Slashdot Mirror
The Farmer Who Built Her Own Broadband (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a BBC article: "I'm just a farmer's wife," says Christine Conder, modestly. But for 2,300 members of the rural communities of Lancashire she is also a revolutionary internet pioneer. Her DIY solution to a neighbour's internet connectivity problems in 2009 has evolved into B4RN, an internet service provider offering fast one gigabit per second broadband speeds to the parishes which nestle in the picturesque Lune Valley. That is 35 times faster than the 28.9 Mbps average UK speed internet connection according to Ofcom. It all began when the trees which separated Chris's neighbouring farm from its nearest wireless mast -- their only connection to the internet, provided by Lancaster University -- grew too tall. Something more robust was required, and no alternatives were available in the area, so Chris decided to take matters into her own hands. She purchased a kilometre of fibre-optic cable and commandeered her farm tractor to dig a trench. After lighting the cable, the two farms were connected, with hers feeding the one behind the trees. "We dug it ourselves and we lit [the cable] ourselves and we proved that ordinary people could do it," she says. "It wasn't rocket science. It was three days of hard work."
I mean, really, someone has to put a stop to this sort of thing, or next thing you know everyone will be doing it and then where will the monopolies and the billionaires be?
Rule 35 of the internet: "If it can be hacked, it will be". - Charles Stross
So your saying Tennessee Republican attorney general Herbert H. Slatery III didnt sue the FCC over the ruling that allowed local internet service providers?
http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/25/technology/tennessee-fcc-internet/
Or that states dont have laws preventing local internet service providers?
https://consumerist.com/2016/08/10/appeals-court-municipal-internet-is-great-but-states-can-still-restrict-access/
From the Twentieth Century Magazine, Vol II, 1910
CO-OPERATIVE VERSUS COMPETITIVE TELEPHONES
A VALUED friend, Mr. Arthur E. Harris, of Boston, has kindly given us the following impressive illustration of the difference between a public utility controlled by a modern commercial corporation, and the same monopoly under co-operation. In the one instance we have avarice as the master spirit actuating the promoters, huge dividends for the favored few and poor service for the people being the result. In the other case we have a fine illustration of fraternalism in business, in which the interest and benefit of the people is the first concernâ€"something that should ever be insisted upon in a government that pretends to represent the rule and interests of the people.
"Some twelve or more years ago," says Mr. Harris, "in the town of Mercer, Maine, where I was born, and where my father still lives, a telephone system was installed among the farmers as a branch of the New England Telephone Company. Stock was sold and the rent for an instrument and the use of the line was fixed at $10 per year.
"Several of our neighbors bought some of the stock and took great delight in boasting to the less fortunate in the neighborhood that it was paying 18 per cent dividends.
"But they were not satisfied with making that profit by the exploitation of their neighbors and began to talk of raising the rental fee.
"The promoter, a man from an adjoining town who had the line put in and who was a member of the trust, was overheard to say: 'We've got to get this up to $15 before we quit.' ' But,' he was asked, 'will the people stand for it?' 'Of course they will. They like it and can't get along without it. We've got themâ€"now squeeze them.'
"Well, in the country money does not come easily and some, including my father, felt that they could not afford to pay any more, much as they wanted to keep the telephones.
"They talked it over and an indignation meeting was called.
"There were two Socialists present, who organized the farmers and put in an independent line upon a Socialist basis - for use, not for profits.
"Each member contributed $25 in money, material or labor, and received an instrument which he owned, and was entited to one vote at all business meetings.
"This amount ($25) from each member of the organization paid all the expense of putting in the new line and left something in the treasury. It was a success in every way and has been running about ten years and costs less than $2 per member each year to maintain it.
"They bought instruments that were much better than those put in by the trust - in fact, two-fifths better.
"In the place of six, as with the trust line, 20 could now talk without the use of the switch, and could hear better than the six could with the trust line because of the superiority of the instruments.
"There are no restrictions upon its use and all are satisfied and contented; whereas with the trust line they were kept in a state of irritation by the mean acts of the managers, who were always on the watch for every penny they could grind out. If company - a visitor or a friend - was heard talking, the question promptly came from central 'Who's that talking?' 'Well, collect ten cents.' Their methods and purpose were like those of all big corporations and trusts - their motto, 'First profits, last use'; or, in other words, the maximum profits for the minimum service.
https://books.google.com/books?id=v0fZAAAAMAAJ&lpg=PR4&ots=puFXQk-1BD&dq=twentieth%20century%20magazine%201910%20competitive%20telephones&pg=PA364#v=onepage&q&f=true
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
No you wouldn't. In a related note, hyperbole is universal. Maybe what you meant is that they wouldn't let you connect it? And who is they? The US is pretty big. Your ability to do your own last mile varies based on where you are. Americans often don't seem to know or even appreciate that different parts of America are different.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Very much this! I've personally looked into doing this in my neighborhood. For what ever reason, getting "business" gigabit internet where I live is in the range of $3000-10000/mo. But for what ever reason, the EXACT same company can provide "residential" gigabit internet for only $79/mo. It is literally the same wires going to the same data center in town. The only difference is the terms of service.
You would be arrested and thrown in jail for endangering the livelihood of some mega corp.
Correct, this could never happen in the US. Definitely, never in a million years.
Or, you could JFDI.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Thought this story sounded familiar
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor...
In this case note that they had to connect a local university network. The main broadband providers in the UK, basically BT and in some areas Virgin, won't supply service to people who lay their own fibre. I know because I asked. Their green boxes, where their fibre terminates and they go back to shitty old copper, are fairly close to my house. Even if I lay in fibre to the cabinet myself, they won't allow it to be connected.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
For some reason we have the idea that farmers today are some dumb hicks. While modern farming is very advanced. They had self driving tractors for decades. They use big data to help analyze weather and crops. Robotic cow milking... I am a Tech worker and I don't have nearly as much technology to play with than what most farmers have.
Hey look at that web form I made on your phone see how much more sufficated and advanced we are over our rural neighbors. In many ways our city life in terms of technology skills are behind the farming life. Who needs advanced technology to survive and keep up. While in the cities we can still operating with faxing or just giving a letter to a carrier to send to the next office.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Now now, this is all Main Stream Media and fake news. Got anything from breitbart or infowars? :-/
[John]
Shit better not happen!
But you need to even it out, find out what RT and Al Jazeera have to say about the subject.
News is dead. What you can get is opinion. Try to get opinion from both sides and you might end up with something that could allow you to make up your mind. It's not exactly an informed decision you'd be making, but at least one that you're making yourself.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Residential customers get a discount because not everyone is using the internet at the same time [...]
That's bullshit, and everyone who has to "share" his bandwidth knows it. Over here you can get "up to" bandwidths, which means that you're clinging to some cable that you share with others. What this essentially means is that you take the maximum bandwidth the cable allows, divide by the number of subscribers you share it with and that's what you can reasonably expect from your cable.
And no, we're not talking about people leeching bittorrent dry. We're talking about Mom and Pop Randomsurfer. With webpages bloating from more and more bandwidth-swallowing ads and everyone and their dog watching videos on YouTube and using Netflix instead of TV, everyone is using as much bandwidth as they possibly can.
So please spare us that "but we can oversell because customers don't use that much in reality" bullshit. Yes, you oversell like crazy, but actually your bandwidth is well saturated outside the 1 to 6am time slot when everyone's sleeping.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Close but not quite. Residential customers get a discount because residential users as a group have a different bandwidth profile. It's not even just this simple. ISPs costs are typically based on peak usage, which is driven by residential customers. Bandwidth used outside of normal residential peak hours is virtually free. Around here, businesses actually pay the same residential users for the same service.
Key words there, "same service". My ISP makes no real distinction between business and residential. Both can get static IP blocks for cheap, uncapped dedicated bandwidth, individual strands of fiber back to the CO. If you want an SLA, prepare to pay through the nose.
You're thinking is is almost right. The infrastructure is where the problem actually lies. What is needed is a way to avoid the last mile issue being the monopoly /oligarchy model that we've been running for the last 30+ years or so. Stop viewing the last mile as a "Franchise agreement" and start treating it like a road, where anyone can deliver the packages (FedEx, UPS, USPS ...).
My solution is municipal owned Fiber Plant, brought back to a COLO facility where you have the choice of providers to bring content/services to the end user, and let the competition happen there.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.