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

[James Jones <james () freedomnet co nz>]

I am in planning states for a new metro ethernet service here in the 
springfield area. that will slowly extend to the town as I can get there.

On 2/26/10 4:45 PM, Daniel Senie wrote:
>  From what I've read, they may well get higher bandwidth out to the town centers on fiber. There has been little discussion 
> of how to distribute from there. I suppose Verizon, the only company offering anything out there, will take advantage and use the 
> fiber to improve speeds in the centers of towns. But there's no CATV in most of the hill towns, and unless MBI intends to 
> stretch fiber out to the neighborhoods, I remain skeptical.
>
> Today, most of the town halls have public access wifi, and people drive up and sit in their cars and get their email that 
> way. This isn't a solution.
>
>
> On Feb 26, 2010, at 4:40 PM, James Jones wrote:
>
>    
> > The Massachusetts Broadband Institute is currently working a middle mile solution to help with some of the issues in 
> > western ma. Thing do sound promising.
> >
> >
> > On 2/26/10 4:34 PM, Michael Sokolov wrote:
> >      
> > > Daniel Senie<dts () 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
> > >
> > >
> > >        
>