WISPS Mean Cable and DSL Aren't the Only Choices

Brett Glass writes "Feel like you're stuck with a no-win choice between expensive cable modem service and slow DSL for Internet? Currently using satellite, with long latencies that make it impossible to do VoIP or interactive gaming? One of America's best kept secrets, so it seems, is the wide coverage of WISPs — terrestrial (not satellite or cellular) wireless broadband Internet providers. The linked article gives an overview of WISPs and provides a handy map showing their nationwide coverage (more than 750,000 square miles of the continental US — and only about one third of the WISPs in the US are on the map so far). Most WISPs are small, independent, consumer-friendly, and tech savvy, making them a better choice than big, corporate ISPs who can't even tell a penny from a dollar."

Comments

They work well too

[Codex_of_Wisdom]

I'm on a WISP and it's great. I'm in a rural area, so it was either that or satellite, and, as previously stated, satellite is not good for online gaming. With WISP though, I still have latencies in the 100 range. It's nice. /babbling

Re:They work well too

[commodore64_love]

Dialup costs me just $7.
DSL costs me just $15.
How much is the Wireless Service Provider?

Re:They work well too

[the_crowbar]

It must be nice to have such cheap internet. I happen to live in the only state shown with no WISP coverage. High speed internet links here are ridiculous.

I have two options:

1) AT&T (formerly BellSouth). If you have a land line you can get 768k/128k for $19.99/month, but you must have a land line which adds another $15+/month. Naked DSL is available, but the cheapest price is $34.95/month for 1.5M/256k.

2) Charter cable offers internet by itself. Their minimum advertised speed is 5M. The price is almost $60/month or $54.99 if you also have cable.

I don't need 10M+ speeds, but it is nice to have if I watch streaming video or other things requiring greater bandwidths. I do not download music and movies illegally, but I do grab iso images of Linux discs regularly. 1.5M would be slow, but meet my needs. Problem is it is $35+/month. I would love to have a WISP available. I live less than 2 miles from a mountain that could service a large city if there was a WISP. I would switch if I had the choice.

Cheers,
the_crowbar

Re:They work well too

[ByOhTek]

As with the other guy, I ask, what's the price?

I looked at the article, and was amused:

> One of the most common claims made by proponents
> of government regulation of the Internet (AKA
> âoenetwork neutralityâ) is that it is necessary
> because broadband is a duopoly. At best, these
> people claim, most US residents have a choice
> between the telephone company and the cable
> company; thatâ(TM)s it.

I'm not in a huge city (Columbus Ohio), but we have a large number of ISPs.

Cable:
-- Comcast (I believe they've recently show up anyway)
-- Insight
-- Time Warner
-- Wide Open West
DSL
-- AT&T
-- Earthlink
-- Verizon (I think they are DSL)

I know there are more, but these are what I know off the top of my head.

A lot more than two options. I also know AT&T has a 4M DSL and 8 or 16M fiber now.

I know you can get 16M down 1M up for about $50 here, I pay more (twice that, sadly) but at the time I signed up, my ISP was the only sufficiently reliable ISP around that offered more than 2MBit down.

I looked through the article, but didn't see a lot of definitive info. I take it these WISPs are using cellular type wireless and not the standard 802.11[.] wireless?

Re:They work well too

[commodore64_love]

Hmmm. $300 in my area. Pass.

Re:They work well too

[commodore64_love]

>>>It must be nice to have such cheap internet.

If I can get Netscape dialup for 7 dollars a month, you should be able to get it too. As for DSL, I think part of Obama's stimulus bill should include a requirement for ALL phone lines to be upgraded to DSL, if the customer requests it. So you'd simply call-up your Baby Bell, and they'd be forced to upgrade the line for DSL capability. The costs of the upgrade could be funded by the Universal Access Fee.

Upgrading existing phone lines is the quickest-and-easiest way to provide broadband to virtually everybody.

>>>AT&T (formerly BellSouth). If you have a land line you can get 768k/128k for $19.99/month, but you must have a land line which adds another $15+/month.

What's wrong with that? The prices are different ($15 and $5 respectively), but it sounds similar to my setup with Verizon. Oh and yes you can stream video over a 750k line. I just finished watching Live CNN this morning, while downloading Saw 5 in the background. Plenty of speed.

For comparison the Wireless ISP in my town costs $300 a month. Ouch.

Re:They work well too

[jeffmeden]

You do realize that, if you are lucky, you have the choice between ONE of those Cable providers and ONE of those DSL providers? In some cases there is shared space on the cable side, WOW vs. Time Warner is what comes up most often, and that's only in areas that don't have an exclusive agreement with one particular provider (like almost all apartment groups, some municipalities even.) And to answer your question, most all WISPs do use 802.11 of some sort, since the equipment is cheap and the RF space is free, unlike pretty much every other wireless data scheme.

Re:They work well too

[commodore64_love]

Yes most people on the east and west coasts have multiple options:

- Dialup (many, many companies)
- Cable
- DSL
- FiOS
- Satellite
- Cellular

Some of these like dialup may be slow, but if you're just reading email or listening to music, you don't need anything faster. Also I'd like to see Cable monopolies removed, and instead run Comcast, Time-Warner, Cox, and Charter run to every home. There's enough room underground to supply 4-5 cables, and thereby let the homeowner have the Power of choice. ("Libertarians - pro choice on everything")

Actually I'm Republican, but I'm a Jeffersonian/libertarian republican. I don't support government-mandated monopolies. I prefer multiple choices and competition.

Re:They work well too

[the_crowbar]

If I wanted a phone line I would get AT&T with their DSL package. I do not want a phone line. I have two cell phones and my wife has two as well. We don't need any more phones. I just want fast (I take online college courses and dialup is just painful), always on, reasonably priced internet. I used to live in Charlotte, NC and internet there was much cheaper. The company I work for has 66 retail stores in two states. I see first hand that the prices for phone and internet are cheaper where there is more competition. The same thing applies here. Where I live there are only two high speed internet companies. In other cities in the state where there is competition the prices are lower. Go figure, competition is better for the customer and worse for company profits. Of course Charter has had no profits recently and is simply raising their prices rather than attempting to improve their offerings. Cheers, James

Re:They work well too

[Igarden2]

My wireless is $29.95 and much faster than dialup. In my location (rural) I'm told DSL is not going to happen. Cable isn't even nearby.

Re:They work well too

[commodore64_love]

>>>I would get AT&T with their DSL package. I do not want a phone line.
>>>I just want fast, always on, reasonably priced internet.

I have a phone line; I love it; it works even when the snow or ice topples the power lines. Cellphones do not (no power == no receiving tower == no service). But anyway..... Because you have this weird fetish against phone lines or DSL lines, you expect your neighbors to cough-up money from their wallets and BUY YOU a wireless upgrade (aka "stimulus package"). That political philosophy is, and please pardon my language, fraked up. Nobody owes you anything. Stop stealing money from your neighbors wallets, so you can enrich yourself with their money.

You (and others like you) have access to cheap broadband via DSL, and you simply chose not to get it. That's nobody's fault but yourself.

Re:They work well too

[jeffmeden]

Also I'd like to see Cable monopolies removed, and instead run Comcast, Time-Warner, Cox, and Charter run to every home. There's enough room underground to supply 4-5 cables, and thereby let the homeowner have the Power of choice.

Good idea! While we are at it, I think we should run a subway (The mass transit, not the sandwich) underground to everyone's front yard. After all, there's enough room underground for 4 or 5 subway lines under everyone's yard.

What's that? Trillions in cost for a marginal benefit? Oh, right, free choice isn't the ultimate answer after all.

The government owns the roads, the sewers, the schools, libraries, forms of protection (police, fire, etc) and even the air waves, why not let them be responsible for the copper heading into the home (this way the municipality can be pressured for change, which in most cases is a lot easier than relying on some huge monopolistic company). Then, auction off (with yearly renewal) sections of the bandwidth (by frequency division, time division, or whatever) to the highest bidder and recoup most or all of the expense of the system. This way, competition for what really counts (being able to actually DO something with the copper) can flourish, instead of pseudo-competition where 2 or 3 companies vye for a piece of the same copper, only to provide service indistinguishable from each other.

Re:They work well too

[mweather]

You're right. Let's just run one wire, but let any Cable company that want to use it, use it.

Re:They work well too

[Brett Glass]

WISPs use a variety of radio technologies. Some are based on 802.11 standards (but not used the same way you use them within your house). Some are based on 802.16 (WiMAX). Some are unique to the manufacturer of the equipment (e.g. Motorola's "Canopy" system). Most do not use cellular technologies like 3G or 4G or LTE, but it's possible. Some mix and match, using whichever equipment works best in the area. The same goes for radio frequencies; nearly all WISPs use the unlicensed bands, but they'll use different frequencies in different situations.

Re:They work well too

[jammindice]

I believe what he was trying to say is why do they force a phone line or basic cable on you when all he want's is just the internet. He is not asking for that service and obviously doesn't want it so why should he have to pay for it?

This has nothing to do with his neighbors, bailing anything out, etc... that's just your own made up political ranting.

The GP just wanted internet with no extra services and to PAY FOR IT, he just didn't want to pay for the extra services. Our phone companies around my area do the same thing, phone line + 768k dsl is cheaper than just plain DSL which makes no sense since they are offering more services to you for less money, seems like a deal but why can't i just get internet without the land line and have it be even cheaper? Same with cable companies, $50 for internet only, $40 for basic cable only, $60 for internet and basic cable? it just doesn't make any sense. They want you to have more services and give you more for less money when you don't even want them.

Re:They work well too

[Brett Glass]

"The only state with no WISP coverage?" There is none. The map only shows about 1/3 of all WISPs. I've been to South Carolina -- the one state on the map that currently has no yellow blobs -- and walked into the office of a WISP on Hilton Head island. They were serving residences, businesses, and at least one coffeehouse.... I guess they haven't reported their coverage yet. Again, two thirds of the WISPs out there are still not on the map!

Re:They work well too

[edmicman]

Conversely, I live in mid-Michigan, in a city 20 minutes from the capital and right along an interstate, and have
Cable:
--local cable company that makes Comcast's rates and service offerings look good

DSL:
--AT&T

And then there's dialup if I don't want broadband, and satellite internet if I want to pay $$$ for slower access than the DSL offers.

Granted, I think the Lansing area gets Comcast, and AT&T's UVerse is starting to appear in West and East Michigan, but still. I would think having 7 options for broadband Internet would be a big exception.

Re:They work well too

[noewun]

Yes most people on the east and west coasts have multiple options:

SOME people have options. I live in Manhattan, which means either Verizon or Time Warner owns all the infrastructure underneath me. Because of this I only really have two options for broadband. One is DSL through Verizon or through another provider which leases lines from Verizon and the other is cable through Time Warner or another provider which leases from Time Warner. And, remember, this isn't just a city on the east coast, this is the biggest, most densely populated city in the country in which two corporations control all of my broadband choices and make sure that no matter which one I choose, I will pay a premium for my service.

I actually get my DSL through Earthlink, as I've been with them forever and have had the same email address since ethernet packets were made of steam and pigeons. But I also know that I'm paying ~$40.00 a month for 3.0 Mbps, and that if there were true competition I would have a lot more choice for less money. Now, if I want to ditch my email address and go straight to Verizon I could probably pay less, but I like my email address. And, since there's no competition here my only other choice would be cable, and Time Warner is many things, but a good deal for consumers isn't one of them.

So, while I may agree with you in theory, in practice I know that corporations only give their customers a break when forced to by law.

By the way, if you want fast last mile here, your only choice is FiOS through Verizon. Their installation techs are horrible (I know someone who needed six visits just to get it working), you don't get anywhere near the speeds promised and it's very expensive.

Re:They work well too

[commodore64_love]

>>>Good idea! While we are at it, I think we should run a subway

Strawman argument (poor debating tactic). At no time did I propose running a subway that requires about 30-feet diameter pipe. What *I* proposed is running 4 or 5 cables in parallel, which only requires a pipe 3-4 inches in diameter. The pipe is already there with the Comcast cable, so all you need to do is add Time-Warner, Cox, Charter in parallel. That is a very workable solution to break th back of Comcast's monopoly.

>>>The government owns the roads, the schools...why not let them be responsible for the copper?

Because (1) the government would frak it up, the same way they let a bridge collapse in Minnesota, produce students that cannot find the U.S. on a globe, and so forth. And (2) government provides worse customer service than Comcast. Just visit the DMV sometime, or try to cancel your EZpass (the state of new jersey kept billing me for a year after I turned-in my transponder).

The answer is NOT a monopoly, whether it's comcast or government. The answer is power to the People - stop treating them like imbeciles - and give them multiple choices so THEY can decide which of 5 cable companies they want. Some might choose the cheapest. Others might choose the one with 1000 channels. The point is: WE DECIDE. We hold the power.

That's how it should be.

Re:They work well too

[commodore64_love]

That won't work.

The existing Comcast cable is already "full" from 30 megahertz all the way into the gigahertz range. If you want to add Time-Warner or Cox to consumers' choices, you will need to run a second and third cable. Just snake it in parallel to the existing Comcast line, through the existing metal pipe. Simple.

Re:They work well too

[T-Bone-T]

There is nothing weird about not wanting a land line in addition to multiple cell phones. Everbody that wants to talk to me or my wife have our cell phone numbers and use those. A land line is simply redundant and very limited. I had a land line for a few months after I first moved out and only used it twice. My cell phone was far more convenient.

Re:They work well too

[commodore64_love]

I don't know. Can't he get Naked DSL without the phone service? Isn't that option required by law?

In my case, I have what Verizon calls the "Thrift Plan" which costs just 5 dollars a month, plus 10 cents per call. I don't make many calls, but I keep the phoneline because, in a power outage, the phoneline is the only thing that still works.

>>>that's just your own made up political ranting.

Sorry.

I'm not happy with this stimulus plan. I just heard on CNN that only 3% of the money will be spent this year. The rest of the bill won't take affect until 2010 or 2011, which is entirely too late to help the economy. There's no point in passing it.

I'm also not happy to hear the U.S. printing press has doubled the paper supply since November. In effect, all our paper money has devalued 50%. Today 1 dollar; tomorrow 50 cents. (Of course the paper will still say 1 dollar; but it will only buy half as much.)

Re:They work well too

[Brett Glass]

There's no one price for WISP service. Some are below DSL; some are above but give you more.

Re:They work well too

[Mister Whirly]

That isn't too expensive. I have Comcast where I live, and it is $55 for digital cable (the cheapest package) and another $45 for the internet. No breaks. My cable/internet bill is about $109 after all the BS fees and taxes are calculated. The other options are DSL, which I am not close enough to a switching point to get the speed I want, or the city-wide wireless which I have heard nothing but horror stories about their service, and also would cost $35/month for 6Mb speed, plus the $5/month for their "wireless modem" you need to use their wireless (I know, it doesn't make much sense). So no matter how you slice it, where I live you are paying a minimum of $40-50 per month for broadband internet. That seems like too much to me.

Re:They work well too

[evilwraith]

There's a large difference between the Lowcountry and Upstate. In the part of the state I live in, we're still ruled by a rural-exempt ISP that is the only game in town, even though we're surrounded by areas that Time-Warner, Comcast and AT&T have moved into. Comporium's pricing is unreasonable at best and their service ranges from merely OK to awful. I can guarantee if there was a WISP up here that wasn't chained to Comporium there would be a lot of people that would switch. As for the big-city thing, I'm 15 minutes south of Charlotte. They have it, we don't.

Re:They work well too

[Ihmhi]

as I've been with them forever and have had the same email address since ethernet packets were made of steam and pigeons.

I would question the common sense of a Slashdotter who makes use of an e-mail address tied to his ISP.

I've had the offer to use one from my ISP (since I'm one of their customers, of course), but I always use external sources or ones based off of websites I own.

Re:They work well too

[Brett Glass]

If you're 15 minutes away from a big city, the WISPs there can easily expand into your area. Or you can take the initiative and become a WISP yourself. All you need is a wireless link into the city and a good place to host an access point. One of the benefits of doing this, of course, is that you'll get your own Internet for free. ;-)

Re:They work well too

[mweather]

Simple solution: make it illegal for cable providers to elevate their own video traffic above the likes of Youtube. Let the users decide what gets the bandwidth.

Re:They work well too

[kheldan]

Dialup costs me just $7 plus what my landline costs.
DSL costs me just $15 plus what my landline costs.
How much is the Wireless Service Provider?

There, fixed that for you.

Re:They work well too

[commodore64_love]

>>>Cable:
>>>--local cable company that makes Comcast's rates and service offerings look goo

You see this is why we need to elminate the cable monopolies, and allow 4 or 5 cables to run in parallel. There's no reason why the big fat pipe under your street only hold One cable. It could easily carry 4 or 5 cables, and then you'd have Choice. And more importantly, competition which will reduce rates.

The government should also forbid companies like NBC-Universal or ABC-Disney or FOX from bundling channels. If Comcast wants to buy MSNBC, then they should be able to get *just* MSNBC without being forced to get SciFi, USA, CNBC too. Such forced bundles are anticompetitive, and should be broken-up by antitrust legislation.

Re:They work well too

[Chris Walker]

I'm paying $60 a month for 1Mb/s down and 256Kb/s up. Pretty steep for the speed, but at least I can work effectively from home and VPN works well. It's been pretty reliable, though there are occasional outages for a few hours once every few months.

Re:They work well too

[Anonymous Coward]

WE will never have the power until WE own the cable companies. Otherwise they'll do their best to collude against us. If only there was some sort of, say, representative democracy where we could somehow elect people to manage these things for us... hmmm...

Re:They work well too

[the_crowbar]

South Carolina may have WISP service in areas. The map linked in the article showed none. I went out and Googled for some that serve where I live. I found none for residential service. I did see a couple that stated for businesses only and looked no further into them. I did find one (www.scwireless.net) that serves an area not that far from me, but much farther than what 802.11b/g can cover.

I live in the upstate area (north west corner). The situation on the coast is much different. The company I work for has multiple location in Charleston, Myrtle Beach, and Wilmington, NC. Wilmington is much like where I live because there is one telco and one cable company. Charleston is a better situation. Including the business only ISPs, we can pick from four or more (depending on location). For the exact same service AT&T charges significantly less in Charleston than the upstate.

I wish we had WISP service here. If it was reasonable it could force the other providers to improve service or lower prices or maybe even both.

Cheers,
the_crowbar

Re:They work well too

[commodore64_love]

(blinks)

Wow. Add your cellphone, and you must be paying ~ $160 a month. If I had that bill, I'd probably faint. ----- My combined tv, internet, and cellphone is only $20. TV = $0.00. Net = $15. Virgin cellphone == $5.

Re:They work well too

[commodore64_love]

Dialup costs me just $12 (including landline)
DSL costs me just $20 (including landline)
How much is the Wireless Service Provider?

There, fixed that for you. ;-)

Re:They work well too

[fm6]

In some cases there is shared space on the cable side,

Some cases. Not a lot. I'm surprised there are any. Cable companies are not anxious to support their own competition, and have successfully fought efforts to require them to share their infrastructure. Except, I guess, in some locales, including yours.

Re:They work well too

[Big Boss]

Another one, fiber. You can push more data through a fiber than a coax, it doesn't cost much more to run, probably less if you calculate it per mbit/sec. And you can run a bundle of them at once to get a lot of bang for your buck.

Re:They work well too

[commodore64_love]

I like my solution better. We live in an advanced-technocracy. There's no reason why the pipe under the street should only have 1 television cable inside it. It could easily handle 4, 5, or maybe even 6 TV cables running in parallel.

Not only do I envision a future with 500 channels, I envision a future with half-a-dozen cable companies, all competing to get your business.

Re:They work well too

[SoCalChris]

I pay $105/month for 1.5/512 service, with a static IP. They also offer a 256/256 plan for $25.

Reliability was very poor at first, but I complained enough that they upgraded my equipment (Gave me a powered bridge). Since then, reliability has been every bit as good as when I lived somewhere with access to cable.

Re:They work well too

[Espectr0]

I don't need 10M+ speeds, but it is nice to have if I watch streaming video or other things requiring greater bandwidths. I do not download music and movies illegally, but I do grab iso images of Linux discs regularly. 1.5M would be slow, but meet my needs. Problem is it is $35+/month. I would love to have a WISP available. I live less than 2 miles from a mountain that could service a large city if there was a WISP. I would switch if I had the choice.

It must be nice to have cheap internet. In my country, a 1024kbps adsl connection costs 50$ a month. And that's the highest speed you can get.

It's all relative, isn't it?

Re:They work well too

[mweather]

Fiber is better, but in most cases the coax is already run to the home. The cost difference is huge where the coax line is already run.

Re:They work well too

[mweather]

I envision a future with no channels, just websites streaming media. This goes for the airwaves as well.

Re:They work well too

[Anonymous Coward]

lol... my combined tv, internet, and cellphone costs me exactly $0 (well, pennies, if you consider the electricity it takes to charge my work cellphone or run my wireless card). I don't have a tv, much less cable television; I don't have a landline as I don't see any need for one; my cellphone is provided for me by my job (and I don't make much personal use of it anyway); and I'm usually able to connect to one of a few unsecured wireless networks whose admitted fickleness hasn't yet convinced me to shell out for my own connection.

Now if my old house wasn't so darn poorly insulated... my natural gas bills for December & January were $150 & $200, and I even have one of those high-efficiency furnaces.

Re:They work well too

[cayenne8]

"Problem is it is $35+/month"

$35/month is a lot of money to you to spend??? Are you in college still?

Re:They work well too

[commodore64_love]

>>>Otherwise the cable companies will do their best to collude against us.

Collusion is illegal. Ask the record companies. They were forced by the U.S. DOJ to send everybody $30 refunds when the U.S. caught them price-fixing cassettes and CDs.

>>>WE will never have the power until WE own the cable companies

If that sentence means you think the government should own the cable, than "we the people" will still get screwed because it's the politicians who will run the show & they tend to ignore the People's voice. I'd rather have a Comcast monopoly than an Uncle Sam monopoly, because Uncle Sam's customer service is far, far worse.

>>>representative democracy

So naive. It's more accurate to say we have Monarchs in Congress who just happen to be elected every 2 years. They don't actually listen to us, but instead just do whatever they please. ----- I'd rather have the choice between Comcast, Time-Warner, Cox, and Charter that way I KNOW my voice is being heard because *I* am the one making the choice. I hold the power.

Re:They work well too

[hairyfeet]

Count your blessings. Here in North Central AR, here are your three choices(if you are lucky and live in town, if not it gets worse) and all three suck. There is DSL at $99, there is cable at $150 for the bundle($20 more if you don't want the bundle) and there is WISP, which is $150 to hookup and $100 a month. And if you are two inches past the city limits your choices are dialup at 16k for $45 a month, satnet at $400 hookup and $99 a month with a horrible FAP, and the WISP.

So it sounds like an easy choice, go for the WISP, right? Wrong. The WISP charges $100 a month for 1MBs, but that isn't the worst part. If you use ANYTHING they consider "out of the ordinary(read WinXP with IE6) then they disconnect you for having a "virus and slowing down their network". After having my Xandros Business 4 Linux box disconnected for the 4th time in two weeks for daring to update my packages I went to have a fit and get my money back. Their NETWORK admin told me "all I know is WinXP and Win2K server. If it uses any ports other than that I figure it has to be a virus". Needless to say I got my money back. My sis figures she uses Windows and it was better than dialup, how bad could it be? She lasted a week before threatening to sue and getting her money back because they refused to allow her back on the network thanks to the oldest taking down their ENTIRE network with a malfunctioning Yahoo messenger! Needless to say I LOL!

The moral of the story is this: while everyone thinks it is great the WISPs give new startups a chance to service new customers, realize that with the chance at big money and locked in customers come a lot of lousy network setups. With a big name you may not like their practices, but at least they do understand network protocols and operating systems other than Win2K/WinXP. From those I have been talking to around my home state the WISPs that have set up here give consistently shittier service, with more headaches, and worse they give preferential treatment to certain OSes.

Talking to the local cable and teleco reps it seems as FAPs and caps are being implemented this is happening across the board. What kind of preferential treatment you ask? If you are on an ISP with caps(like I am with cable. Lousy 36GB for $150)_ ask them if Windows Updates count. I bet you will find that NO Windows updates, either automatic or through the manual update count. Now ask if your Linux package updates count. Yep, they do. Just another case where MSFT being the incumbent gives it the advantage. I know that I use to play with a lot more distros and kept my Xandros Business on the network for guests to use, but since getting such a lousy FAP I stay away from Linux. It is simply easier to use Autopatcher which doesn't count since they pull all updates from MSFT servers now, that it is to use up what little bandwidth I have downloading package updates.

I had hopes that the WISP would solve this problem, but as you can read above it was simply worse in every respect. So be glad you have SOME choices that are affordable. Here you get screwed no matter which way you go. That is why I hope Obama does get nationwide broadband rolled out. Even 756k with no caps would be better than what we get here in AR, and from what I have heard many in the rural parts of the south are in the same boat, screwed no matter which way they go.

Re:They work well too

[ByOhTek]

I guess that's surprising. Columbus isn't _that_ big, I figured most people would have more options.

Re:They work well too

[ByOhTek]

Why? Make a central distrib. box. Each company runs to the box, and one line from the box to the house (or one line per media type). If you want to switch companies, someone goes to the box, and switches your connection.

Cheaper and more effective.

Re:They work well too

[jeffmeden]

I prefer the straw man argument to your tactic, blatant ignorance. Probably less than 1 residence in 10 (I know firsthand this is the case for the all the areas I have ever lived in) has this "magic pipe" of which you speak that has tons of room to draw line through. In the rest of the real world, installing another copper run to every single residence would be EXTREMELY cost prohibitive even for a profitable cable tv/internet/phone operation. It would either need to be done 100% aerially (municipalities are extremely sensitive about any new strung lines lately, so good luck there) or you have to trench them (good luck convincing 100 million homeowners that their yards need to be scraped across in order for your "cable tv freedom utopia" to come to pass.) So, considering that this has not ONCE been even considered, and the cable companies would rather go to the pain of wrangling contracts to "share" use depending on the subscriber, what else do you have up your sleeve?

How about Government being "by the people" AND "for the people" for a change, instead of the only argument being we need either "more of the same" or "less of the same". There is no reason municipalities (read, NOT the state or federal gov't) can't be trusted with providing a simple copper service to a subscriber (in this case, their subscriber is the cable co) and in turn the cable co's have to compete to win business on an even playing field.

Re:They work well too

[ByOhTek]

Sounds like the same situation in Toledo.

Except until recently, they didn't have the DSL option.

Re:They work well too

[TheRaven64]

Note also that there are now ICs coming out that support 802.11, WiMAX and HSPDA or LTE on the same die. Within a year or two I expect they will be in a lot of devices, so a WISP can deploy a selection of technologies and use whichever gives the best signal. If you're in a dense urban area you might get an 802.11n signal. Move outside a bit and it could fall back to WiMAX, and then to LTE when you leave town. Mobile IPv6 makes this kind of roaming easy, but it's possible with existing technology.

Re:They work well too

[jeffstar]

What is wrong with $60 a month? How much is your cable TV bill? Your cell phone bill?
You would switch from nice, fast, reliable cable to some hacked together wireless job to save $25 a month?

Re:They work well too

[stupidllama]

damn, i pay that for 15/1 cable, even at peak i only fluctuate between 12 and 15Mb, it ridiculous to have to pay that much for that little. the only outage i have ever had was once when my auto pay screwed up cause i got a new debit card and once a few weeks back when we got a shit ton of snow and apparently an avalanche took out a power station and it cut the fiber, i guess there still learning where and where not to lay fiber in the mountains(northwest Montana), even then i wasnt out just very slow.

Re:They work well too

[__aaqvdr516]

And some, like the only one available in my area, gives me a 768/512 for $65/mo and I also have a 600mb per day limit. Since it is the only one in my area that's what I get to live with. I get by...usually. Right now I'm d/l limited to 350k due to an unattended download that I (accidently) let go. I really can't wait to get something better.

Re:They work well too

[LandDolphin]

I know a guy that lives in the woods that would faint at the thought of $20 a month.

Amazing how different people have different standards of living.

Re:They work well too

[jeffmeden]

As someone who has lived in Columbus for a decade now, I can safely offer you "any kind of internet service provider you want"...

So long as you are willing to move 10-15 miles to get it!

Re:They work well too

[LandDolphin]

Min. Wage is still less then $8/hr. Not everyone is a college Grad, and even some of them are woking at McDonalds still.

Re:They work well too

[zippthorne]

I think part of Obama's stimulus bill should include a requirement for ALL phone lines to be upgraded to DSL

Yeah, 'cause if there's one way to get something done efficiently, it's to separate the guy that's paying for it from the guy he's buying it from by a third party with little accountability.

Re:They work well too

[Anonymous Coward]

I have three options for broadband. Two of them are high-latency satellite providers starting at $60/month; the other is a local WISP for $75/month.

Re:They work well too

[Codex_of_Wisdom]

The one I have is around $10 or so. I know it varies a LOT though.

Re:They work well too

[commodore64_love]

That must be my Amish neighbor.

Re:They work well too

[khellendros1984]

In California, they have diesel power backup for the cell towers. No loss of service during a power outage (provided it lasts under a few hours)

Re:They work well too

[commodore64_love]

(whoosh). I'm not following. Let's see if I can translate. ".....separate the guy that's paying for it (customer) from the guy he's buying it from (Baby Bell) by a third party with little accountability (congress)."

I have to disagree. This approach worked in the 1930s when Congress mandated that all homes should have phones, and added the Universal Access fee to cover it. Congress can use the exact same approach to mandate DSL be routed to any home that requests it.

Re:They work well too

[commodore64_love]

Slight nitpick: Coax doesn't run to the home. It runs down the center of the street, usually underground, and the final ~100 foot is not run until the homeowner requests it.

At least that's the case at my home, which has no TV cable inside. If I wanted to upgrade, Comcast would need to snake the line from the street, through our underground pipe, and finally inside our walls. Alternatively I could choose Suburban Cable. We are fortunate to have *2* cable companies in our area.

Re:They work well too

[commodore64_love]

>>>installing another copper run to every single residence would be EXTREMELY cost prohibitive

Argument negated. I have two cable companies serving my town. Suburban Cable and Comcast Cable. Obviously it IS affordable to run multiple cables, and let them directly compete with one another.

Re:They work well too

[commodore64_love]

+1 insightful.

Most of us are engineers. It's our job to solve difficult problems, not to just give up 5 seconds later and say, "It can't be done." That's defeatism not engineering. I'm glad to see someone is open-minded enough to suggest ways to make it work.

Re:They work well too

[Anonymous Coward]

...I just heard on CNN ...

Well, then it must be true!

Re:They work well too

[Ferante125]

I got a naked dsl plan from at&t and it really sucks b/c they have to come to your home and change the wiring... it took them 2 months to finally do it... 2 months with out internet at home :@ Then it's impossible to use any of the online forms to change the service or pay bills b/c they all require a phone number, which I don't have (I have a cell, but they supposedly need the phone number associated with the dsl plan, which I don't have).

Re:They work well too

[nuintari]

1) DSL is never as cheap as the sticker price, what does your monthly bill actually say after they nickel and dime you? After you factor in the required land line that almost no one wants/needs anymore? My service costs $49.95, and your bill will say that.

2) $14.95 DSL in this area gets you 768kdown/128k up. Whoopdy freaking doo. I use my wireless service at my own home, I'm getting 5mbit down, 1.5 mbit up according to speedtest.net(not hosted locally). Two local cable companies in the area, one can match our download speeds, neither can beat us on upload.

3) The radio itself costs us $250 bucks, and I don't ask the customer to buy it, we just ask that you stick around for at least a year so we can make a little money. Also have to recoup our bandwidth costs, cost of wiring, access points. Contrary to popular belief, being an ISP is not growing money on trees. I do this first because I love it, second because it pays the bills.

1500 installs in 5 years, have yet to remove even 100 of them from service. Most cancellations, the house is sold, and the new residents want the service.

Re:They work well too

[nuintari]

Upgrading existing phone lines is the quickest-and-easiest way to provide broadband to virtually everybody.

See? This is why people who have no clue how something works, shouldn't be allowed to generate policy. You don't even understand how DSL works. But you just KNOW the answer, don't you?

You can't just magically "upgrade the lines" for DSL, the limiting factor of DSL availability is distance from the central office(CO). If you are too far away, sometimes called "being beyond the DSL line", you can attach the line to a DSLAM at the CO, and slap an ADSL modem at the customer's house, and watch it never work all you want. No government mandate is going to fix that. Fringe customers are basically anyone past ~16,000 feet. AT&T has rolled out a 512k/64k service in the area for customers approaching 20,000 feet. Yeah, how do you reach longer with DSL? Make it suck more.

Have a friend, bought a house in the trees, so I can't even help him with 900 mhz(about half my top speed, but can go through some obstruction, yes I work for a WISP. Loop length is 19,000 feet, he gets.... 384k/64k, and regular spikes in latency.

Oh, and building a CO out in the boonies with even a small switch, and its own DSLAM.... yeah, your big LECs won't lose money on that waste of time, they have a history of sidestepping government mandated policies in negative profit areas by selling their coverage to some ultra low budget phone company, who cuts costs by having zero customer support. Why does everyone think that giving them all a ton of money, and saying, "you have to give DSL to anyone who asks" will make them behave any differently? They will sell out of the market to a small bastard company who wasn't in the legislation, and isn't required to sell DSL. They have done this shit before, and they will continue to do this shit. Wow, I got way off track, this issue annoys the piss out of me.

DSL is a cheap hack of a technology, its time to look elsewhere for answers.

Re:They work well too

[nuintari]

I should dig up my, "I work for a WISP, and please, don't give ANY ISPs money" rant. The stimulus package is fucking stupid. The DSL and Cable providers want money, have received money in the past, and have never done anything to extend coverage with it. All us little WISPS are screaming for spectrum, which we believe will be our great equalizer. We don't want money, let our quality service decide how much money we have, its called capitalism.

The big providers do not see a market in rural America. Giving them a ton of money isn't going to change that. I, and my fellow wisps, see great potential, and we are not asking for a dime to help us achieve it. Just give us some spectrum so we can get out of this part-15 roach motel we are forced to operate in right now.

Part-15, look it up. Basically, the crappiest part of the airwaves that no one with tons of money wanted for anything, set aside for public use.

Re:They work well too

[nuintari]

Not all WISPS are members of WISPA either, they may not even be aware of this map. It just appeared on the mailing list a few days ago. WISPA is awesome, great bunch of people, WISPS from Texas helping guys in Michigan out, we exchange ideas on mailing lists, send each other emergency parts when lightning kicks our asses inside out.

Re:They work well too

[nuintari]

No, please don't do this. Don't set yourself up a crappy 802.11 2.4ghz noise factory and call yourself a wisp just to get free internet in the boonies. It is a lot harder than you think, it is a full time job, and if you aren't going to do it full time, all you are really achieving is creating even more noise in the part-15 spectrum.

Re:They work well too

[nuintari]

You don't want service from an 802.11 WISP, 802.11 signaling is great for carrying your laptop around your house, absolutely SUCKS wind when deployed for point to multi point last mile applications.

The Cadillac gear for wisps is Canopy or Alvarion. Both can deliver cable modem, and better speeds, for hundreds of subbies per access point, without degrading performance for all your neighbors. 802.11 wisps tend to be the ultra cheap shops, with the owners doing everything to make a quick buck.

Re:They work well too

[Anonymous Coward]

>>>Upgrading existing phone lines is the quickest-and-easiest way to provide broadband to virtually everybody.

Not really, to use DSL on a phone line you need to be close to the switch. So the phone company would have to add switching stations $$$$ or you would have to move your house (somewhat inconvenient).

The WISP's in my area....

[gandhi_2]

..are pretty good alternatives except the "burst speed" thing. Its like they never heard of CISR or simply oversell bandwidth like every other ISP.

Re:The WISP's in my area....

[Anonymous Coward]

My building has a deal with a WISP. Free internet in the lobby and a pair of APs on each floor above for subscribers. Off peak hours are OK and it's cheap, but generally too congested to stream video or game on. Also, If you download more than 2GB they drop your speed to 128K for the rest of the month.

Lastly, they require a periodic web based login to use the service, so even though I bridged in my LAN to their AP, computers on my LAN often failed to perform late night updates and automated functions, which was too annoying to put up with.

The way they have it set up, it's only a little better than dialup.

Re:The WISP's in my area....

[Brett Glass]

If you have wide open Wi-Fi, it doesn't make a difference if your bandwidth is provided by a WISP, DSL, or cable. It's going to be overloaded because too many people will try to use it or people will try to overuse it and exhaust the bandwidth. The downloaders will have a field day. I would not blame the WISP for the problems you're seeing. It would be like blaming the power company when you plug too many appliances into one circuit and blow a circuit breaker in your home.

Re:The WISP's in my area....

[Anonymous Coward]

Well like I said, the only open AP is in the lobby and while it might get overused, I wasn't using it. Each floor of the building (with ~10 residences per story) has 2 APs that only work for subscribers. Also, each floor provides decent shielding for each AP. I can generally only see APs on the floor above me and the one below in a site scan. So each AP during peak usage might have 5-10 people on it, but it's probably more like 1-2. During peak evening hours the total number of users on the 64 subscriber-only APs in the tower is probably only in the range of 100 systems, as most people are using comcast or AT&T.

It is more likely therefor that the wisp is greatly oversold. Hop 4 on a tracert gives adsl-072-151-107-241.sip.asm.bellsouth.net
Looks to me like they're trying to spread a commercial DSL line a little too thin.

So the analog isn't "me plugging too many things in", it's "me and my neighbors get a brownout when our ACs kick on at the same time".

Re:The WISP's in my area....

[Brett Glass]

If the landlord is paying for the service, then you only have a fixed amount of bandwidth. The "circuit breaker" is upstream of all of you, and it'll trip if you go beyond a certain amount. Very often, a provider who serves an apartment building can let you buy bandwidth that's separate from the "pool" that the landlord is paying for. This would likely be the best solution in your case.

*rubs hands together*

[drunkennewfiemidget]

I look forward to the day when I can tell the incumbent cable provider (Rogers Cable) here in Canada to go fuck themselves with a chainsaw.

Them and their, "we're upping your price for the second time this year", and "you're on our do-not-market-to list, but we'll just send you all sorts of spam and upgrade offers along with the semi-annual price increase letter!", and their overall scummy existence.

Re:*rubs hands together*

[Anonymous Coward]

Kind of a dumb point, but you are a /.er.

At this time you should know at leasat 5 different ways to block that spam as well as how to kill the next jolly roger repair guy and then hide the body to desolve fast. Did not hans teach you a lesson on how (and how not) to handle this? Quit your carping.

Re:*rubs hands together*

[elevtro]

I just did this a month ago. I've been waiting for their service to get at least 2.5 Mbps, which they recently did. I was also waiting for the other cable company to update their digital channels, which they did as well. I called big brother cable and said you suck, since you bought the little service and became this big bloated crap service, I've had the worst consumer experience ever. Your service sucks and now it's time to fire you.

Since that day, I've had a smile on my face. =)

Re:*rubs hands together*

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just switch to a DSL provider like Tekksavvy or Accnac? The speed may not be as good as cable, but the price will be way less and you won't be supporting either Bell or Rogers. I have been on both Bell and Rogers. I am no longer with either and much happier (and richer) for it.

Re:*rubs hands together*

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get the price increase removed. Here's how I did it for the TV price increase (I don't use Rogers horrid internet, I'm a Teksavvy customer, $40 a month for TRUE unlimited):

  - Call Rogers, tell them you need to drop to a lower service plan due to the price increase.
  - CSR will do this.
  - Explain you'll keep doing this as the price increases keep coming until eventually you have no service with Rogers whatsoever.
  - CSR will "see what they can do".
  - "Supervisor" will offer you the same service you've been getting, but will lower your rates by the amount of the increase for 1 year.
  - Repeat each price increase until they won't budge and you actually move your service down a slot, or find someone with better service (ie: TSi).

Re:*rubs hands together*

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll be supporting Bell if you go DSL with Accnac and Teksavvy. They are a Bell DSL reseller, they lease the line from your house to the local CO.

The data is then sent to their network where they their own peering connection.

There are also cable resellers that resell Rogers
Highspeed.

The only difference in price is due to the lower profit margins that these third party ISP make over Bell and Rogers. They can only be successful with a large customer base. Remember CUIC and THT.net? Both died a painful death due to high turn-over when the DSL market opened. I knew something was going to happen with the owner of CUIC started putting up his "toys" on Craiglist. Only a couple of months later, the connection went dead for everyone.

Re:*rubs hands together*

[Phoenixhawk]

I just did that last night (a few times), spent 4 1/2 hours on the phone with Time Warner, My service was with a 15Mbps Commcast, when Time Warner took over it was supposed to upgraded to "22Mbps" however I currently have 3 months worth of logs of speed tests ranging between 3Mbps and 6Mbps and mind you the normal package is 5Mbps.

To make matters worse, Tajji errr I mean Mr. John Smith's little head exploded anytime when I told him anything that wasn't in the same order of his queue card. Tier 1 - Tier 3 I had different names/clones of Johnny, all of which I had to call back and use a reference number because they concept of VoIP.

They also could not understand that if the problem exists using Cisco Catalyst 3750, D-link 4500, and Linksys WRT, the problem was not in the router. I was asked to perform a (tracert -d)without a address (at tier 1 & 2 I really had to explain the concept of how tracert works, before I could get the target they wanted me to hit)

Anyway long story shortened, I got promoted to tier 4 FOUR AND A HALF HOURS LATER (maybe 5 i don't know at this point) who I get the privilege of calling back today.

The story of "I'm Sorry Sir Nothing I Can Do" doesn't fly, because the second they say that, my response is yes there is, you can downgrade me to the basic 5mbps package that I am receiving, and we can start talking about you paying me retroactively for at a bare minimum at least the 3 months I have logs for proving I'm not receiving said service while you bump me to the next tier.

Yes, I really do have 3 months of logs (avg test speeds between 3 and 6, with 3 whole hits coming back 12 and 1 single hit at 21mbps) twice daily (6am est / 11pm est roughly) I would test twice against NY, TX, CA, MI, IL, GA, write my numbers down, complain to myself about it, and postpone calling them until a later date because I knew it was going to be a nightmare again.

Loosing G4/Tech TV and a pair of the kids channels only in the room with the cablebox is why I broke down and let loose the flood gates.

Re:*rubs hands together*

[RicktheBrick]

I recently changed from Verizon to Charter for my phone, television and internet. I was quoted a price of $70 a month but when the first bill arrived it was actually $90 a month as there are about $20 a month in fees and taxes. And that is only for the first year after which it will go up at least $10. I can not believe how expensive 911 calls are. In my case it would be cheaper for me if they charged me a $100 a minute for each call as I use it about once a decade. This is insane as internet and phone services should be a public services just like police and fire. What if they divided the cost of police and fire department equally amongst all of the population? It would be a very regressive tax. I digress here but the same goes for garbage collection as I pay about $10 a bag for it but I do not want to be charged per bag as that gives people incentive to just throw their garbage out in the rural areas and their are plenty of those within a mile of me and I live in the city.

Re:*rubs hands together*

[flyingfsck]

Complaining about Rogers? Gee, you haven't used Telus apparently...

Re:*rubs hands together*

[Anonymous Coward]

You might be able to get WISP from Look Communications, depending on where in Ontario you live. They had pretty good coverage last time I looked, and my parents have been with them for a long time.

Re:*rubs hands together*

[compro01]

I'm personally on Sasktel's wireless here (2M/256K for $60/month or 3M/640K for $300, though the latter one is their business version, which comes with an SLA). Cable and DSL are non-existent here (Tiny village of less than 100 people 15 miles from the nearest city, so anyone with basic math skills can see it's not even close to cost effective.), so there's Sasktel's wireless, 2 or 3 other wireless companies (All of which are slower, more expensive, and restricted in various ways (no servers, transfer caps, etc.), or satellite (Which really isn't even worth considering).

The system Sasktel uses is actually a neat hack of DOCSIS 2. Standard cable modem and headend equipment, just with high gain antennas (24dB dish on my end) and a transceiver assembly (I believe the system runs somewhere in the 2.5ghz band, but I'm not entirely sure).

Re:*rubs hands together*

[jabithew]

I love Britain. My ISP contacts me to tell me they're cutting prices. Only every couple of years, but last time was from GBP24 to GBP18 a month.

So at this rate in six years my broadband will be free. Maybe.

Re:*rubs hands together*

[MilesAttacca]

internet and phone services should be a public services just like police and fire

I have to disagree. The police keep you from getting robbed or shot; the firemen stop your house from burning down (potentially with you inside). In either case they're protecting your life. Phone could potentially be considered a public service, since it's used to contact police/fire/ambulance services, but the Internet? To communicate on the cheap, call people on your phone or write letters; to reap the benefits of free media, check out books, music, and movies from the library. While the Internet is terribly useful, it's not nearly as necessary to your wellbeing as being able to dial 911. Maybe on the day 911 centers switch to e-mail only, but until then, it's a luxury. There are significant alternatives, not any less useful just because they originated in the 19th or 20th centuries.

I love my Internet access, but I believe it's the kind of thing that is worth paying for and that you should pay for. If I couldn't afford service anymore, well hey, a library card is free.

Re:*rubs hands together*

[RicktheBrick]

I do not know why the internet is not better than a phone to contact police and fire and ambulances and so should be considered a public service. One's computer should be able to detect a fire or a break in and automatically notify the proper authority without any human intervention. One's computer should be able to detect any medical problem in its owner and determine, if the owner can not respond, that a call for an ambulance is necessary. Fires in houses without any people at home alone would justify the internet. Would you want your house to burn down because a neighbor's house did and there was no one around to call the fire department. If everyone's house had some kind of burglary protection it would definitely cut down on the number of break ins and would benefit every one. `+

Re:*rubs hands together*

[rcuhljr]

The police keep you from getting robbed or shot

Oh really? good luck with that.

Re:*rubs hands together*

[curunir]

It's not about whether some service is a necessity that could save your life. It's about when having competing services is counterproductive. There was a time in this country where firefighters were privatized. People paid one of the various providers to come and put their house out if it caught on fire. But this is wildly inefficient. It would lead to firefighters sitting idly by as one house burned to the ground because that house was not one of their customers. And when they were dealing with one of their customers, their concern was not for the surrounding houses, at least not the ones that weren't also customers of theirs.

In short, it was insanity and it makes far more sense to have one fire department that protects against everything. There's no need for firefighters to worry about what action they should take in any situation...they just put out every fire that's reported to them. The same goes for police officers...it makes no sense to have any competition in this area. And the same goes for communications infrastructure (not service, just infrastructure). Municipal ownership of fiber or copper infrastructure makes a lot of sense. It allows full competition from any service provider without the insanity that would come from any of the multitudes of communications providers constantly digging up streets or stringing wires on the telephone poles.

If I couldn't afford service anymore, well hey, a library card is free.

Heh...ironic that you see no problem with public libraries. You know, a service that does not protect your life and is probably unused by most people. The argument for having private libraries makes a lot more sense than the argument for having privatized local internet infrastructure. Not that I agree with either argument, since I think libraries serve a definite purpose in providing at least the opportunity for poorer people in society to educate themselves given the poor quality of public schools. But hey, if we're pushing the let's make everything private agenda, why should schools get a pass either?

People in the US are so afraid of the word Socialism that they're completely blind to all the ways in which our society is already Socialist. Full-scale communism may not be the answer, but we really need to learn that we should look at everything on a case-by-case basis to determine whether it makes sense to use a socialized or privatized system. Absolutist thinking is almost always wrong. A more nuanced approach will always be better.

Re:*rubs hands together*

[Anonymous Coward]

The police keep you from getting robbed or shot

You may be right on the other stuff, but you're terribly wrong on this one. The police REACT to a situation. Only rarely are they actually on the scene to prevent a crime from happening.

Next time you're the victim of a crime, try suing the police and see how far you get. You'll be told that the police absolutely cannot guarantee your safety.

Re:*rubs hands together*

[MilesAttacca]

Very good points. I would like to say though, that I think ideally we should consciously pay for certain services, rather than throwing all the money into a tax. If you're gonna use the Internet, pay for the Internet; if you're going to use the library, pay for the library; and be aware that you are doing so, rather than having to go out of your way to figure out what of your cash is going toward what services. (Most people, since they're subsidizing such services from afar, would never have the subject of the destinations cross their mind.)

Re:*rubs hands together*

[drunkennewfiemidget]

Also, I'm too far from the CO to get DSL, so it's not an option for me.

(THT.net was also run by incompetents.)

Re:*rubs hands together*

[drunkennewfiemidget]

The irony of your post is fantastic.

Re:*rubs hands together*

[Anonymous Coward]

Well file system check. There's a funny thing about this. You see over in Ontario, The lines are owned by Bell Canada, and Telus doesn't ofer Internet Services.

Cell phones with Telus over here are considerably more affordable than plans with many other providers, and I get unlimited Cellular internet, with a 2 or 3mbps connection for $15/mo. Which I run into my laptop.

With Rogers cable you're guaranteed +50% or higher more expensive over equivalent DSL plans.

I've heard the horror stories of the Telus monopoly out west, and for this I pitty you.

"This Account Has Exceeded Its CPU Quota "

[Rogerborg]

Yes, the link provides a great advert for the robustness and professionalism of WISPS...

Re:"This Account Has Exceeded Its CPU Quota "

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree! It's easy to hate big companies but they do try to provide a certain standard in service. The web site exceeding it's cpu quote doesn't say much about WISPS ability to handle peak loads.

Re:"This Account Has Exceeded Its CPU Quota "

[AaxelB]

The web site exceeding it's cpu quote doesn't say much about WISPS ability to handle peak loads.

Indeed, it says nothing at all. It just means this poor guy got cheap, shitty hosting with a CPU quota.

Re:"This Account Has Exceeded Its CPU Quota "

[Brett Glass]

The Web site is a hosted blog. It doesn't belong to a WISP.

Re:"This Account Has Exceeded Its CPU Quota "

[Brett Glass]

The blog where the article is posted isn't hosted by a WISP.

Re:"This Account Has Exceeded Its CPU Quota "

[nuintari]

The guy who posted this is on the WISPA mailing list was scrambling to deal with a slashdotting a day before this made the front page. Its hosted off his network, and he keeps paying that host more and more for bandwidth and whatnot, because most WISPS have a DS3 or two as upstream, were all just that small.

Dad has that service

[wiredog]

From these guys. It's purely line of sight, of course, but most of the town is line of sight to the tower. Works very well even in heavy snow, which Cedar gets quite a bit of. An average storm in Cedar would be apocalyptic in London,England.

Re:Dad has that service

[gandhi_2]

The only problem with Infowest is their incomprehensibly, um... "diverse" pricing plans.

Re:Dad has that service

[Entropy98]

For an extra $2 they'll even clean the internet!
 
--
  mafia rpg

Re:Dad has that service

[wiredog]

Incomprehensible? 3 options, with cost directly related to speed,Dad went with the 1.5Mbit. Looks pretty comprehensible to me. Especially compared to the bundles that the local cable and telcos offer where I live. Those require a good spreadsheet ot track.

Re:Dad has that service

[many_apes]

Small world... I work for the Wireless Provider (Sky-View) that operates Infowest's (licensed) wireless service. =)

Re:Dad has that service

[gandhi_2]

Ok, true. I was thinking of their DSL plans.

Re:Dad has that service

[cthulhu11]

I used to live in a rural area. Verizon refused to provision DSL into the local site. Comcast stopped about 2 miles away and refused to even talk about extending. Several WISPs in the area, but yep they needed Line Of Sight. Guess what? Outside of the Great Plains, rural areas tend to have TREES, therefore no LOS short of a 150' mast, which is hardly feasible. I started with ISDN and ended up with a DS1. Until WISPs get spectrum that doesn't require LOS their appeal will be quite limited.

Re:Dad has that service

[Anonymous Coward]

An average storm in Cedar would be apocalyptic in London,England.

A couple of flakes of snow were apocalyptic in London, as we found out last Monday.

I hope

[m0s3m8n]

I hope their service has more head room than the server linked in the summary. /.'ed already.

google cache here

[fatray]

google cache here:
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:Ngzp1j7HI10J:bennett.com/blog/+bennet.com+blog+WISPs&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a

Re:google cache here

[Aladrin]

Are you serious? Did you check out your link at all?

"If you would like to add your WISP to BWE's National WISP Directory, the cost is $250 per calendar year. If you want to update your listing, you'll need to make sure that you have paid the 2007 listing fee. If you have not paid for the 2007 listing, you can do so by clicking here."

They charge for listings and probably don't promote at all, and they haven't updated in 2 years!

I even searched the areas that I've live in recently. Of the 5 or 6 areas I looked at, only the largest had any listings at all. 1 was a dead link, the other sells equipment. It's not even a provider!

Re:google cache here

[Anonymous Coward]

Etowahriver.net is the WISP in my building (Sandy Springs). They sell their basic 1.5Mb service for $15/mo but it's never really that fast. 200-500Kb Down and 128Kb up is typical. They're based in Alpharetta.

Re:google cache here

[jandrese]

I've always considered WISP to be between Cable/DSL and Satellite internet on the hierarchy of ISPs.

Basically, you're best off going down this list and choosing the first one available to you most of the time.

1. Locally provided (University, shared owned connection, etc...) Ethernet type connections
2. FiOS
3. U-Verse
4. Cable/DSL (if you have both then compare the available plans to see which is best
5. WISP
6. 3G Cell service -- But be careful of tight usage caps
7. Satellite
8. Dial Up
9. Carrier Pigeon -- Minor extinction problem left as an exercise to the reader

Basically, you'll tend to have the best price/performance ratios the higher up you are on the tree. Dial Up is pretty competitive price wise, but the terrible speed and medium latency is a real downer.

Re:google cache here

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't appear to do consumer internet, but nice try.

Re:google cache here

[HiThere]

Found one in Oakland/Berkeley, CA area. Costs around the same as DSL, claims to be faster, symmetric, and with static IPs.

Didn't check any further. (I live in a valley, but their coverage map said they covered this area. I bet they need an on-site check to determine, though. Whether they cover or not depends on where their transmitter is. [Even cell phone coverage is spotty.])

More Information

[Anonymous Coward]

So I got to the link provided before it was /.'ed, but all it provides is a fairly inexact map. I didn't see any links on where to go for more information. From the map it looks like I may have this option, but is there a central website where I can find potential ISPs or does anyone have any recommendations?

Good So Far

[deKernel]

Well, I live in the middle of nowhere, and that is my only "high speed" option since I work from home. I have to say that my provider has always been reliable and steady. Last year, the dish started to fill with water, but they came out and replaced it for free.

Poorly done

[iYk6]

That map is pretty much useless. I looked at it, and there are tiny yellow spots in my state of Oregon, as well as every other state. Unfortunately, the cities are not marked, so I can't tell if those yellow spots cover my city or not. Fail.

Re:Poorly done

[genner]

That map is pretty much useless. I looked at it, and there are tiny yellow spots in my state of Oregon, as well as every other state. Unfortunately, the cities are not marked, so I can't tell if those yellow spots cover my city or not. Fail.

I found it usefull. No yellow in SC.
I'm going to go cry in a corner now.

Re:Poorly done

[Brett Glass]

There's no yellow on the map in SC yet, but there are certainly WISPs in SC. I've met two of them. The map is still a work in progress; it's only about one third done yet.

Re:Poorly done

[Da_Biz]

Unfortunately, the cities are not marked, so I can't tell if those yellow spots cover my city or not.
Not so hard to figure out what to do next: http://tinyurl.com/afjvct

Re:Poorly done

[zippthorne]

Well, that's what you get for living in a state that's poorly geographically differentiated. You should move to a squigglier state, like Florida, Hawaii, even Alaska.

Re:Poorly done

[caution live frogs]

It isn't that the yellow circles are not useful so much as it is that even on the interactive coverage map (which you can find here) you can see that an area is covered, but NO indication of which service provider covers that region. My in-laws are looking for home internet service; they don't want to pay for cable and don't have any phone other than cellular. I can see that SOME company covers their home if they went with WISP, but damned if I'm going to spend the next three hours combing through the listings trying to guess which one it is.

(Not to mention it took me a long time just to find the live map in the first place thanks to the horrible page design...)

Re:Poorly done

[BrianWebster]

I'm the author of that map and it was only a static image of the big picture. Here is a link to a Google Map with address lookup capability: http://www.wirelessmapping.com/Google%20Maps3.htm The National WISP Map Initiative is explained here: http://www.wirelessmapping.com/National%20Map.htm And you can search the database for WISP's by state here: http://www.wispdirectory.com/ this is not a complete list but a good start. This whole project was to raise the awareness that broadband in the rural markets is farther along than those in Congress believe and that the Cellular Op's are not the only people doing wireless internet. Less than a week ago this national WISP footprint did not even exist. It's quite a job consolidating and finding all of the independent operators.

Price and Speed suck

[Jackiesaurus]

Yeah, WISPS are great aside from the high prices and slow speed. We have a few carriers around here, installation is generally around $150, plus $60/month for a 512/512 or $100 for a 3M/3M.

My $45/month cable modem for 15M/1M starts to sound pretty good after that.

I've looked at starting my own in another area a while ago but unfortunately the high equipment prices, insanely high bandwidth prices (which you usually need to buy from your competitors), and limitations of the equipment relative to going wired means that to stay afloat you really need to charge high prices like I mentioned for a relatively slim amount of bandwidth. I've also read stories where the plot goes something like "people want broadband, WISP sets up and prospers, cable company sees success of WISP, cable company sets up broadband for half the monthly rate, WISP dies". It's scary stuff considering how much the WISP equipment costs and how long it would take to actually payoff.

All in all, I don't see how a WISP can really survive against the traditional competition. Personally I'm a big fan of municipal fiber, but that's a rant for another day.

Re:Price and Speed suck

[rubycodez]

512kb/s is plenty for people who aren't movie watchers or gamers or P2Pers, for $60 much better than a 28k - 56k phone modem and magnificent compared to nothing at all. A person could even download their distro's CD ISOs with that kind of connection.

Re:Price and Speed suck

[Anonymous Coward]

Find a datacenter with line of sight and roof access to your WISP and use that datacenter's bandwitdth for a fraction of the cost. Charge your customers a low monthly rate that pays your equipment plus a markup on bandwidth used (still cents/GB) and you should have profit.

Re:Price and Speed suck

[mspohr]

I have used a WISP for the past few years because it was the only option. Unfortunately, my experience has been the same... high prices ($60/mo.), slow speed (512/512), bandwidth caps (5 Gig/mo), frequent outages, high latency.

Fortunately, ATT just installed a DSL substation across the street from me (I was formerly 18000 ft from central office) and now I can get their minimal package 1.5/0.5 for $15/mo.

Re:Price and Speed suck

[c]

> I don't see how a WISP can really survive against the traditional competition.

Well, they can't. But, then, what kind of moron is going to target a WISP at a market where they'd go against traditional competition (if you can call the local telco and cable monopolies "competition")?

I'm on a WISP and while the speeds aren't anywhere near the DSL I used to have in town, the only other option where I live is dial-up. On rural phone lines. Maxing out at about 28kbps. If you want to talk about price and speed sucking, I can tell you all about it. I did the dial-up thing for a bit after being on DSL for years, and it's almost bearable if you have a second phone line, a dedicated dial-up server/router, a wireless LAN, and you know how to batch downloads at night.

Well, fuck that. As soon as they stuck their gear on the nearest tower, I was signed up. For maybe $200 installation costs and $50/month (which is about $5 more than dial-up and a second phone line), I get well over 20x dial-up speeds and all I have to worry about is the occasional drop out due to weather and tower maintenance.

If you live anywhere close to a DSL or cable operation, a WISP is a terrible choice. Anywhere else, it's a no-brainer.

Re:Price and Speed suck

[pixelpusher220]

512kb/s is plenty for people who aren't movie watchers or gamers or P2Pers

In which case satellite covers their needs pretty well. You won't get the mobility, but since these are localized areas, you don't have too much mobility in the first place.

The idea is great, but as pointed out, the only place these things work is in places where satellite already exists...with better speeds....for similar prices.

What's the incentive for this again?

Re:Price and Speed suck

[raju1kabir]

Yeah, WISPS are great aside from the high prices and slow speed. We have a few carriers around here, installation is generally around $150, plus $60/month for a 512/512 or $100 for a 3M/3M.

Not necessarily that expensive. I'm using a WiMax provider as a backup for my sometimes-flaky ADSL connection; it's cheap enough that it's worth it in order to be sure I can get online when I need to. $30/month for 1200/500 with 20GB cap (after which the speed drops to 400kbps down for the rest of the month).

It's been more reliable than I expected, even in heavy rain (which we get frequently).

Re:Price and Speed suck

[raju1kabir]

In which case satellite covers their needs pretty well. You won't get the mobility, but since these are localized areas, you don't have too much mobility in the first place.

Have you actually used satellite? It sucks donkey balls for anything other than web surfing and email. Interactive applications, like ssh and remote screen, are painful at best. VoIP is delayed so long you might as well use smoke signals.

Re:Price and Speed suck

[Brett Glass]

WISPs have survived despite the predatory practices of the cable and telephone companies by innovating. I've been doing it for more than 16 years now (my WISP was, as far as I know, the world's first and is now the oldest). As in any other local business, the good ones prosper and the bad ones fail.

Re:Price and Speed suck

[mdielmann]

This is also the perfect side-product for wireless companies. They have the towers, they have the uplink to the network at large, most of the infrastructure is already there. Add in a new antenna, connect it to the network uplink, and all of a sudden you can provide something better than cellular internet access without having to lay down fibre like landline-based providers would have to. For low-population-density areas, it's an easy win, especially if you already have half the hardware in place.

Re:Price and Speed suck

[Reziac]

I pay $35/mo. ($100 to install, and he earned every cent) for my fixed wireless, 1.5Mbit down, 256k up (I think.. I don't use up enough to care). My other option is 26k dialup... rural phone lines won't do any better than that. I know a lot of WISPs figure they've got you by the balls, but this one is trying to compete straight up with DSL, and is even getting some people in town to switch over.

It isn't supposed to suffer from weather dropout, but I've noticed it is sensitive to rain and snow. Fortunately neither is much of an issue here in the SoCal desert.

Re:Price and Speed suck

[pixelpusher220]

Did I say it was a *good* solution? nope.

But compared to what they are describing it does pretty much the same thing and is available anywhere with sky site lines.

Re:Price and Speed suck

[raju1kabir]

My WISP gives me about 50ms more latency than ADSL and otherwise functions exactly the same (actually it's more reliable). It is perfectly suitable for VoIP and similar applications. I don't think that compares to satellite at all.

Re:Price and Speed suck

[rubycodez]

no, latency of satellite is much worse. even for those who don't use ssh it makes async javascript awful in browser.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Astroturfing?

[lseltzer]

Perhaps the post is informative and useful, but y'all should know that Brett Glass [is] a sole proprietor doing business as LARIAT, a wireless Internet service provider in Albany County, Wyoming,

Re:Astroturfing?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worse than that. He's a notorious anti-NN, pro-DPI astroturfer.

If you love your "hacker tools" (ssh, p2p, etc), he's the bad guys.

Re:Astroturfing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, that guy. King of the Astroturf.

Re:Astroturfing?

[fm6]

Astroturfing would be if he had a bunch of bogus users telling us how great WISPs are. (Astroturf == fake grass roots.) The submission is dishonest. When you report on a business, you should state any interest you have in it. And even if you have an interest, it's stupid to simply ignore the downsides of the technology you're trying to promote — especially on Slashdot, where the technerds will tear you apart.

Re:Astroturfing?

[Erskin]

Reviewing the Network Neutrality Squad mailing list (http://www.nnsquad.org/archives/nnsquad/maillist.html) supports the above statements archives also shows a certain propensity for vitrol.

Re:Astroturfing?

[Brett Glass]

It seems to me that the poster above is the one who is showing a propensity for vitriol.

Re:Astroturfing?

[Anonymous Coward]

*sigh*

While I don't doubt that you've probably inspired some vitriol, you've earned it by being so intellectually dishonest.

How can you expect goodwill from nerds and people who make their living on the web, when you seem to be on a crusade to allow ISPs to enforce whitelists of applications that customers are allowed to use?

Or how about your "7 Principles", in which you state that ISPs only disclose usage policies in a quid pro quo for your right to inspect every packet for "obfuscation", by which you presumably mean proxies and encryption protocols (which many of us need for very legitimate reasons)?

Or that you justify interfering with your customer's traffic because you think that p2p uses are "usually illegal"?

(These questions are rhetorical, obviously.)

In short, you would inspire less "vitriol" if you were just honest about your agenda.

Re:Astroturfing?

[Brett Glass]

Actually, it is you who seem to be on some sort of crusade. I'm 100% honest, intellectually and otherwise, about my practices and beliefs, and they are not what you say.

Re:Astroturfing?

[Anonymous Coward]

In order...

1. July 20th, 2008 letter to the FCC regarding Comcast:

   [...] Of particular concern is the clause which states that users must be allowed to run the "applications of their choice" on the Internet, regardless of what those applications do.

2. From "Seven Principles":

   No obfuscation. Just as Internet providers should be required to disclose their terms of service and network management policies, implementors of software — in particular P2P software — should not attempt to obfuscate the presence or use of their products.

3. From comments to the FCC in February 2008:

   Like most ISPs (including Comcast), we also prohibit residential users from operating network servers — including repositories that distribute files within (usually illegal) file "sharing" networks.

   Additionally, from prepared remarks for the FCC en banc hearing on network management at Stanford on April 17th, 2008:

   There are other problems with P2P as well. It congests networks, degrading quality of service for other customers. It exploits known weaknesses in the TCP/IP protocol -- which became obvious when I was here at Stanford but have never been adequately fixed -- to seize priority over applications such as voice over IP that really need priority. And it's mostly used for piracy of intellectual property -- something we can't condone.

Be reasonable. There is a chance (though I think it is slim) that you could bring people over to your side regarding network neutrality, but only on the merits of your ideas.

What I'm doing here is something short of a crusade, really. There is no equivalence between what I am doing now and what you have done: I'm not shopping propaganda on the web and misleading people. However, until you stop this nonsense, I will remind people of who you are every time you submit astroturf to slashdot. You can call that a crusade if you like.

If you became a good web citizen, I would have no problem with you expressing your ideas (although I think they are wrong).

Re:Astroturfing?

[Brett Glass]

Gee. I'm revealing my true identity, but you're hiding behind anonymous postings (which are off topic, by the way; endless "network neutrality" debates belong elsewhere) and launching bogus ad hominem attacks in which you quote me out of context. Please quit trolling.

Re:Astroturfing?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you really think you've found a troll, please quit feeding it.

This Account Has Exceeded Its CPU Quota

[mbone]

That didn't take long. Slashdot strikes again.

$0.002 != 0.002c

[athlon02]

I know there are plenty of people who have trouble with calculus and other higher forms of math. But, it's scary to think that the difference between $0.002 and 0.002c is well understood!

No wonder the guy posted the phone call on YouTube.

Re:$0.002 != 0.002c

[athlon02]

I know there are plenty of people who have trouble with calculus and other higher forms of math. But, it's scary to think that the difference between $0.002 and 0.002c is well understood!

No wonder the guy posted the phone call on YouTube.

Doh... I'm going to be my own grammar nazi...

...is NOT well understood!

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Worst map ever

[T-Bone-T]

Which WISPs serve my coverage area? Is it even more than one?

Re:Worst map ever

[BrianWebster]

I'm the author of that map and it was only a static image of the big picture. Here is a link to a Google Map with address lookup capability: http://www.wirelessmapping.com/Google%20Maps3.htm The National WISP Map Initiative is explained here: http://www.wirelessmapping.com/National%20Map.htm And you can search the database for WISP's by state here: http://www.wispdirectory.com/ this is not a complete list but a good start. This whole project was to raise the awareness that broadband in the rural markets is farther along than those in Congress believe and that the Cellular Op's are not the only people doing wireless internet. Less than a week ago this national WISP footprint did not even exist. It's quite a job consolidating and finding all of the independent operators.

Your Mileage May Vary

[lazarus]

My experience has been quite the opposite of the story summary. I've been on a line-of-sight wireless connection for two and a half years now, with two different providers and two different frequencies (900 MHz and 2.4 GHz). I have found the service to be slow and unreliable, and I live on farmland (no trees, mountains, large buildings, etc. To get in the way). The most I can say about my current provider is the service sucks less than the first one. In that case it was so bad I was able to get out of a 3yr contract.

The speed (as mentioned in a previous post) is very slow - VPN access to the office is *just* do-able, but don't try to do anything else at the same time. You can play on-line games such as WoW and Eve without much trouble from a latency standpoint, but having your link go down is not fun.

I have an unlimited cellular data plan I keep as a backup and I am working with my local council to get better broadband penetration in my area.

Re:Your Mileage May Vary

[CopaceticOpus]

Just a tip. If anyone out there has established a line-of-sight wireless connection, but then finds trees, mountains, large buildings, etc. getting in the way, something has gone terribly wrong. You are either experiencing a severe earthquake, or your house is being towed.

I suggest that you gather more data by looking out the window.

Re:Your Mileage May Vary

[djh101010]

My WISP (in south-eastern Wisconsin) is absolutely horrible. They've improved over the last 6 months to lousy, to be fair, but there are problems - some fixable, some not.

They're a small shop. So small that at 6:00:00 PM on weekdays, the phones go into "Hello, we're closed" mode. Even for the support number. Of course, they have second shift techs doing things, like upgrading firmware on my personally owned "paddle" (without notifying me or seeing if I was using it), which several times ended up with a dead paddle and the tech just leaving it for tomorrow. With no way of getting ahold of them (see previous re: phones off).

The billing folks have a hard time with understanding credit card expiration dates, and when I asked them for a paper bill, twice, I got nothing. Months later, at 8:30 at night, my link went dead. No phone of course, because the support folks are working but don't answer the phone. So next day, I call them up, they're all bitchy because I haven't paid my bill. "What bill! Fine, you have my credit card number on file, change 2008 to 2011 on the expiration date and resubmit. Like I told you 4 months ago." 2 days later, I got my 2 bills from them, both postmarked the day I paid by credit card over the phone. Oh, I could go on but one last thing - the on-hold music is the same song, on a loop. Remember "Goody Two-shoes" by whoever the fark that was in the early 80s? Yeah, that. Over and over and over. Complete with gratuitous splice at neither the beginning, nor end, of the song, looped.

I am looking forward to 3G coverage reaching my area. It's slower but, I bet if I call Verizon or whomever because something is broken, they'll at least answer the phone.

Re:Your Mileage May Vary

[fm6]

your house is being towed.

I hate when that happens!

Re:Your Mileage May Vary

[clone53421]

Ugh. Wouldn't that require coming out of the basement?

Acronyms and Assumed Knowledge

[necro81]

I'm going to put in my grumpy old man dentures and rant on for a moment:

For f$ck's sake, if you are submitting an article with an acronym in it, expand it the first time so that everyone knows what the hell you are talking about. This goes not only for slashdot, but for articles in all technical venues. In some tight technical circles, some assumed knowledge and common language can be expected, but /. is a broad audience, and not everyone knows at first glance what a WISP is. This is specially true when used in the context of an article that is probably introducing it to people for the first time.

Re:Acronyms and Assumed Knowledge

[canajin56]

The summary says "WISPs - terrestrial (not cellular or satellite) Wireless broadband Internet Service Providers". For fucks sake, if you're bitching about a summary not explaining an acronym, at least read the summary. Granted it's not until the second sentence, but it's still there. Wireless ISP. WISP.

Re:Acronyms and Assumed Knowledge

[Evildonald]

Agreed! The editors should be editing. Failing that, there must be plenty of editors who would like a chance to do their job.

Re:Acronyms and Assumed Knowledge

[StikyPad]

Christ, I'm sorry. I thought everyone knew that WISPs are ghostly lights sometimes seen at night or twilight, especially over bogs. The story is that they can now be used for internet access instead of just frightening children.

Re:Acronyms and Assumed Knowledge

[electrosoccertux]

The summary says "WISPs - terrestrial (not cellular or satellite) Wireless broadband Internet Service Providers". For fucks sake, if you're bitching about a summary not explaining an acronym, at least read the summary. Granted it's not until the second sentence, but it's still there. Wireless ISP. WISP.

Gosh, slashdotters these days...it is expected that nobody would RTFA...but now they don't even RTFS?
GP's UID is lower than mine, he really should know better. :)

TekSavvy

[mrops]

TekSavvy, THE best ISP I have had in a long time. Everything is upfront, they do not throttle (though those on slashdot may have heard that Bell is throttling all ISP that go over their lines, bitches). You can get their 200GB/mn or unlimited (true unlimited). Static IP addresses for 3$/mn, MLPPP. Love their tech support, one of the few companies where using "tech" is justified.

If you can't get DSL, tough luck. TekSavvy does provide WISP in certain areas.

Re:TekSavvy

[Jorophose]

The only problem is that it is pricier if you're doing Rogers Internet+TV (and possibly because we have two cell plans).

But then again, it's only 30$/mo for 5mbps. I'll have to see how much we've being charged for Roger's service, but considering we have to rent the modem under rogers, if Teksavvy is stuck for a long time, you see the prices stabilise after a year.

Where they really grind my gears, though, is with cable TV. 61$ a fucking month for channels that used to come with the basic plan. At least the dirtbags have the decency of keeping the first 70 or so analog. I'm worried about what's going to happen if they decide to go all-digital: would that kill off any chance of using a mythbox?

Kinda lame...

[rgviza]

I looked into Xohm, the one in my area. Verizon beat their monthly deal at 3Mbps, and has free equipment sorry to say (Xohm's is $40-90). It's funny. Since their physical infrastructure costs so much less you'd think they would try to be competitive :-/

meh

It'd be nice to be wireless but I have so much better stuff to do than to get any use out of a wireless MAN. My laptop never leaves my desk at work.

-Viz

Cellular was the answer for me

[Gramie2]

There is a WISP in my area, but their service guy said that he couldn't get a clear enough signal from my roof. If I put up a 40-foot tower, I *might* be able to get it (people down the road do). Aside from the tower, that would be about $300 installation and $60/month, with a maximum speed of about 3Mbps download.

Turns out that I can get on the Rogers cell phone 3G network. The bandwidth is limited (1GB/month for $30, 3GB/month for $60), but I can live with that. There was no installation fee (wireless USB stick was free with 1-year contract) either.

Re:Cellular was the answer for me

[blackest_k]

Pity they can't get the people down the street to act as a relay, perhaps even offer them free access so a few more homes got access at normal rates.

Re:Cellular was the answer for me

[fm6]

Your upfront costs are horrendous, but $60 for 3 megabits is actually pretty good compared to most DSL services.

Re:Cellular was the answer for me

[VisceralLogic]

Your upfront costs are horrendous, but $60 for 3 megabits is actually pretty good compared to most DSL services.

Maybe if it's 3Mbps symmetric, but when I was with AT&T they were charing about $30/mo for 3Mbps download.

Re:Cellular was the answer for me

[fm6]

When I was with AT&T, that's about what I paid. But every time I had to deal with them, it was a nightmare. After the umpteenth snafu, I decided my sanity was worth an extra $15/month for Speakeasy.

Re:Cellular was the answer for me

[Brett Glass]

Towers are handy things. If I were you, I'd put one up so that I had a choice of services. They are not expensive, especially when they're erected beside a house (which makes the job a bit easier).

"Nationwide coverage"

[Huntr]

That blurb in the summary about showing their "nationwide coverage" makes this seem a lot more widely available than it really is. As the image in the linked article show, 750k sq mi isn't shit, particularly when the primary areas this purports to service, those who live out in the boonies, are barely covered at all. Good to know you can get this kind of service in such remote areas as Sacramento, Ca, Dallas, Tx, Atlanta, Ga, and Chicago, Il. Further, as stated above, the submitter and article author owns a fricking ISP that provides WiFi in Wyoming. This is the worst kind of misleading advertising masquerading as news on Slashdot.

Re:"Nationwide coverage"

[Isarian]

I used to work for a WISP in southeastern WI with coverage in areas that cable/DSL wouldn't touch across three counties. They used Motorola Canopy (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canopy_(wireless) and had great success with it. Canopy offers different frequency radios - their 2.4 and 5.2 GHz radios were great for residential in open areas but are LOS-only. 900 MHz radios filled in the gap for that somewhat, but because of high noise floor in that frequency range they were much more prone to interference/high latency. Especially since 900 MHz phones (or as we discovered 5.8 GHz phones, which actually include a 900 MHz backup transmitter), are quite common and resulted in quite the radio ruckus at the end user's site and a lot of wasted field service time.

Re:"Nationwide coverage"

[Brett Glass]

Actually, WISPs cover more homes throughout the United States than DSL and cable combined. My WISP specializes in covering rural users who are 10 to 20 miles farther out than these services reach. And yet, we also get many customers in the city who have both of the other options; they just don't want to deal with the phone or cable company. This is proof that our service is competitive; if it weren't, these users could switch in a heartbeat. But they love us. No, WISPs don't cover every nook and cranny of the United States -- yet. But we're the only economically feasible way of reaching many of them, and we're growing to reach them. If the government abandons policies that favor the big guys and present obstacles to us, we'll get there quicker. For example, a little spectrum that wasn't overcrowded by consumer devices would be nice.... See the article for a proposal on this.

Re:"Nationwide coverage"

[Brett Glass]

Thank you for your, er, kind words. The purpose of posting the link to Slashdot isn't advertising; it's to raise awareness. Most people don't realize that they have alternatives to the cable companies and telephone companies.

As for coverage: WISPs cover more of the area of the US than cable modem and DSL combined; we also serve more of the population. And we're growing as fast as we can to cover more. But most WISPs are self-financed and not public companies, so folks have to know about us and patronize us before we can build out.

Re:"Nationwide coverage"

[djh101010]

Was it Netwurx? Are they as farked up internally as they are as seen by a tech-savvy customer point of view? I can't wait for 3G in my area so I can dump them. The killer is how they have techs doing work in the evening (like updating my paddle, and shutting off my service because billing is hard, but terminating accounts for nonpayment is not), but those techs don't answer the support number. So my stuff breaks, and I can't even leave a message, I just get the "Call back when we're not closed" message on the phone. It's like they took a customer-service class but they took the "Don't do this" page and thought it was advice on how to set up their support structure. The techs were good if I could actually get to one, though, so there's something.

Re:"Nationwide coverage"

[Anonymous Coward]

I "see" you point, but I use a WISP in Grand Junction, CO where the population is only 150k for the entire Grand Valley, not exactly urban by anyone's standards. There are enough potential customers (who are unhappy with the crummie Qwest-DSL or local cable ineptitudes) to justify the capital investment required to set up shop here. It's the last bit you fail to acknowledge, after all this a crapitalist society... %-)

It's not the greatest service I've ever used, and ironically, when it's not inclement weather, atmospheric inversion or some auto-updating software responsible for a slow-down on my end, it's Qwest's back-bone that seems to be at the heart of my consternation.

Until there's a realization that societies should be evaluated, in no small measure, by the treatment they mete out to their "least" the definition of inequity will be left to the big-brained carnivores of the world.

  --- Clearly, "Love your Neighbor as Yourself" hasn't reached the status of a mainstream, as yet.

Oh, and BTW it's not even an American company bringing wireless "broadband" to this slice of the rural U.S.

Re:"Nationwide coverage"

[Brett Glass]

Your WISP used to be an American company. It sold out to a Japanese one several years ago, as I recall.

Re:"Nationwide coverage"

[Danny Rathjens]

The purpose of posting the link to Slashdot isn't advertising; it's to raise awareness.

Main Entry: advertising Function: noun Date: 1751 1 : the action of calling something to the attention of the public

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/advertising
This reminds me of those solicitors walking by "no soliciting" signs pretending they don't know what soliciting means.
Welcome to my "foe" list. Now we just need a feature to block article submissions by money-grubbing, dishonest scum like you abusing our system.

Re:"Nationwide coverage"

[Brett Glass]

Nope, the "money grubbing, dishonest scum" are the big monopolies. We're the good guys.

Re:"Nationwide coverage"

[mr_stinky_britches]

you scumbag. foe'd.

Re:"Nationwide coverage"

[BrianWebster]

I'm the author of that map and it was only a static image of the big picture. Here is a link to a Google Map with address lookup capability: http://www.wirelessmapping.com/Google%20Maps3.htm The National WISP Map Initiative is explained here: http://www.wirelessmapping.com/National%20Map.htm And you can search the database for WISP's by state here: http://www.wispdirectory.com/ this is not a complete list but a good start. This whole project was to raise the awareness that broadband in the rural markets is farther along than those in Congress believe and that the Cellular Op's are not the only people doing wireless internet. Less than a week ago this national WISP footprint did not even exist. It's quite a job consolidating and finding all of the independent operators. This was an all volunteer project. Brett was not involved other than submitting his own WISP network coverage as part of the map.

Re:"Nationwide coverage"

[Buelldozer]

Holy crud, did you really just accuse the guy of a slashvertisement trying to sell WISP service to Albany County Wyoming?

My sides are splitting I'm laughing so hard!

The population of Albany County, Wyoming, is a MASSIVE 32,014 people. Brett could be the only person IN his county who reads Slashdot!

The idea that he's using /. for marketing is ludicrous.

I'm in Natrona County, Wyoming. We have 3 WISPS here. Wyo.com, Alluretech, and another one I've forgotten. They're useful. I have customers within city limits of Casper, which is the second largest city in the state, who can't get DSL or Cable. (Thanks Qwest and Bresnan).

Here in Wyoming raising the awareness of the existence of WISP is a good thing. It can very easily be the only alternative to dialup.

FWIW I do not know Brett. My defense of his article is based solely on the preposterous nature of your slashvertisement claim and my personal experience living in the sticks.

Re:"Nationwide coverage"

[Brett Glass]

The third WISP that's doing business up there would have to be either VCN or TribCSP. TribCSP, like AllureTech, is local. By the way, if Casper, a town of about 50,000 souls, has 3 WISPs, it's easy to comprehend how widespread they are in the rest of the country. As for "slashvertizing:" Yes, I think it's odd that anyone would accuse me of that. True, I'm a WISP, but I eat my own dog food (that is, I use my own service). And because I know it from the inside out and have been doing it forever (as far as I know, I was the first WISP), I know that it's really something that I could recommend to everyone. Getting folks broadband when they couldn't otherwise get it is my passion and my mission.

Do your research

[Tinfoil]

Depending on the technology, there are many things to consider before jumping into bed with a WISP. I get my service from an ISP with a wireless division, though it's not their core business. From my understanding, the technology used is a mix of 900Mhz and 2.4Ghz, depending on distance & line of site. The closer and clearer the LoS, the more likely they will put up a 2.4Ghz antenna. Otherwise, it's 900Mhz. Often it requires mounting on an antenna tower, unless it's cellular based.

Problems I've had with it are mostly related to bandwidth saturation. Quite often these wireless PoPs will be piggybacking on one another to a central location, so unless it's properly provisioned, be prepared to be frustrated. Also, many times the WISP will put their tower on a pre-existing structure and depending on security situations, they may not be allowed to go on-site unless the owners of the property are also on-site. Think places like central grain storage co-ops and the like.

My connection is a pretty poor value. I pay roughly CDN$70 for a connection that is, at most, 1Mbit. The upside is that it is synchro, so while my downstream is pretty low, my upstream is better than most. Ping times are all over the place, but that is more a function of an over-subscribed service than anything else.

Cellular based technologies are available here, but the caps are dangerously low with overages being charged at a pretty obscene rate. And it doesn't work with my pre-existing router, which is a big negative for me. Rogers Wireless is I think $25 a month, but that's for only 500MB if memory serves. I can't verify this at present since the Rogers website sucks hairy arse.

Re:Do your research

[kindbud]

And it doesn't work with my pre-existing router, which is a big negative for me.

Wireless bridge to the rescue: http://www.cradlepoint.com/products/cba250-cellular-broadband-adapter

Maybe if done right...

[NeoSkandranon]

I used to work for a dialup ISP that broke into the wireless market--fair enough, it was a rural area with no prospects at the time for DSL or cable.

Too bad it was hilly and heavily forested. Service calls got real interesting once people who had great signal in the dead of winter had all the trees on their property burst into leaf.

Besides that, they crammed all their customers onto a pair of T1s (the connection was unimpressive in performance to say the least) which brings me to another question--in an area where there aren't any wired broadband options I'd assume getting an optical backbone might not be feasible, so are these WISPs using banks of T1/T3s to get to the rest of the world?

line of sight

[socsoc]

Aren't WISPS line of sight? My metro area has a few offerings, none of which I can get. Yay Comcast and AT&T...

Re:line of sight

[Brett Glass]

WISPs are not always "line of sight." They use different radio technologies, some of which require a line of sight and some of which do not. Check with the provider.

Re:line of sight

[Anonymous Coward]

Not necessarily.
Some WISPs use 900MHz gear, it goes thru foliage to some extent. But might have problems with other 900MHz spectrum usage.
The new tv whitespaces is perhaps the solution, that provides many open channels, and should go for several miles even thru dense foliage.
Also, 3.65GHz opened up late 2007, that allows higher power, which might work for some NLOS (non line of sight).

Find a WISP in the U.S.?

[Dekortage]

This seemed useful...

Re:Find a WISP in the U.S.?

[BrianWebster]

I'm the author of that map and it was only a static image of the big picture. Here is a link to a Google Map with address lookup capability: http://www.wirelessmapping.com/Google%20Maps3.htm The National WISP Map Initiative is explained here: http://www.wirelessmapping.com/National%20Map.htm And you can search the database for WISP's by state here: http://www.wispdirectory.com/ this is not a complete list but a good start. This whole project was to raise the awareness that broadband in the rural markets is farther along than those in Congress believe and that the Cellular Op's are not the only people doing wireless internet. Less than a week ago this national WISP footprint did not even exist. It's quite a job consolidating and finding all of the independent operators. This was an all volunteer project.

My sob story

[Camaro]

I live on a farm in a very rural area of southern Saskatchewan, Canada. A year ago I heard a wireless provider (a private company) was lighting up a tower nearby so naturally I was pretty excited about getting a high speed internet connection finally. I'd been on dialup and didn't want to go the satellite route (for all the usual reasons). I'm about eight miles from the tower and could see the flashing light on top at night. Unfortunately I learned the antenna on the tower was installed only half-way up the tower...and at that height it was behind some hills...which means no line-of-sight! To rub it in even more our phone company called to sell us DSL by mistake and swore up and down that we could get it despite being seven miles from the nearest town.

So here I am on satellite and at times wish was still on dialup. $55/month for 512k sat. It would have been $45 for 1.5Mb wireless. Our phone company (SaskTel, a government-owned company) also operates wireless towers but despite one of their cell towers being about five miles away (and fully visible to me) they haven't yet put an internet transmitter on it. There's some hope they will in the not-to-distant future though.

Re:My sob story

[Anonymous Coward]

You just need your own tower, tall enough to see over the hill... :)

Or you could get a repeater installed on the hill.

false dichotomy between cable and dsl

[buddyglass]

While cable does have a higher performance ceiling, at the most common price point for cable there is a comparable DSL alternative that is the same speed. At least, where I live there is. The "standard" cable package is 7 Mb/s for $40/mo. The "premium" DSL package is 6 MB/s for $35/mo. So unless you're paying extra for "premium" cable, you could do about as well with DSL.

Chick magnet

[Zolodoco]

If the vast majority of the action shots on SpeedNet's website (http://www.speednet.com/index.html) are any indication, hot women dig it as they must also dig surfing online with their laptops on the floor.

Re:Chick magnet

[Leebert]

Wait long enough and you'll see dogs enjoy it too.

Interesting map.

[PMuse]

Of particular interest are eastern Idaho, western Nebraska, southern Utah, northeastern Indiana, and northern lower Michigan. What are those -- the most populated areas that the major carriers are underserving?

Re:Interesting map.

[miniskunk]

Rural areas can often be best served cheaper by wireless than wired so it makes sense such areas would have service. In fact my area, which is rural, has wireless though missing from the map.

/.'ed

[Dishevel]

But my favorite part is down near the bottom of the text where it says.

Using static .html documents instead of painful .php scripts will practically eliminate CPU usage.

Looking at the coverage in Texas...

[TheHawke]

Is rather massive in comparison to the rest of the Union, with the exception of Georgia.

This tells me how much the state has let the telecoms allow the state's infrastructure to rot.

Re:Looking at the coverage in Texas...

[butchersong]

Or it could be that my state of Texas has for the most part very flat terrain and is the second largest state in the union behind Alaska making it an ideal candidate for wireless. We also have very friendly policies for small/startup businesses and you cant even compare population densities between Texas and most of the other coastal states.

Thats the one thing they can do

[anexkahn]

I would say being able to differentiate between penny's and dollars is probably the thing they do best :)

I am a WISP POP; and it..

[Anonymous Coward]

Provides a much needed service to my nieghbours. I have a 50 foot free standing tower from my Ham Nerd days that I use for terrestrial TV. I located a small line of sight company a few miles away and we have slowly build a install base. I now have 2 omni, and 2 yagi antenna on the tower. We can sustain 6 megs down and 1 meg up; using off the shelf enterprise wireless kit. 900 and 2.4 MHZ.

My hardware is not too difficult to maintain but the initial buy in for the end user scares a few off. Additionally; once infected one customer can start to eat up a large amount of bandwidth. (Bandwidth is shaped coming back from the cloud, but uncontrolled from the client back to the POP)

All in all; it beats the pants off of dialup and can match most cable installs.

The physics in my area....

[Ostracus]

"It would be like blaming the power company when you plug too many appliances into one circuit and blow a circuit breaker in your home."

But, but, they promised me an unlimited connection.

I love my WISP connection!!!

[char70ger]

I live in rural Texas just south of Houston. I have had my WISP service for a year and a half now. Before that my only option was an aircard. We home school our kids and I have a 10 machine network. This WISP service has been far more than adequate for my needs. I get a real 3 meg down and a full 1 meg up. The price is 45.95/month. On most weekends my 4 boys and I, that makes 5 people, play medal of honor on line and never have an issue with speed and there is no lag or issue associated with our connection. It works in any weather and I have never experienced an outage. Following hurricane IKE we were with out power for 18 hours, one of the lucky ones, and when the power came back on the internet was still working. We were in the eye wall of IKE for the duration of the storm as well. I am only 22 miles from Galveston. I am sold on my WISP service.

Or roll your own for a few bucks

[Bearhouse]

Long-range wifi with consumer stuff can work.
I built one for giggles (USB wifi key on old sat dish) and picked up my home signal from miles away... Wife promptly banned me from surfing web during family picnic :(

Many sites with 'how tos', for example here:
See here, for ex: http://www.engadget.com/2005/11/15/how-to-build-a-wifi-biquad-dish-antenna/

People have claimed for than 125 mi LOS with bigger stuff.

All you need is a friend in line of sight with broadband. (OK, a big 'if' in hilly country, but you can always hide a passve repeater in a tree on top of a hill. Again, see instructions on web)

New Brunswick's plan is based on WISP coverage

[Taeolas]

Recently the New Brunswick provincial government signed a deal with XPlornet for province wide High Speed (well mid speed) internet access by 2010. Most of it is going to be provided with Wireless towers (@45$CAD/month) with the rest provided by Satellite (@49$CAD/Month). My parents use them (back when they were Aernet), and are generally satisfied with the service. It's faster than dialup but still somewhat sluggish, and they rarely have connection problems. Were Rogers or Aliant to decide to finally head out their way, they'd switch in a heart beat, but for now the WISP satisfies their 'net needs.

We are here! We are here! We are here!.....

[Brett Glass]

No one is "astroturfing." WISPs have gone unnoticed for far too long on the national scene, and it's time to make them known as a viable alternative to the big cable and telephone companies. WISPs are the real grass roots; mine is locally run, locally operated, and not a franchise or chain. Think of us like the Whos in "Horton Hears a Who" -- we're shouting, "We are here!"

Re:We are here! We are here! We are here!.....

[Anonymous Coward]

...compound advertising on slashdot, that's appropriate.

Re:We are here! We are here! We are here!.....

[Anonymous Coward]

If your post had said you run a WISP, it would have been a lot more credible. Because, frankly, it sounded a lot like an advertisment masquerading as advice.

Your Towage May Vary

[Ostracus]

Just a tip. If anyone out there has established a line-of-sight wireless connection, but then finds trees, mountains, large buildings, etc. getting in the way, something has gone terribly wrong. You are either experiencing a severe earthquake, or your house is being towed.

I suggest that you gather more data by looking out the window.

Considering the mortgage default rate, I'd say the latter.

They work well too:Digital Drugs.

[Ostracus]

"I don't need 10M+ speeds, but it is nice to have if I watch streaming video or other things requiring greater bandwidths. I do not download music and movies illegally, but I do grab iso images of Linux discs regularly."

"Hi I'm The_crowbar and I'm a Linux ISO addict."

Re:They work well too:Digital Drugs.

[the_crowbar]

Maybe I am an ISO addict, but every 6 months Ubuntu comes out with a new release and I try out the betas as well. It is nice to have them download in only a few minutes. I also keep bittorrent open so others can get them quickly as well.

Cheers,
the_crowbar

Wisp experience in quebec

[dieu1979]

Im personnally a WISP in Quebec Canada. I install in 2006 some wifi network in Cameroon. And when i return back i decide to offer the service here where is not available or where the service is really poor. I got some village that switch from dsl to me because the dsl service is terrible. I was not thinking make a lot of money on this but it's more a defy then anything. I see some wisp that share their cable modem to offer high speed. You cannot get a good result with this kind of access. Be a wisp is the hardest ISP business. You have to play with the nature of signal , temperature , obstacle and noise when you use public channel + all other problem other isp can confront. If you like trouble start WISP. But for me is perfect. I like trouble :) and is paid off by the smile of every client i connect.

As someone who worked in a WISP

[transporter_ii]

We only did good in areas without DSL. If you couldn't get anything else, wireless is far better than a satellite.

However, if an area we serviced suddenly got DSL, we lost most of our customers in that area.

And let me tell you, DSL is only going to grow.

Also, a WISP usually gets its bandwidth from the same phone company that has DSL in an area. So the phone company wins either way.

It is VERY hard to compete against a phone company.

Users switching from DSL to WISPs

[Brett Glass]

Our WISP often gets customers who are tired of DSL. As we finish installing the antenna on their roofs, they say, "Thank you! We're calling the telephone company now to cut off our land line."

One of the things that WISPs do is enable people to "cut the cord."

Re:Users switching from DSL to WISPs

[transporter_ii]

Yeah, the one good demographic that we found was people who just wanted to use their cell phone.

But we told people to wait a month and try us out before canceling a land line.

WISP equipment that "just works" costs a fortune, which is why wireless is often higher than DSL.

I'm no longer in the WISP business because we had to run night and day to reboot locked up access points and SMs....that and the classic, my Internet is running slow today. Got to love it, man.

Everything about a WISP sounds cool...but man, I just got where I hated it.

I'm doing SCADA right now. Almost the exact same line of work, minus the aggravating customers. And oil/gas companies have the money to buy equipment that "just works."

I'm all about saving money. But if there is one thing I have learned in life, trying to be cheap doesn't mean you are saving money.

Rant!

[fm6]

Personally I'm a big fan of municipal fiber, but that's a rant for another day.

No, I think we need to start ranting about it now. The lack of competition and infrastructure in the U.S. ISP marketplace is just plain humliating.

I use one.. works well.

[Big Boss]

They use a Motorola Canopy based system. Spec speed is 5M/2M and I usually get the 5M down, the 2M up is a little harder. Usually it's closer to 1M. Not bad though, for what I need. I have had very little downtime, and the price is about the same as cable or DSL. Cable is Comcast with caps and blocked ports, DSL tops out at something stupidly low like 512k.

I get 1 static IP, no caps, and decent speed. Everything I need. If Qwest ever gets off their butts and rolls out something like FIOS, I'll consider them as well. I hear they are working on something, but not in my area.

Some points that all responses have missed...

[Anonymous Coward]

This mapping initiative is just one (beginning) attempt at trying to educate the public and the government of an alternative method of Internet delivery that seems to go unnoticed in virtually all circles. Unfortunately I think the site got slashdotted a little bit too soon.

I've been a network admin for multiple ISPs over the past 10 years. I've learned that when you get a good combination of terrain, locations, business plan, and equipment, a WISP connection can rival that of any DSL or cable provider in town. Currently I work for a company that does everything but cable (wireless, DSL, and fiber). Each has its strong and weak points, but since this article is about wireless, I'll concentrate on that.

1) WISPs in the sense of this article do not include ClearWire, Sprint, or Xohm, or any mobile carrier. We're talking fixed wireless, Line of Site (LOS), to the home or business (usually roof).

2) Not all WISP wireless gear is 802.11a/b/g/n. In fact, most "serious" stuff isn't. That family of standards was designed for the indoors, and doesn't scale well. Companies like Motorola, Alvarion, Trango, and Mikrotik are just some of the players in unlicensed wireless space, and sell a variety of systems that are either proprietary (like Motorola Canopy) or modified 802.11 MACs with polling algorithms (Trango, Mikrotik). Most of them allow for higher client-to-AP ratios that your standard WiFi AP can't handle.

3) Wireless links can rival or exceed their wireline counterparts. One of the complaints about the incumbent telco and cable companies in our area is slowness (loads of P2P users on cable nodes), limited DSL capabilities (due to poor copper plant buildout), or lack of coverage by either in the new developments. Many customers leave the wireless network chasing wireline promotions only to come back after (and sometimes before) the promotion is over. I would venture to say network management and design, good customer service, and a decent price will trump method of delivery any day.

4) Pricing is not equal among fixed wireless providers. Some WISPs have virtually no competition, or are so spread out that costs are much higher (fewer customers to help absorb the costs of backhaul and access points). Others have pricing competition with DSL, cable, fiber, and fellow WISPs. In the boonies, costs for providing service could be $60 or more for 1-2Mbps service, or may have a higher install fee, whereas areas closer to suburbia and the cities may find $30 the going average for 3-5Mbps service and a modest setup fee.

5) Someone mentioned that WISPS use cell frequencies or the like. The majority use unlicensed space in the 900Mhz, 2.4Ghz, and the 5Ghz bands (5.2/5.3, 5.4, and 5.7/5.8) (a.k.a Part 15, ISM, UNII) to serve customers. Part 101 licensed bands like 11Ghz and 18Ghz are often used to interconnect busy sites with 50-300Mbps.

6) Another individual talked about the coming and going of local WISPs. Providing Internet is a costly business no matter who you are. Wireline plants already existed; tacking on Internet via DSL/cable was a no-brainer (but it's still very expensive). Wireless "plants," however, have to be built from scratch. Some are run by RF and network types who know what they're doing; others have far less experience, flying by the seat of their pants, learning as they go. Almost all of them are self-funded: the smaller the customer-base the tougher things are going to be.

7) Lastly, wireless connectivity isn't new, and is used by everyone in the communications industry. Many of the cable co's, RBOC's and rural ILEC's (big and little phone companies) and cellular companies use microwave links to interconnect sites where fiber or copper just aren't feasible or capable of the bandwidth requirements.

Working for a WISP...

[Reo Strong]

Working for a WISP has been interesting (to say the least). We have to deal with direct competition from local cable/dsl providers, idiot customers who think it is "just like radio" (meaning AM/FM), and federal ISP regulations. But, there is a good community of WISPs who can definitely help to support each other. Part-15 is a great resource and so is WISPA.

Most of our customers are rural, we use 2.4GHz, 900MHz, and some of the 5GHz spectrum to provide service. Our rates are 1Mbps for $27.50/month, 2.5Mbps for $37.50/month, and 4Mbps for $45.95/month. We are cheaper than all of our competition (cable and dsl) and, have a much wider coverage area. One thing that a lot of our customers appreciate is that since we've never recieved money to help develople our network, thereare no taxes or extranious fees attached to the bill. We know when the cable company raises rate, we get an influx of people signing up for service.

I actually know the guy who makes up the Western part of the Nebraska map. The company that I work for makes up most of the central spot.

Running a web server using a WISP

[timwh]

Several years ago I switched from cable to a local WISP in order to run my own web server. For about the same price as cable service but at a little slower speed I was able to get a static IP and permission to run my own web and email servers. The speed is fine for the low bandwith sites that I host. The previous cable provider would not let me run a web server unless I paid several hundred dollars a month for a business account. The service is generally as reliable as cable. During a recent hurricane we were down only a few hours while most cable users were down for several days. The help desk is much nicer to deal with then the big cable company's was.

Re:WASPS on the other hand...

[Anonymous Coward]

WASPS on the other hand...Are passive-aggressive and don't really like choice or variety. Especially of the ethnic kind.

So, you're saying WASPS don't get WISP because they don't WIPE? (Wireless Internet Protocol Encryption)

I really, really hate myself right now.

Question on wireless bridge

[zogger]

I'm on dialup with little chance of ever getting a wired broadband connection, so have been investigating wireless options. Cellphone wireless is way expensive per month, and satellite has much technical suckage to it and is also expensive. Unfortunately, the Wisps local to me (using motorola canopy tech) are line of sight, and I am in a little valley with restricted coverage, ie, it won't work. However, on the property we have a hill around a quarter mile away that has sufficient height to get a signal I am sure. So, I need some sort of cheap stand alone unit-commercial or do it yourself-that I can use for a wireless bridge, and can be powered from one solar panel,which I have extra now. The units I have seen are all in the one thousand bucks and up category and need mains power and are more designed for ISPs, which I am not, just need to send the signal down to me, one point, and be low powered all DC so I can use my solar panel (80 watts in full sun) and storage battery and be cheaper to buy or make. Any thoughts? Or is there even a way to have an unpowered bridge? Thanks in advance, this seemed like a good thread to ask this!

Re:Question on wireless bridge

[Brett Glass]

A relay need not be expensive. Get the WISP to install on the tower, then look on eBay for a pair of radios for a point-to-point link. Connect one of your radios "back to back" with the one supplied by the WISP. Tranzeo is one of most cost-effective and will do fine. Just make sure you are on a different frequency band from the one that the WISP is using.

Get a mast or tower.

[HornWumpus]

How many feet down from the top is their antenna? That's where you start your thinking on how high your antenna will need to be.

A mast is cheap anyhow.

Used 40 ft towers can be had for cheap as well. I got one for free several years ago, it's just taking up space in my yard for now. I'd offer it to you but shipping would kill the deal.

Don't scrimp on the foundation and wires. Ice and wind loads will be ugly in the arctic tundra. Rebar, rebar, rebar.

If you setup a tower perhaps the private company will want to use you as a relay. If they don't you can setup your own WISP and share costs with neighbors (granting you'd be sharing a not so fast link).

Story, indeed.

[Anonymous Coward]

[...] in a very rural area of southern Saskatchewan [...] the antenna on the tower was [...] behind some hills

Oh, Puh-leese! There are no hills in Saskatchewan. Well, except for that ski resort they made out of a pile of potash mine tailings.

I've been to Stoughton, so I know what I'm talking about. You actually probably live in Alberta. Medicine Hat has last hill until Thunder Bay.

WISP is perfect for parents!

[flibbidyfloo]

My parents live in a rural area in the Sacramento Valley. Their only other option was satellite, and the WISP ended up being significantly cheaper. They had to pay for installation, but the WISP maintains ownership of the equipment, so there was no huge up-front cost. The monthly bill is like $30, which is half what I pay for Comcast in Sacramento.

Speeds aren't amazing, but it's so much faster then their old 28.8k dial-up that my mom actually started using the internet again after giving up on it in frustration.

Find that WISP

[Brett Glass]

A few people have commented here that their location is yellow on the map but they do not know how to find the WISP that's covering the area. The compiler of the map has intentionally not mapped out WISPs' coverage areas one by one, to prevent the cable and telephone companies from using the data to engage in targeted anticompetitive practices (e.g. lower charges where the WISPs serve but not elsewhere). However, there are two WISP directories that might help you find who serves your area (and there may be several). Try http://www.wispdirectory.com and .

Re:Find that WISP

[Brett Glass]

Oops; not sure what happened to that second link. It is http://www.part-15.org/maps/WISPSearch.asp.

I'll chime in

[mykey2k]

I'll chime in for my WISP.

I live within the city limits of a suburb outside of Chicago which combined with the one next door, has 300K people.

FOR TEN YEARS I've been living here (some people have been here fifteen) and we still have no DSL... none nada zip zilch.

Comcast knows this, so they charge out the ass for HSI.

My WISP has been there through thick and thin. In 10 years only 2 lightning strikes have hit their tower. We started out on 802.11b and just moved over to Motorola Canopy voodoo... free upgrade to me. Now I'm getting 10M/2M all the time. Online gaming, online music, downloads, and my VoIP all work in harmony.

I couldn't be happier, and for only $60/month (including my publically accessible IP address) I'm pleased.

-- Side note --

My friend was opening a business. He had it all lined up to get AT&T phone+DSL in the new strip mall they were moving in to. Opening day November 1. He needed Internet access to run CC transactions.

AT&T comes in on Oct 28 and says "Sorry, we have no DSL for you here." ... get this .... "Go to an AT&T store and get the USB AirCard" He did despite my best arguement against it, and that option failed miserably.

He calls Comcast: "Sorry, we have HSI at the outlot, but we'd have to run a line to the main mall. Can you find 3 customers there that will need it?.... and if you do, it'll be 2 months to pull the line." Fail.

I call my WISP finally on the afternoon of the 30th. "Yeah sure, we can be out there today... oh wait, it's 3PM.... how about first thing tomorrow morning?"

So yeah, no fuss, no muss. Internet was installed on the 31st... up... running... and I got a couple months credit on my bill.

Score one for the little guy doing what the big ones don't want to, or can't.

The race of the Last Wire Mile is a difficult one, and when you can go through the air at the speed of light, WISPs will always win.

-m

The map way overstates the case

[lpress]

I am all for changes in policy or subsidy that would help small WISPs compete with the incumbents, but this map overstates the case.

My Los Angeles zip code, 90064, is well into a yellow area, but a database search shows no results. A broader search on "Calfornia" returns 5 WISPs. Only one is headquartered in Los Angeles county, but some may offer service here. Their offerings are geared toward small business -- "wireless t1" sort of service.

They are not competitive for anyone who is served by DSL or cable, both of which are widely available in Los Angeles. (I even hear a rumor that FIOS is in the city, but not in my neighborhood).

One might argue that this is a result of unfair regulation or anti-competitive acts by the incumbents, and there has been plenty of both, but it is hard to make the case for WISP in a wired city.

Shifting gears -- you provided a link to that goofy Verizon customer service call. I wonder if it is a fake.

Re:The map way overstates the case

[lpress]

Whoops -- the broader search was on "Los Angeles," not "California."

Re:The map way overstates the case

[Brett Glass]

Larry, there are at least half a dozen WISPs serving the LA area. They're probably in such demand already (with that population base) that they don't dare advertise! This is the case with many WISPs. Most are self-financed and simply don't have the capital that's required for meteoric growth.

I switched

[Puppet Master]

From Hughesnet to Farm To Market Broadband in Cameron, Texas... I live in a rural area. WISP is faster than satellite, no maximum per day limitations (500M/day was all that was allowed for satellite), no problems what so ever. Not as fast as DSL/Cable, but still a lot faster than dial-up and satellite combined. Plus you get your own dedicated IP address.

802.11 outdoors

[Brett Glass]

802.11b and 802.11g were not originally intended for outdoor use, but they work surprisingly well there. Early on, there were several academic papers published which explored how to tweak the technology to work better outdoors. The modulation schemes are, in fact, the same ones that are used in proprietary equipment -- there's nothing to change about them to make them work outdoors. It's just a matter of tuning the MAC layer to account for the "hidden node" problem (many transmitters that might not be able to hear one another). And there have been solutions available for that problem since 1992, when Karlnet (developed at Ohio State University and then taken private) came out.

Re:802.11 outdoors

[nuintari]

Motorola's Canopy line was originally developed as a cellular technology (that never took off), and shares more in common with GSM and CDMA than it does 802.11. Not all wireless internet is 802.11, or even close.

And it isn't outdoor use that makes 802.11 crappy, its the long range, blind neighbor problems (as you mentioned), and the ability of any one client to basically monopolize 90% of the capacity of an AP. Oh, and the crappy subset of the 2.4 ghz spectrum is no picnic either.

I do this for a living, 802.11 wisps do not work. I don't care how many tweaks you apply to it, they always hit a critical mass of customers.

Re:802.11 outdoors

[Brett Glass]

Actually, Motorola's Canopy stole many of its ideas from a little known outfit in Georgia called Cirronet. They then mixed in a few ideas from the TDM cellular world. Overall, they tried to design the system to be the "meanest SOB in the Valley" when it came to the unlicensed bands. Canopy steps on everything, is courteous to nothing, and tries to take over every last shred of any band it's on. What's more, Motorola has lobbied to take spectrum away from WISPs. So, our company will not use anything they make. (We don't want to fund anyone who tries to take away the few bits of spectrum we currently have.) But this is really not the place to discuss WISP equipment. Let's just say that standards-based WISPs have big advantages, because they're not tied to one manufacturer (who can raise their costs through the roof at will).

WISP? more like WISH

[tedwouldgo]

I am on a WISP. It was my only option living in rural Hawaii and daily I pray for other options. The poor economy is keeping the telco from adding decent lines and I think the same is true for the cable company. I get up very early in the morning so I can have decent speed. But, as soon as people start waking up the this thing crawls to a halt. Some of it is bad network management, some of it is having the thing oversold. Either way, I pay monthly to maintain a dial up line which I switch to whenever the broadband gets slower than the dial up. And, I pay $75 a month. Yeah, I should be getting gigabit service for that. I read last year where Japan launched a satellite that would give everyone in Japan gigabit service. What happened to that? Why can't we have the same? Til then, reading this without the graphics!

Re:WISP? more like WISH

[BrianWebster]

Any satellite based internet is going to have problems. It's the physical limit if the distance up to the bird and back. For Geostationary Satellites it is about 24,000 miles up in the air. That's 48,000 miles round trip. Even at the speed of light, that creates enough latency that things like VOIP, gaming, and video don't work well. The other issue with satellite is the capacity they can carry. While they may be able to deliver a high speed connection they can't do it with a lot of customers. That is why satellite internet providers have fair access policies (FAP). They can't be high speed to everyone all of the time. The other issue with satellite is that there is only so much space in the sky to place them. whether it's geostationary or low earth orbit(LEO) by international agreements (and laws of physics) you only have a certain number of available orbits. Ground based fiber is always going to deliver the most capacity for the most reasonable expense. As much as I love wireless one can not dispute the hard facts :-)

Re:WISP? more like WISH

[Brett Glass]

Ted, sounds like you need a better WISP. Ours has none of those problems.

Wireless in rural America

[marvin25]

I was surprised you brought it up as there is one ISP that can do the foot print that is required that size of Internet area. Everyone is trying to keep it quiet and you are opening the door. This is the main source for Netflix and other content providers are basically shipping to on the Internet. They also are absorb all the bandwidth of the Internet. I wish you would keep your mouth shut period on this as you are opening door on the fact that rural America will have better communication then the cities. The foot print could only done by one ISP and could do it as fast as possible. Don't bring up anything more on this subject.