Locations with no good Internet (was ISP in Johannesburg)

Tue Mar 2 00:19:38 UTC 2010

How do you think we feel in Alaska. Until mid last year, most cellular
BTS were backhauled via DS1. Only Within the last 12 months have we
(insert obligatory "I work for a GSM and CDMA cellular provider serving
most of Alaska") even migrated from Local copper to fiber or air
interfaces (ds1/ds3 microwave). 

I've always been curious as to why the people who aren't being served
with "broadband" type of services haven't made a larger fuss about this.
The idea of running a copper pair to a home should have died long ago,
IMHO. As an RF Engineer, I see everyone turning to fiber and dry loops
when it's just not necessary or even cost effective. Put up the
*LICENSED* loop and call it a day.. Or a 5.8 RAD shot when you feel like
rolling the deice. Either way, cellular isn't the drop dead answer to
solving a sparsely covered area.

About 95% of my state is not covered by cellular, but we've had no
problems deploying the largest cellular (rural obviously) provider in
the United States - just look up. It's not as expensive as you would
think. 

//warren

Warren Bailey
GCI Communication Corp.
RF Network Engineering
907.868.5911 office
907.903.5410 mobile

-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Senie [mailto:dts at senie.com] 
Sent: Friday, February 26, 2010 3:21 PM
To: NANOG list
Subject: Re: Locations with no good Internet (was ISP in Johannesburg)

Hopefully someone will bother to cover the rural areas with cell service
eventually.

Much of western Massachusetts (by which I mean the Berkshires, more than
I mean the Pioneer Valley) is not covered by cell service. Where there
is cell service, most cell sites have only minimal data speeds. Vermont
is far worse, as is much of Maine. If there were 3G cellular, it'd be a
big step up. But I expect the inner cities will all be running LTE for
years before more rural areas even get voice service.

On Feb 26, 2010, at 6:04 PM, Haney, Wilson wrote:

> As we all know it's expensive building out any landline network. Rural
areas just get over looked. 
> 
> Check out this tech coming out of Motorola and to a Verizon/ATT tower
near you soon.
> 
> 100 Mbps possible off cellular signals. Looks like they will throttle
it to 20 Mbps and less though. 
> 
> http://business.motorola.com/experiencelte/lte-depth.html
> 
> http://news.techworld.com/networking/3203498/motorola-predicts-20mbps-
> download-speed-with-future-lte-networks/
> 
> WPH
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Crooks, Sam [mailto:Sam.Crooks at experian.com]
> Sent: Friday, February 26, 2010 4:51 PM
> To: Michael Sokolov; nanog at nanog.org
> Subject: RE: Locations with no good Internet (was ISP in Johannesburg)
> 
> I had good luck getting my dad some form of broadband access in rural 
> Oregon using a 3g router (Cradlepoint), a Wilson Electronics signal 
> amp (model 811211), and an outdoor mount high gain antenna.  It's not 
> great, but considering the alternatives (33.6k dialup for $60/mo or 
> satellite broadband for $150-$200/mo) it wasn't a bad deal for my dad 
> when you consider that the dialup ISP + dedicated POTS line cost about

> as much as the 5GB 3G data plan does.
> 
> Speed is somewhere between  dialup and Uverse or FIOS.  I get the 
> sense that it is somewhere in the range of 256 - 512 kbps with high 
> latency (Dad's not one for much in the way of network performance
testing).
> 
> 
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Michael Sokolov [mailto:msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG]
>> Sent: Friday, February 26, 2010 3:35 PM
>> To: nanog at nanog.org
>> Subject: Locations with no good Internet (was ISP in Johannesburg)
>> 
>> Daniel Senie <dts at senie.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Better than western Massachusetts, where there's just no
> connectivity
>> at =
>>> all. Even dialup fails to function over crappy lines.
>> 
>> Hmm.  Although I've never been to Western MA and hence have no idea 
>> what the telecom situation is like over there, I'm certainly aware of

>> quite a few places in "first world USA" where DSL is still a fantasy,

>> let
> alone
>> fiber.
>> 
>> As a local example, I have a friend in a rural area of Southern 
>> California who can't get any kind of "high-speed Internet".  I've run
> a
>> prequal on her address and it tells me she is 31 kft from the CO.  
>> The CO in question has a Covad DSLAM in it, but at 31 kft those rural

>> residents' options are limited to either IDSL at 144 kbps (not much 
>> point in that) or a T1 starting at ~$700/month.  The latter figure is

>> typically well out of range for the kind of people who live in such 
>> places.
>> 
>> That got me thinking: ISDN/IDSL and T1 can be extended infinitely far

>> into the boondocks because those signal formats support repeaters.
>> What
>> I'm wondering is how can we do the same thing with SDSL - and I mean 
>> politically rather than technically.  The technical part is easy: 
>> some COs already have CLECs in them that serve G.shdsl (I've been 
>> told that NEN does that) and for G.shdsl repeaters are part of the 
>> standard (searching around shows a few vendors making them); in the 
>> case of SDSL/2B1Q (Covad and DSL.net) there is no official support 
>> for repeaters and hence no major vendors making such, but I can build

>> such a
> repeater
>> unofficially.
>> 
>> The difficulty is with the political part, and that's where I'm
> seeking
>> the wisdom of this list.  How would one go about sticking a mid-span 
>> repeater into an ILEC-owned 31 kft rural loop?  From what I 
>> understand (someone please correct me if I'm wrong!), when a CLEC 
>> orders a loop from an ILEC, if it's for a T1 or IDSL, the CLEC 
>> actually orders a T1 or ISDN BRI transport from the ILEC rather than 
>> a dry pair, and any mid-span repeaters or HDSLx converters or the 
>> like become the responsibility of the ILEC rather than the CLEC, 
>> right?
>> 
>> So how could one extend this model to provide, say, repeatered 
>> G.shdsl service to far-outlying rural subscribers?  Is there some 
>> political process (PUC/FCC/etc) by which an ILEC could be forced to 
>> allow a
> third
>> party to stick a repeater in the middle of their loop?  Or would it 
>> have to work by way of the ILEC providing a G.shdsl transport service

>> to CLECs, with the ILEC being responsible for the selection, 
>> procurement and deployment of repeater hardware?  And what if the 
>> ILEC is not interested in providing such a service - any PUC/FCC/etc 
>> political process via which they could be forced to cooperate?
>> 
>> Things get even more complicated in those locations where the CO has 
>> a Covad DSLAM in it serving out SDSL/2B1Q, but no other CLEC serving 
>> G.shdsl.  Even if the ILEC were to provide a G.shdsl transport 
>> service with repeaters, it wouldn't help with SDSL/2B1Q.  My idea 
>> involves building a gadget in the form factor of a standard mid-span 
>> repeater that would function as a converter from SDSL/2B1Q to 
>> G.shdsl: if the loop calls for one mid-span repeater, stick this 
>> gadget in as if it were that repeater; if the loop calls for 2 or 
>> more repeaters, use my gadget as the first "repeater" and then 
>> standard G.shdsl repeaters after it.  But of course this idea is 
>> totally dependent on the ability of a third party to stick these 
>> devices in the middle of long rural loops, perhaps in the place of 
>> loading coils which are likely present on such loops.
>> 
>> Any ideas?
>> 
>> MS
> 
> 
> 