Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

2015-11-10 Thread Rory Conaway 
There are solutions coming.  We have used NS2M’s with window mounts inside 
houses.  Mimosa has the C5i coming out, etc… Of course, if the FCC would 
actually cooperate and cared about the 50% of the population that can’t afford 
internet (and still growing) by giving us some sub 1GHz bandwidth to work with 
and take away all the excessive regulations, there might be more options.  The 
Chromebooks are definitely going to drive some of this.  It got us off the 
table.

Rory


From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Eric Kuhnke
Sent: Monday, November 9, 2015 9:26 AM
To: af@afmug.com
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

Until somebody cuts launch costs ($ per kg to a 450 x 450km orbit) to 1/10th of 
its current price, satellite will always be the worst option unless you're in a 
truly remote place. For example a mountainous region of Idaho in a town with 
population 70 people.
o3b is a step in the right direction, and has been revolutionary for some 
pacific island nation states.
I think I've said this before: You can aggregate all of the transponder 
capacity of ALL the C and Ku-band transponders on a single large (6000 
kilogram) geostationary telecom satellite, and even if you're generous by 
assuming that everything operates at very tight 16QAM or 32APSK modulations 
with huge dishes on the ground, the total throughput of that satellite is less 
than you can push through two strands of fiber with a few thousand dollars of 
DWDM gear on each end, and some $150 SFP+ modules.

On Mon, Nov 9, 2015 at 8:06 AM, Ken Hohhof 
<af...@kwisp.com<mailto:af...@kwisp.com>> wrote:
I’m waiting for the geniuses at Google Fiber to show us dummies how to solve 
that one.

You could say advertising supported or walled garden services like Facebook is 
promoting in the third world might be the answer, but with those trees, drones 
and balloons might not be a solution, even satellite might be tough.  And if 
people can’t afford or don’t want a computer, connectivity is not the only 
obstacle.  Schools sending kids home with Chromebooks might break through that.


From: Eric Kuhnke<mailto:eric.kuh...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, November 09, 2015 4:12 AM
To: af@afmug.com<mailto:af@afmug.com>
Subject: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

http://www.wired.com/2015/11/the-land-that-the-internet-forgot/

yeah you're not going to get a lot of subscribers in a county where 90% of the 
children qualify for free school lunches...   no matter what the population is, 
hard finding a sufficient number of people to pay $50/mo.

Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

2015-11-10 Thread That One Guy /sarcasm 
Rory,
Can you do that now, open internet and all?


The guvment needs to fund ftth to all these people

gigabit to the farm

gigabit to every horse

On Mon, Nov 9, 2015 at 8:40 AM, Rory Conaway <r...@triadwireless.net> wrote:

> We are looking at a similar issue and the best we can come up with is a
> cluster solution at those prices.  We are going to drop the cost down to
> $10 per month for homes that only use some school device like Chrome or
> iPad and then $20 for 5Mbps service with certain things blocked.
>
>
>
> Rory
>
>
>
> *From:* Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] *On Behalf Of *Glen Waldrop
> *Sent:* Monday, November 09, 2015 6:47 AM
> *To:* af@afmug.com
> *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband
> sucks
>
>
>
> Honestly, I live in rural Alabama.
>
> When the neighbors that I can't even see get too suffocating I ride
> through Mississippi and drive at 70mph down their four lane highways and go
> minutes if not several minutes between seeing houses.
>
> MS has some population centers, but at least the majority of the
> state I've been through are sparsely populated. Makes *any* Internet
> service hard to maintain and just break even.
>
>
>
> I can make a few dollars above expenses in rural Alabama and we're looking
> at expanding into rural MS, but even wireless is prohibitively expensive
> per sub in most places there. There are several stretches around
> Starkville, which he mentioned in the article, where there are 3+ miles
> between houses, seriously heavy trees. Fiber would be ridiculously
> expensive to run, aDSL can't cover the distances, wireless can't go through
> the trees.
>
>
>
> The article seems to be all about the problem and attempting to turn it
> into a race thing with no practical suggestions on how to fix it.
>
> I don't have an answer. Been looking at the situation and I've actually
> worked some numbers. Tower rental or putting one up with an AP where you
> can only pick up 3 subs? I've got some like that here, by the time the
> equipment is paid for lightning has killed it.
>
> I actually had one neighborhood start to sabotage my AP over "free"
> service for the Volunteer Fire Dept because it was too slow. They had a
> meeting I wasn't invited to discussing throwing me off the tower. I spoke
> to the chief, wrote a letter crunching the numbers on a per tower basis,
> finding that to date it has cost me $800+ to serve these people free
> Internet in a neighborhood that swore they'd all connect as soon as I
> brought it to them. Three subs, 40+ freeloaders. The VFD power bill
> averaged $15 a month before I offered free service for meetings, classes,
> etc. Everyone in the community has a key, so their light bill is $200+ now
> and my heaviest user in an entire county is a free service.
>
> That slowed down my expansion into the seriously rural areas, which were
> my intended locations for service in the first place.
>
>
>
>
>
> - Original Message -
>
> *From:* Eric Kuhnke <eric.kuh...@gmail.com>
>
> *To:* af@afmug.com
>
> *Sent:* Monday, November 09, 2015 4:12 AM
>
> *Subject:* [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks
>
>
>
> http://www.wired.com/2015/11/the-land-that-the-internet-forgot/
>
> yeah you're not going to get a lot of subscribers in a county where 90% of
> the children qualify for free school lunches...   no matter what the
> population is, hard finding a sufficient number of people to pay $50/mo.
>
>


-- 
If you only see yourself as part of the team but you don't see your team as
part of yourself you have already failed as part of the team.

Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

2015-11-10 Thread Rory Conaway 
It’s not open.  Work with the schools and you get to filter it.   However, with 
a Procera box or a Barracuda Web Filter, you have some options.  Keep in mind 
the Chromebooks are school issued meaning they come with rules.

Rory

From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of That One Guy /sarcasm
Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2015 10:27 AM
To: af@afmug.com
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

Rory,
Can you do that now, open internet and all?


The guvment needs to fund ftth to all these people

gigabit to the farm

gigabit to every horse

On Mon, Nov 9, 2015 at 8:40 AM, Rory Conaway 
<r...@triadwireless.net<mailto:r...@triadwireless.net>> wrote:
We are looking at a similar issue and the best we can come up with is a cluster 
solution at those prices.  We are going to drop the cost down to $10 per month 
for homes that only use some school device like Chrome or iPad and then $20 for 
5Mbps service with certain things blocked.

Rory

From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com<mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com>] On Behalf 
Of Glen Waldrop
Sent: Monday, November 09, 2015 6:47 AM
To: af@afmug.com<mailto:af@afmug.com>
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

Honestly, I live in rural Alabama.

When the neighbors that I can't even see get too suffocating I ride through 
Mississippi and drive at 70mph down their four lane highways and go minutes if 
not several minutes between seeing houses.

MS has some population centers, but at least the majority of the state I've 
been through are sparsely populated. Makes *any* Internet service hard to 
maintain and just break even.

I can make a few dollars above expenses in rural Alabama and we're looking at 
expanding into rural MS, but even wireless is prohibitively expensive per sub 
in most places there. There are several stretches around Starkville, which he 
mentioned in the article, where there are 3+ miles between houses, seriously 
heavy trees. Fiber would be ridiculously expensive to run, aDSL can't cover the 
distances, wireless can't go through the trees.

The article seems to be all about the problem and attempting to turn it into a 
race thing with no practical suggestions on how to fix it.

I don't have an answer. Been looking at the situation and I've actually worked 
some numbers. Tower rental or putting one up with an AP where you can only pick 
up 3 subs? I've got some like that here, by the time the equipment is paid for 
lightning has killed it.

I actually had one neighborhood start to sabotage my AP over "free" service for 
the Volunteer Fire Dept because it was too slow. They had a meeting I wasn't 
invited to discussing throwing me off the tower. I spoke to the chief, wrote a 
letter crunching the numbers on a per tower basis, finding that to date it has 
cost me $800+ to serve these people free Internet in a neighborhood that swore 
they'd all connect as soon as I brought it to them. Three subs, 40+ 
freeloaders. The VFD power bill averaged $15 a month before I offered free 
service for meetings, classes, etc. Everyone in the community has a key, so 
their light bill is $200+ now and my heaviest user in an entire county is a 
free service.

That slowed down my expansion into the seriously rural areas, which were my 
intended locations for service in the first place.


- Original Message -
From: Eric Kuhnke<mailto:eric.kuh...@gmail.com>
To: af@afmug.com<mailto:af@afmug.com>
Sent: Monday, November 09, 2015 4:12 AM
Subject: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

http://www.wired.com/2015/11/the-land-that-the-internet-forgot/
yeah you're not going to get a lot of subscribers in a county where 90% of the 
children qualify for free school lunches...   no matter what the population is, 
hard finding a sufficient number of people to pay $50/mo.



--
If you only see yourself as part of the team but you don't see your team as 
part of yourself you have already failed as part of the team.

Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

2015-11-10 Thread Rory Conaway 
I don’t understand how you got $500 in the RB433.  Since most of these people 
live in relatively small wooden houses, we are simply going to do a single 5GHz 
backhaul and a low height 2.4GHz omni.  That should cover 6-10 houses or more.

Rory

From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Glen Waldrop
Sent: Monday, November 9, 2015 8:04 AM
To: af@afmug.com
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

Let me know how you handle it.

I've got about $500 in the RB433 that works as a 5GHz client and 2.4GHz AP with 
$50 CPE and I've not even covered expenses. Every time it gets close to 
breaking even we've had either a lightning strike or a tornado.

Every time we start to catch up Weather.com sends us something evil. It's all 
their fault.


- Original Message -
From: Rory Conaway<mailto:r...@triadwireless.net>
To: af@afmug.com<mailto:af@afmug.com>
Sent: Monday, November 09, 2015 8:40 AM
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

We are looking at a similar issue and the best we can come up with is a cluster 
solution at those prices.  We are going to drop the cost down to $10 per month 
for homes that only use some school device like Chrome or iPad and then $20 for 
5Mbps service with certain things blocked.

Rory

From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Glen Waldrop
Sent: Monday, November 09, 2015 6:47 AM
To: af@afmug.com<mailto:af@afmug.com>
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

Honestly, I live in rural Alabama.

When the neighbors that I can't even see get too suffocating I ride through 
Mississippi and drive at 70mph down their four lane highways and go minutes if 
not several minutes between seeing houses.

MS has some population centers, but at least the majority of the state I've 
been through are sparsely populated. Makes *any* Internet service hard to 
maintain and just break even.

I can make a few dollars above expenses in rural Alabama and we're looking at 
expanding into rural MS, but even wireless is prohibitively expensive per sub 
in most places there. There are several stretches around Starkville, which he 
mentioned in the article, where there are 3+ miles between houses, seriously 
heavy trees. Fiber would be ridiculously expensive to run, aDSL can't cover the 
distances, wireless can't go through the trees.

The article seems to be all about the problem and attempting to turn it into a 
race thing with no practical suggestions on how to fix it.

I don't have an answer. Been looking at the situation and I've actually worked 
some numbers. Tower rental or putting one up with an AP where you can only pick 
up 3 subs? I've got some like that here, by the time the equipment is paid for 
lightning has killed it.

I actually had one neighborhood start to sabotage my AP over "free" service for 
the Volunteer Fire Dept because it was too slow. They had a meeting I wasn't 
invited to discussing throwing me off the tower. I spoke to the chief, wrote a 
letter crunching the numbers on a per tower basis, finding that to date it has 
cost me $800+ to serve these people free Internet in a neighborhood that swore 
they'd all connect as soon as I brought it to them. Three subs, 40+ 
freeloaders. The VFD power bill averaged $15 a month before I offered free 
service for meetings, classes, etc. Everyone in the community has a key, so 
their light bill is $200+ now and my heaviest user in an entire county is a 
free service.

That slowed down my expansion into the seriously rural areas, which were my 
intended locations for service in the first place.


- Original Message -
From: Eric Kuhnke<mailto:eric.kuh...@gmail.com>
To: af@afmug.com<mailto:af@afmug.com>
Sent: Monday, November 09, 2015 4:12 AM
Subject: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

http://www.wired.com/2015/11/the-land-that-the-internet-forgot/
yeah you're not going to get a lot of subscribers in a county where 90% of the 
children qualify for free school lunches...   no matter what the population is, 
hard finding a sufficient number of people to pay $50/mo.

Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

2015-11-10 Thread Glen Waldrop 
Just an estimate.

$99 - RB433
$50 - enclosure
$12 - pigtail x3
$50 - R5Hn (oh, that worked out well...)
$50 - R52Hn 
$67 - 12dBi Omni
$35 - 9dBi Omni
$60 - 29dBi grid
$15 - LMR400
$22 - POE
$60 - UPS

It was a bit of an experiment, paid off here, not so much elsewhere. 12dBi omni 
on top for distance, 9dBi omni on bottom to prevent blind spots directly under 
the tower. SISO signal with MIMO signal correction.

This was built quite a while back. I've had to replace the board at least three 
times, the R5Hn may not even be in there, may have gone to a different card. I 
had at least three of them die before the installation was finished.

This is roughly what I paid for it the first time I built it, probably the 
second as well, though I didn't have to replace all of the antennas the third 
build.

Stuff is cheaper now and I was building out in a neighborhood that had 
convinced me that this would only meet demand for a short time.


  - Original Message - 
  From: Rory Conaway 
  To: af@afmug.com 
  Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2015 2:29 AM
  Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks


  I don’t understand how you got $500 in the RB433.  Since most of these people 
live in relatively small wooden houses, we are simply going to do a single 5GHz 
backhaul and a low height 2.4GHz omni.  That should cover 6-10 houses or more.  

   

  Rory 

   

  From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Glen Waldrop
  Sent: Monday, November 9, 2015 8:04 AM
  To: af@afmug.com
  Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

   

  Let me know how you handle it.

  I've got about $500 in the RB433 that works as a 5GHz client and 2.4GHz AP 
with $50 CPE and I've not even covered expenses. Every time it gets close to 
breaking even we've had either a lightning strike or a tornado.

  Every time we start to catch up Weather.com sends us something evil. It's all 
their fault.

   

   

- Original Message - 

From: Rory Conaway 

To: af@afmug.com 

Sent: Monday, November 09, 2015 8:40 AM

Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

 

We are looking at a similar issue and the best we can come up with is a 
cluster solution at those prices.  We are going to drop the cost down to $10 
per month for homes that only use some school device like Chrome or iPad and 
then $20 for 5Mbps service with certain things blocked.  

 

Rory

 

From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Glen Waldrop
Sent: Monday, November 09, 2015 6:47 AM
To: af@afmug.com
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

 

Honestly, I live in rural Alabama.

When the neighbors that I can't even see get too suffocating I ride through 
Mississippi and drive at 70mph down their four lane highways and go minutes if 
not several minutes between seeing houses.

MS has some population centers, but at least the majority of the state I've 
been through are sparsely populated. Makes *any* Internet service hard to 
maintain and just break even.

 

I can make a few dollars above expenses in rural Alabama and we're looking 
at expanding into rural MS, but even wireless is prohibitively expensive per 
sub in most places there. There are several stretches around Starkville, which 
he mentioned in the article, where there are 3+ miles between houses, seriously 
heavy trees. Fiber would be ridiculously expensive to run, aDSL can't cover the 
distances, wireless can't go through the trees.

 

The article seems to be all about the problem and attempting to turn it 
into a race thing with no practical suggestions on how to fix it.

I don't have an answer. Been looking at the situation and I've actually 
worked some numbers. Tower rental or putting one up with an AP where you can 
only pick up 3 subs? I've got some like that here, by the time the equipment is 
paid for lightning has killed it.

I actually had one neighborhood start to sabotage my AP over "free" service 
for the Volunteer Fire Dept because it was too slow. They had a meeting I 
wasn't invited to discussing throwing me off the tower. I spoke to the chief, 
wrote a letter crunching the numbers on a per tower basis, finding that to date 
it has cost me $800+ to serve these people free Internet in a neighborhood that 
swore they'd all connect as soon as I brought it to them. Three subs, 40+ 
freeloaders. The VFD power bill averaged $15 a month before I offered free 
service for meetings, classes, etc. Everyone in the community has a key, so 
their light bill is $200+ now and my heaviest user in an entire county is a 
free service.

That slowed down my expansion into the seriously rural areas, which were my 
intended locations for service in the first place.

 

 

  - Original Message - 

  From: Eric Kuhnke 

  To: af@afmug.com

Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

2015-11-09 Thread Glen Waldrop 
Let me know how you handle it.

I've got about $500 in the RB433 that works as a 5GHz client and 2.4GHz AP with 
$50 CPE and I've not even covered expenses. Every time it gets close to 
breaking even we've had either a lightning strike or a tornado.

Every time we start to catch up Weather.com sends us something evil. It's all 
their fault.


  - Original Message - 
  From: Rory Conaway 
  To: af@afmug.com 
  Sent: Monday, November 09, 2015 8:40 AM
  Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks


  We are looking at a similar issue and the best we can come up with is a 
cluster solution at those prices.  We are going to drop the cost down to $10 
per month for homes that only use some school device like Chrome or iPad and 
then $20 for 5Mbps service with certain things blocked.  

   

  Rory

   

  From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Glen Waldrop
  Sent: Monday, November 09, 2015 6:47 AM
  To: af@afmug.com
  Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

   

  Honestly, I live in rural Alabama.

  When the neighbors that I can't even see get too suffocating I ride through 
Mississippi and drive at 70mph down their four lane highways and go minutes if 
not several minutes between seeing houses.

  MS has some population centers, but at least the majority of the state I've 
been through are sparsely populated. Makes *any* Internet service hard to 
maintain and just break even.

   

  I can make a few dollars above expenses in rural Alabama and we're looking at 
expanding into rural MS, but even wireless is prohibitively expensive per sub 
in most places there. There are several stretches around Starkville, which he 
mentioned in the article, where there are 3+ miles between houses, seriously 
heavy trees. Fiber would be ridiculously expensive to run, aDSL can't cover the 
distances, wireless can't go through the trees.

   

  The article seems to be all about the problem and attempting to turn it into 
a race thing with no practical suggestions on how to fix it.

  I don't have an answer. Been looking at the situation and I've actually 
worked some numbers. Tower rental or putting one up with an AP where you can 
only pick up 3 subs? I've got some like that here, by the time the equipment is 
paid for lightning has killed it.

  I actually had one neighborhood start to sabotage my AP over "free" service 
for the Volunteer Fire Dept because it was too slow. They had a meeting I 
wasn't invited to discussing throwing me off the tower. I spoke to the chief, 
wrote a letter crunching the numbers on a per tower basis, finding that to date 
it has cost me $800+ to serve these people free Internet in a neighborhood that 
swore they'd all connect as soon as I brought it to them. Three subs, 40+ 
freeloaders. The VFD power bill averaged $15 a month before I offered free 
service for meetings, classes, etc. Everyone in the community has a key, so 
their light bill is $200+ now and my heaviest user in an entire county is a 
free service.

  That slowed down my expansion into the seriously rural areas, which were my 
intended locations for service in the first place.

   

   

- Original Message - 

From: Eric Kuhnke 

To: af@afmug.com 

Sent: Monday, November 09, 2015 4:12 AM

Subject: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

 

http://www.wired.com/2015/11/the-land-that-the-internet-forgot/



yeah you're not going to get a lot of subscribers in a county where 90% of 
the children qualify for free school lunches...   no matter what the population 
is, hard finding a sufficient number of people to pay $50/mo.

Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

2015-11-09 Thread Rory Conaway 
We are looking at a similar issue and the best we can come up with is a cluster 
solution at those prices.  We are going to drop the cost down to $10 per month 
for homes that only use some school device like Chrome or iPad and then $20 for 
5Mbps service with certain things blocked.

Rory

From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Glen Waldrop
Sent: Monday, November 09, 2015 6:47 AM
To: af@afmug.com
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

Honestly, I live in rural Alabama.

When the neighbors that I can't even see get too suffocating I ride through 
Mississippi and drive at 70mph down their four lane highways and go minutes if 
not several minutes between seeing houses.

MS has some population centers, but at least the majority of the state I've 
been through are sparsely populated. Makes *any* Internet service hard to 
maintain and just break even.

I can make a few dollars above expenses in rural Alabama and we're looking at 
expanding into rural MS, but even wireless is prohibitively expensive per sub 
in most places there. There are several stretches around Starkville, which he 
mentioned in the article, where there are 3+ miles between houses, seriously 
heavy trees. Fiber would be ridiculously expensive to run, aDSL can't cover the 
distances, wireless can't go through the trees.

The article seems to be all about the problem and attempting to turn it into a 
race thing with no practical suggestions on how to fix it.

I don't have an answer. Been looking at the situation and I've actually worked 
some numbers. Tower rental or putting one up with an AP where you can only pick 
up 3 subs? I've got some like that here, by the time the equipment is paid for 
lightning has killed it.

I actually had one neighborhood start to sabotage my AP over "free" service for 
the Volunteer Fire Dept because it was too slow. They had a meeting I wasn't 
invited to discussing throwing me off the tower. I spoke to the chief, wrote a 
letter crunching the numbers on a per tower basis, finding that to date it has 
cost me $800+ to serve these people free Internet in a neighborhood that swore 
they'd all connect as soon as I brought it to them. Three subs, 40+ 
freeloaders. The VFD power bill averaged $15 a month before I offered free 
service for meetings, classes, etc. Everyone in the community has a key, so 
their light bill is $200+ now and my heaviest user in an entire county is a 
free service.

That slowed down my expansion into the seriously rural areas, which were my 
intended locations for service in the first place.


- Original Message -
From: Eric Kuhnke<mailto:eric.kuh...@gmail.com>
To: af@afmug.com<mailto:af@afmug.com>
Sent: Monday, November 09, 2015 4:12 AM
Subject: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

http://www.wired.com/2015/11/the-land-that-the-internet-forgot/

yeah you're not going to get a lot of subscribers in a county where 90% of the 
children qualify for free school lunches...   no matter what the population is, 
hard finding a sufficient number of people to pay $50/mo.

Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

2015-11-09 Thread Glen Waldrop 
Honestly, I live in rural Alabama.

When the neighbors that I can't even see get too suffocating I ride through 
Mississippi and drive at 70mph down their four lane highways and go minutes if 
not several minutes between seeing houses.

MS has some population centers, but at least the majority of the state I've 
been through are sparsely populated. Makes *any* Internet service hard to 
maintain and just break even.

I can make a few dollars above expenses in rural Alabama and we're looking at 
expanding into rural MS, but even wireless is prohibitively expensive per sub 
in most places there. There are several stretches around Starkville, which he 
mentioned in the article, where there are 3+ miles between houses, seriously 
heavy trees. Fiber would be ridiculously expensive to run, aDSL can't cover the 
distances, wireless can't go through the trees.

The article seems to be all about the problem and attempting to turn it into a 
race thing with no practical suggestions on how to fix it.

I don't have an answer. Been looking at the situation and I've actually worked 
some numbers. Tower rental or putting one up with an AP where you can only pick 
up 3 subs? I've got some like that here, by the time the equipment is paid for 
lightning has killed it.

I actually had one neighborhood start to sabotage my AP over "free" service for 
the Volunteer Fire Dept because it was too slow. They had a meeting I wasn't 
invited to discussing throwing me off the tower. I spoke to the chief, wrote a 
letter crunching the numbers on a per tower basis, finding that to date it has 
cost me $800+ to serve these people free Internet in a neighborhood that swore 
they'd all connect as soon as I brought it to them. Three subs, 40+ 
freeloaders. The VFD power bill averaged $15 a month before I offered free 
service for meetings, classes, etc. Everyone in the community has a key, so 
their light bill is $200+ now and my heaviest user in an entire county is a 
free service.

That slowed down my expansion into the seriously rural areas, which were my 
intended locations for service in the first place.


  - Original Message - 
  From: Eric Kuhnke 
  To: af@afmug.com 
  Sent: Monday, November 09, 2015 4:12 AM
  Subject: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks


  http://www.wired.com/2015/11/the-land-that-the-internet-forgot/



  yeah you're not going to get a lot of subscribers in a county where 90% of 
the children qualify for free school lunches...   no matter what the population 
is, hard finding a sufficient number of people to pay $50/mo.

Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

2015-11-09 Thread Ken Hohhof 
I’m waiting for the geniuses at Google Fiber to show us dummies how to solve 
that one.

You could say advertising supported or walled garden services like Facebook is 
promoting in the third world might be the answer, but with those trees, drones 
and balloons might not be a solution, even satellite might be tough.  And if 
people can’t afford or don’t want a computer, connectivity is not the only 
obstacle.  Schools sending kids home with Chromebooks might break through that.


From: Eric Kuhnke 
Sent: Monday, November 09, 2015 4:12 AM
To: af@afmug.com 
Subject: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

http://www.wired.com/2015/11/the-land-that-the-internet-forgot/



yeah you're not going to get a lot of subscribers in a county where 90% of the 
children qualify for free school lunches...   no matter what the population is, 
hard finding a sufficient number of people to pay $50/mo.

Re: [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks

2015-11-09 Thread Eric Kuhnke 
Until somebody cuts launch costs ($ per kg to a 450 x 450km orbit) to
1/10th of its current price, satellite will always be the worst option
unless you're in a truly remote place. For example a mountainous region of
Idaho in a town with population 70 people.

o3b is a step in the right direction, and has been revolutionary for some
pacific island nation states.

I think I've said this before: You can aggregate all of the transponder
capacity of ALL the C and Ku-band transponders on a single large (6000
kilogram) geostationary telecom satellite, and even if you're generous by
assuming that everything operates at very tight 16QAM or 32APSK modulations
with huge dishes on the ground, the total throughput of that satellite is
less than you can push through two strands of fiber with a few thousand
dollars of DWDM gear on each end, and some $150 SFP+ modules.


On Mon, Nov 9, 2015 at 8:06 AM, Ken Hohhof  wrote:

> I’m waiting for the geniuses at Google Fiber to show us dummies how to
> solve that one.
>
> You could say advertising supported or walled garden services like
> Facebook is promoting in the third world might be the answer, but with
> those trees, drones and balloons might not be a solution, even satellite
> might be tough.  And if people can’t afford or don’t want a computer,
> connectivity is not the only obstacle.  Schools sending kids home with
> Chromebooks might break through that.
>
>
> *From:* Eric Kuhnke 
> *Sent:* Monday, November 09, 2015 4:12 AM
> *To:* af@afmug.com
> *Subject:* [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks
>
> http://www.wired.com/2015/11/the-land-that-the-internet-forgot/
>
>
> yeah you're not going to get a lot of subscribers in a county where 90% of
> the children qualify for free school lunches...   no matter what the
> population is, hard finding a sufficient number of people to pay $50/mo.
>