Locations with no good Internet (was ISP in Johannesburg)

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1

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

2

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.

Regards

3

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

4

Hmm... unless I'm completely off, 1,080. About enough for a DS3. Maybe half of a
DS3.. as long as it overreaches their T1 or HDSL capacity. It seems that while
DS3 is a copper product, it's typically delivered to the site broken off of a
fiber node. Wouldn't want to see the installation bill of that, though. That's
been my experience of AT&T here in California.

-S

Jared Mauch wrote:

5

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.

6

Joel Jaeggli wrote:

Michael

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.

Yep. There was a cool experiment in Venuzella with a 237 mile link.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2007/06/w_wifi_record_2/

The tdm firmware is really interesting stuff. More at
http://tier.cs.berkeley.edu/wiki/Wireless

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

I love the ubnt stuff. It's simply amazing.

It is now possible to put together a passable community or wisp network
for what essentially is microcap money.

Yep.

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.

Exactly. Yay for unlicensed ISM bands.

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.

For sure.

Way to many folks focused on celluar as a solution. *peers over at my 16
node openwrt mesh testing lab*

In my opinion, last mile access is a very mature area, with well
understood operational models etc. Granted all sorts of interesting wifi
related issues pop up on the WISPA list, but so does BGP issues on Nanog
or weird cisco bugs on c-nsp.

The biggest problem is middle mile. That is where the money needs to go.
You need something to back haul to the interwebz. There is a lot of
fiber in the ground already, but there are numerous layer 8 issues with
getting to it most of the time. Solving those is an exercise left for
the reader.

- --
Charles N Wyble
Linux Systems Engineer
charles@knownelement.com (818)280-7059
http://www.knownelement.com