Definite second on going with Juniper. Their JUNOS is fantastic, the CLI a joy to work with and their EX switches are pretty excellent, especially for the money. My only gripe: they sound like jet engines.:)
I tackled a similar project in 2002 to connect me to my office 1.2 miles across the fields/woods/highway. I ended up at 130 feet and now run it at 54 mbit 802.11g after swapping out the gear recently. I've had a collection of captioned photos of the building process online for a few years covering everything from digging the original footers to erecting the tower. I tossed in a few updated shots this morning:
They are in chronological order with the newest stuff on the last page.
Thought it might interest some folks with similar goals in mind. No, it wasn't cheap to do. In excess of $3,000 all told... but worth every penny, especially since it connects me to a DS3 on the other end.:) I hired professionals to erect it, but my uncle and I did the ground work including the pouring of 12,000 pounds of concrete for the six foot anchor rods. I'm tempted to put a PTZ camera on the top of it someday for fun.
In a shed between the house and tower I've got the UPS equipment and a hub that transitions to fiber before entering the attic (the fiber helps decouple the outside gear from the inside gear electrically since the tower - despite being grounded - can act as a huge lighting rod).
Neither DSL nor cable modems are available to me where I live. Besides, as the network admin for the campus where I work, I control my own access to a degree I'd never get commercially. Also means I'm never really "away" from the office (which cuts both ways).:)
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Definite second on going with Juniper. Their JUNOS is fantastic, the CLI a joy to work with and their EX switches are pretty excellent, especially for the money. My only gripe: they sound like jet engines. :)
I tackled a similar project in 2002 to connect me to my office 1.2 miles across the fields/woods/highway. I ended up at 130 feet and now run it at 54 mbit 802.11g after swapping out the gear recently. I've had a collection of captioned photos of the building process online for a few years covering everything from digging the original footers to erecting the tower. I tossed in a few updated shots this morning:
:) I hired professionals to erect it, but my uncle and I did the ground work including the pouring of 12,000 pounds of concrete for the six foot anchor rods. I'm tempted to put a PTZ camera on the top of it someday for fun.
:)
http://sparhawk.sbc.edu/tower
They are in chronological order with the newest stuff on the last page.
Thought it might interest some folks with similar goals in mind. No, it wasn't cheap to do. In excess of $3,000 all told... but worth every penny, especially since it connects me to a DS3 on the other end.
In a shed between the house and tower I've got the UPS equipment and a hub that transitions to fiber before entering the attic (the fiber helps decouple the outside gear from the inside gear electrically since the tower - despite being grounded - can act as a huge lighting rod).
Neither DSL nor cable modems are available to me where I live. Besides, as the network admin for the campus where I work, I control my own access to a degree I'd never get commercially. Also means I'm never really "away" from the office (which cuts both ways).