Re: Locations with no good Internet (was ISP in Johannesburg)

[William Herrin <bill () herrin us>]

On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 4:34 PM, Michael Sokolov
<msokolov () ivan harhan org> wrote:
> 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?

You wouldn't. The ILECs have resisted doing that sort of thing tooth
and nail. They may not want to sell you service yet but they don't
want anyone else to get a foot in the door while they get around to
it.

However, if it really is a 31kft copper loop all the way back to the
CO and not to a closer vault (try driving the wire path to find out)
you may be able to knock on a few doors in the middle around the 15kft
point, make a new friend, order a DSL in the middle, order an "alarm
circuit" or "dry copper pair" from the 15kft point to you and run your
own signal over the alarm circuit.

Your terrain may also be a factor. Rolling hills and 3-story trees
make wireless hard but if you can see rooftops near the CO with
binoculars from your rooftop, amplifying an 802.11 signal for a 6-mile
transmission is a walk in the park. Probably not helpful in western
Mass, but possible in southern CA.

Regards,
Bill Herrin


-- 
William D. Herrin ................ herrin () dirtside com  bill () herrin us
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