I've seen a bunch of people mentioning wireless networks and WaveLAN for the geek house. Wireless networking is great (I'm running it myself) but having some Cat5 to hookup the desktop PCs really helps. What I did in my house:
1. Put a fat DSL pipe in with a static IP. I'm currently running at 1.1Mbps.
2. Crawled under the house and strung at least one Cat5 cable to each room. Time consuming, and a pain in the butt, but it's worth it to have a 100BT backbone between PCs.
3. Installed a Linux firewall/gateway between the DSL pipe and the LAN. Can't be too careful.
4. Threw a WaveLAN card inside the Linux gateway, and made it a combo firewall/gateway/wireless router. Works great with my laptop and Toshiba Libretto, and I can cover the whole house and property. Can even go across the street to the neighbor's house.
WaveLAN and other 802.11b technologies are great, but in my opinion, are better suited to portable technology. Wires are still the way to go if your machine is anchored to a desk.
For more info on running WaveLAN under Linux, see my homepage at NullDevice.Net.
In many places - Silicon Valley among them.
I work with South Valley Internet in the Morgan Hill/Gilroy area of Santa Clara County, and they're providing up to T1 access via wireless to businesses throughout the area. They've got a couple of access points on hilltops around here, which act as relay points from the NOC to the end users. I helped develop and test the system, which has been in operation since 1997.
SVI's system is older and not geared to end users like Prairie iNet's service is, although there is talk of experimenting with one. I think that in this age of free-installation DSL and Cable, that people won't go for a $600 installation fee... even if DSL/Cable isn't in the area yet. If the dollar amount could be brought down to the $200-$250 area, it'd probably become palatable for many households. The $40/mo - $65/mo charge is probably fine, as most people arent' going to go much above 256kbit anyway (unless you're running a server at your house).
However, with people hotrodding their Apple AirPorts and Lucent RG1000s, the 2.4Ghz band is going to rapidly become saturated and you'll have many rejected frames and dropped packets. That's one thing we've seen with the SVI system @ 900Mhz - all the cordless phones and other systems can wreak havoc with you, even if you are using a spread spectrum device.
Businesses like SVI and Prairie iNet should be applauded for having the guts to undertake such ventures, though. Building your own infrastructure outside of regular telcos is difficult, time consuming, and expensive.
If you're interested in putting a wireless LAN at home, I've got a review of Lucent's products on my site at NullDevice.Net.
-- WildBill
Would be less than optimal, IMHO. If I remember my ham regulations (it's been a while);
1. You have to identify the stations at both ends of the link every 10 minutes, and at the end of the transmission (when you go off the air).
2. No profanity or other "obscene" things can go over the air. Since those "obscene" things would be encapsulated within TCP/IP, I'm not sure if this applies, but it may.
3. The operator of the link cannot profit financially from the operation of the link. In other words, it could be done for fun or to contact friends, (QUAKE DEATHMATCH!) but it could not be used to connect two offices of a business that employs the operator. FCC regulations are pretty hard and fast about this. It used to be that you could not do any business transactions on the radio, but this was recently amended to simply disallow profitmaking.
Rather than use amateur radio, I'd try the unlicensed 802.11B radio gear. I've successfully hooked up two offices with WaveLAN equipment for around $800, over a 2 mile path.
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1. Put a fat DSL pipe in with a static IP. I'm currently running at 1.1Mbps.
2. Crawled under the house and strung at least one Cat5 cable to each room. Time consuming, and a pain in the butt, but it's worth it to have a 100BT backbone between PCs.
3. Installed a Linux firewall/gateway between the DSL pipe and the LAN. Can't be too careful.
4. Threw a WaveLAN card inside the Linux gateway, and made it a combo firewall/gateway/wireless router. Works great with my laptop and Toshiba Libretto, and I can cover the whole house and property. Can even go across the street to the neighbor's house.
WaveLAN and other 802.11b technologies are great, but in my opinion, are better suited to portable technology. Wires are still the way to go if your machine is anchored to a desk.
For more info on running WaveLAN under Linux, see my homepage at NullDevice.Net.
SVI's system is older and not geared to end users like Prairie iNet's service is, although there is talk of experimenting with one. I think that in this age of free-installation DSL and Cable, that people won't go for a $600 installation fee... even if DSL/Cable isn't in the area yet. If the dollar amount could be brought down to the $200-$250 area, it'd probably become palatable for many households. The $40/mo - $65/mo charge is probably fine, as most people arent' going to go much above 256kbit anyway (unless you're running a server at your house).
However, with people hotrodding their Apple AirPorts and Lucent RG1000s, the 2.4Ghz band is going to rapidly become saturated and you'll have many rejected frames and dropped packets. That's one thing we've seen with the SVI system @ 900Mhz - all the cordless phones and other systems can wreak havoc with you, even if you are using a spread spectrum device.
Businesses like SVI and Prairie iNet should be applauded for having the guts to undertake such ventures, though. Building your own infrastructure outside of regular telcos is difficult, time consuming, and expensive.
If you're interested in putting a wireless LAN at home, I've got a review of Lucent's products on my site at NullDevice.Net.
-- WildBill
Great for trips with the wife to the mall...
1. You have to identify the stations at both ends of the link every 10 minutes, and at the end of the transmission (when you go off the air).
2. No profanity or other "obscene" things can go over the air. Since those "obscene" things would be encapsulated within TCP/IP, I'm not sure if this applies, but it may.
3. The operator of the link cannot profit financially from the operation of the link. In other words, it could be done for fun or to contact friends, (QUAKE DEATHMATCH!) but it could not be used to connect two offices of a business that employs the operator. FCC regulations are pretty hard and fast about this. It used to be that you could not do any business transactions on the radio, but this was recently amended to simply disallow profitmaking.
Rather than use amateur radio, I'd try the unlicensed 802.11B radio gear. I've successfully hooked up two offices with WaveLAN equipment for around $800, over a 2 mile path.