Yup; the Internet is screwed up.

Sun Jun 12 17:50:49 UTC 2011

Good point. That is exactly how I got into the business. I had to have a T1
line run to the house to get enough bandwidth. At 425.33 a month, I decided
to have some of my students setup a WISP at my place so the neighbors would
pay for the data line instead of me. For equipment and software look at
Mikrotik.

Another option is the T1. If you can get an analog line, you should be able
to get an ISDN or T1 line as these are typically tariffed services.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Radabaugh [mailto:mark at amplex.net] 
Sent: Sunday, June 12, 2011 12:22 PM
To: Christopher J. Pilkington; nanog at nanog.org
Subject: Re: Yup; the Internet is screwed up.

On 6/12/11 1:04 PM, Christopher J. Pilkington wrote:
> On Jun 11, 2011, at 7:07 PM, Roy wrote:
>
>> On 6/11/2011 4:29 PM, Christopher Pilkington wrote:
>>> Options seem to be limited to HughesNet and dial for the moment, but 
>>> things may change if I put a tower on the property. HughesNet seems 
>>> to relax it's bandwidth cap between 2am and 7am, which is helpful, 
>>> but still a great shift from what I'm used to at the current 
>>> residence (15/2).
>>>
>> No 3G cellphone service?
> 3G at this location is marginal at best (stand on a hill and hold the 
> phone up above your head.)
>
> That said, are there 3G radios that permit external antennas or are well
suited to being sealed up in a weatherproof box and being placed on a
pole/tower?
>
> 3G would get us around the 200-300MiB/day issue, but I'm fairly certain
I'll be dealing with similar monthly caps.  I can really hope for a wISP
nearby, but so far my research hasn't turned up anything.  Is there some
wISP marketplace/directory about?
>
> The final option would be to unofficially put hardware on the roof of my
office 50km away with some high-gain antennas, but the path is marginally
LOS, I think I might need a very large tower at either end.
>
> -cjp
www.wispa.org is probably the largest organization.    Every state in 
the US has a broadband mapping project that should be able to tell you who
is in the area and what options you have (assuming that you are in the US
which might not be true).

If there are no other providers around (or they don't do a good job) 
it's not that hard to build your own.   It doesn't take a very large 
population density to make a viable business.   Just don't try to build 
a wISP with 802.11x equipment.

A properly built wISP network competes quite well with HFC networks in 
speed and reliability.   The technology is evolving quickly with 
capacity and reliability making significant gains.

--
Mark Radabaugh
Amplex

mark at amplex.net  419.837.5015