe you should go find another line of work or rework how you're doing things.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
It's key to make sure you don't get nastygrams like our friends at NYCWireless did from AT&T. At http://www.pghwireless.com, we've got a running-list of ISPs and their policies for the area.
Who did you get the T1s from? We are trying to get a similar thing going in Frederick/Firestone, CO.
PPPoE is very easy to set up. Just take the cheapest PC you can get your hands on, give it 2 ethernet ports, set up FreeBSD on it and have it start pppoed when it boots. You'll be setting up ppp pretty much the same as if you were going to be offering dialup. It just magically works.
In fact, you can go one step further if you like -- FreeBSD includes a 'hostap' mode for PrismII 802.11b cards. This means that you don't even need an access point - just plug the omni at the center into the 802.11b card and off you go.
IN FACT, you could go even one step further than THAT. There are T1 cards you can get that work with FreeBSD, so your el-cheapo PC-made-router can do it all - take the T1 in, do some firewalling if you like, be the access point for the wLAN, even set up a mail and web server on it if you like. The whole thing could be made into a 1U (if your 1U case can handle 2 PCI cards. If not, then certainly you could do it with a 2U case).