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Last-Mile Solution For A Rural Land Co-op?

Posted by timothy on from the cooperation-still-needs-a-plan dept.

macguys writes "My community consists of about 150 households spread out over several hundred acres in North Florida. We are far enough away from the nearest city that broadband cable and DSL services don't make it here. We're well organized, and used to working together on projects. We have a lot of home based business offices here and high speed access something that many of my neighbors are hungry for. We've looked at projects like http://www.magnoliaroad.net and know that others have addressed the issue with 802.11b/g/etc. There is no big problem getting a T-1 to the community. That part is easy. The hard part is distributing the bandwidth among those here who want to participate. Wireless works in places but in general this land is covered in hardwood and pines and the signal drops off quickly. We have a long history (community is 25 years old) of working together to solve problems. Running copper or coax is not out of the question if we can find a reasonable way of distributing the bandwidth. Any suggestions are welcome."

7 of 309 comments (clear)

  1. Fiber by geogeek6_7 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In my community, we chose to use ethernet over fiber. You avoid any electrical concerns, and the fiber can be buried. We purchased 6 strand fiber from Anixter, and have been very happy.

    I would highly suggest fiber as opposed to just about anything else--- it takes work to install (dig ditch, we put in conduit, then pulled fiber through it), and it requires a special terminiation kit, but the results are extremely rewarding.

    ~geogeek

  2. With respect to the T1... by dbarclay10 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    With respect to the T1 ... god, PLEASE shop around for options.

    T1s aren't significantly faster than good DSL service, and can be significantly slower than cable 'net access. For about 20 times the price.

    Now, you may have no other option, but do shop around. You won't regret it.

    --

    Barclay family motto:
    Aut agere aut mori.
    (Either action or death.)
  3. Re:Long-reach ethernet by jo_ham · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That's true, but the problem would be voltage drop, or similar problems with long cable runs.

    IIRC, the maximum run for 100baseT ethernet is 100 metres with cat 5 between switches/machines/etc.

    The Cisco system must introduce some sort of line amplifier to send data that far, so you'd have to have a pair of them, one on each end. The signals and cable setup itself would be identical to standard ethernet, just with a lot more power.

  4. Bandwidth by Lokni · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I would much sooner go with a DS3 which to my understanding is about $5000 a month. For each home that works out to about $35 a month. I would find out first which homes in the community are interested and then find the cost to each home using the chosen technology. Ethernet might be good, or you can setup your own DSL ISP for the community. It would probably be wise to setup a co-op or non-profit corporation to organize costs and the collection of money for monthly bandwidth costs.

  5. similar situation by elphmorgan · · Score: 3, Interesting
    We've got a similar situation with our cohousing community here in Ann Arbor MI where we would like to distribute internet access to the 37 households in our neighborhood as well as the 40 households across the pond in another cohousing community. Like you the issue isn't getting the connection to the net - it's connecting all the households. Even billing isn't an issue since we have association fees we can tack onto.

    We're probably going to use a combination of cat5e in the ground (fiber was too expensive for us) and wireless (802.11g) with good antennas and maybe some mesh technology (if it's reliable and easy to maintain.) The bandhwidth shaping tools that I've read about would be nice but the expense is high and it may be one of those situations where it's best to wait for the problem before applying the solution. Good luck!

  6. Re:Have you tried by chundo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here's the previous /. article. The people that did this posted a pretty detailed FAQ of how exactly they went about it - pretty interesting read. There's also some mention of their encounters with the FCC, which may be useful in helping your community project avoid legal pitfalls.

    -j

  7. BushLAN by femto · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Keep in touch with the BushLAN project. It is in the process of commercialisation and products should be available soon. BushLAN sounds exactly like what you are looking for.

    BushLAN is a low cost 'last mile' solution specifically targeted at Internet distribution for rural areas. It uses lower frequencies (VHF) than 802.11. As a consequence the signal propagates further (3-100km). If you have television reception it should work.

    I'm not directly affifialted with BushLAN, but I do work in a simliar field within the same country, so I am not completely disinterested.