On Mar 1, 2010, at 8:34 PM, Akyol, Bora A wrote:

Michael

I think for the people in the situation you are describing, the best bet would be one of the wireless technologies. Someone on the thread mentioned LTE (which should be coming out in a couple years time), and to that we can add WiMAX and even the 3G/3.5G HSPDA type wireless. The prices will not be USD19.99 but for less than USD70/month it is quite possible to get reasonable high speed Internet access. Will it be as fast as GigE to the house? No. But it will certainly support most web apps. The only challenge is that some of these wireless technologies still have much higher latency when compared to the wired DSL/cable modem links.

Some of the WISP hardware is getting "cheap". It's no longer $500 NIUs, you can get something that can go a fair distance at high speeds for ~$80. http://www.ubnt.com/products/nanobridge.php You can find used microwave (unlicensed & licensed) equipment "cheap" as well. ($1-2k per pair/hop). The FTTH equipment is ~$600 for 20km reach @ 1Gb/s. Life is getting interesting these days.. I'm seeing interest in solving this last mile issue, but I suspect some networks will eventually be forced to abandon their DSL strategy (ATT, Qwest) before too long. They are going to start to lose out to the competitors. Verizon seems to be the only (large) US based provider with a decent strategy. I'm expecting regulatory intervention in the next few years to actually require universal broadband access from the iLECs, and the only way to reach these further distances is with FTTH gear (cost effectively). I have wondered, how many POTS lines do I need to order to get them to build fiber/access to me. Anyone have guesses/data? - Jared

On 03/01/2010 05:34 PM, Akyol, Bora A wrote:

Michael

I think for the people in the situation you are describing, the best bet would be one of the wireless technologies. Someone on the thread mentioned LTE (which should be coming out in a couple years time), and to that we can add WiMAX and even the 3G/3.5G HSPDA type wireless. The prices will not be USD19.99 but for less than USD70/month it is quite possible to get reasonable high speed Internet access. Will it be as fast as GigE to the house? No. But it will certainly support most web apps. The only challenge is that some of these wireless technologies still have much higher latency when compared to the wired DSL/cable modem links.

point-to-point and ptmp 802.11phy derived tdm gear has been outperforming cellular access layers on the throughput and cost equations for a number of years. The choice of frequencies and licensed vs unlicensed operation continues to proliferate as the radios get more flexible and cheaper... see for one ptp backkhul example: http://www.ubnt.com/nanobridge It is now possible to put together a passable community or wisp network for what essentially is microcap money. Unlike rural electrification or rural ftfth the prospects of doing such a deployment for the low hundreds of dollars per household in aggregate are not hard to imagine. As far as I'm concerned someone else with capital can solve the mobility problem, the fixed wireless problem can be addressed in many cases with sound engineering, sweat equitity, community involvement and a little capital. If a technology can connect a bunch of ngo's in haiti or connect transponder sites for hf radio relays in New Guinea it ought to work in the less developed parts of the developed world.

Regards

-----Original Message----- From: Michael Sokolov [mailto:msokolov@ivan.Harhan.ORG] Sent: Friday, February 26, 2010 4:05 PM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Locations with no good Internet (was ISP in Johannesburg)

Brandon Galbraith <brandon.galbraith@gmail.com> wrote:

...

http://www.rric.net/

I'm very familiar with those folks of course, they've been an inspiration to me for a long time.

However, my needs are different. RRIC's model basically involves a specific community with a well-defined boundary: bring the bandwidth into the community via a bulk feed, then sublet inside the community.

But I don't have a specific community in mind - I'm trying to develop a more generic solution. (The case of my friend who is at 31 kft from a Covad-enabled CO is only an example and nothing more.) Again, consider a town with a Covad-enabled CO plus an outlying countryside. The people in the town proper already have Covad xDSL available to them, and if we could stick my SDSL/2B1Q repeater in the middle of some longer loops, it would enable the people in the countryside to get *exactly the same* Covad (or ISP-X-via-Covad) services as those in the town proper.

My repeater approach would also allow me to stay out of ISP or ISP-like business which I really don't want to get into - I would rather just make hardware and let someone else operate it. A repeater is totally unlike a router, it is not IP-aware, it just makes the loop seem shorter, allowing farther-outlying users to connect to *existing* ISPs with an already established business structure.

Anyway, I just saw a post on NANOG about an area deprived of "high-speed Internet" services and thought I would post my idea in the hope that someone would have some ideas that would actually be *helpful* to what I'm trying to do. If not - oh well, I'll just put the idea back on the dusty shelf in the back of my mind until I'm ready to try presenting it to the folks who own the CO-colocated DSLAMs it would have to work with - gotta finish a few other things before I open that can of worms in the earnest.

MS