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Buy Broadband From Your Neighbor
infractor writes "Wired has an article about a wireless project delivering free broadband to a rural community. Using Linux based devices called meshboxes from Locustworld, they've created a local mesh network. More detail in this article. With Wi-Fi friendly ISPs talking about micro-ISP deals for wireless sharers this could be the accelerator UK broadband has been waiting for." Last year we mentioned the MeshAP-05, a bootable CD which "turns a single board computer or laptop into a mesh node and access point," since updated to MeshAP-06. Update: 02/13 19:52 GMT by T : I see from comments that -08 is actually the current version of MeshAP, with -09 soon. Thanks.
You are with the wrong company. I have adsl 768/128 (and am actually getting 160 up and over 800 down) for $50, and there are faster connections at higher prices.
They are a gnu/linux friendly company, and are knowledgeable and helpful when it comes to gnu/linux. The founder is also the former co-founder of another dsl company that became very successful. Once the non-compete clause ran out, he started the new company. The company is located in a class A wired building, with a huge overcapacity of bandwidth, and redundant connections.
No ports are blocked. That means you can do what you want with it, run servers, run vnc, vpn, whatever.
And it is NOT a PPPoE connection. It works with Westel (check spelling), I'm using a Zyxel router, and others. I show up as another lan on my isp's lan.
With the multiple ips, I have several separate lans, public servers, and a private lan behind another router doing nat.
You can easily add a wireless router to this, and connect friends. One thing you should be aware of however, is that if you are the orderer/owner, you are, and would expect to be, legally responsible for anything that happens through your ip addresses. Make sure you know who is connecting to your lan, use encryption, use vpn, use mac address authentication. Do it right, or don't do it at all.
When the neighbors move in to the houses being built next door, I'll be offering them wireless access to internet, multiple email addresses with generous storage/imap/webmail, and wireless access disk storage space for a low (about the same as aol dial up cost) monthly fee. They'll be subsidizing a faster connection, and redundant connection (and a large power backup setup).