It's not quite as wonderful as you hoped... we're on the other side of Homestead from you, about .8 miles south, at Rose and Las Palmas.
The other guy I know nearby and I are more interested in some kind of meshing to minimize network downtime, and perhaps offer some higher peak bandwidth. I'm not sure that we'd want to share 1.5 mbits with 18 other people, either! I'm doing business from my home and a 1.5/768 downstream DSL line sometimes gets loaded fairly heavily. On the other hand, a T1 in the mix would add a measure of reliability, I'd imagine, since we're all on the same telco CO, which means that it's quite possible that a single DSLAM problem could knock us all off at once. I did the NetStumbler thing today, finally, and found that there are more than a dozen APs within a block of here. Only a few of them are encrypted; at least three were happy to give me an address via DHCP. So I *could* do some "meshing" on my own, it appears. One of the accessible ones even gives me a decent signal from my rooftop using a simple homebrew Yagi. All that said, two non-technical issues are foremost in my mind. One, I don't particularly want to become a WISP and I'm not sure I'd want to trust someone without experience to be mine, either. Two, with meshing, the liability issues get sticky if someone violates the AUP of somebody else's connection. All *that* said, it sure would be nice to get a bunch of people around here to hoist antennas up to a reasonable height, attached to inexpensive boxes that would configure themselves into a mesh network. I know that there are things like that coming, but not sure what's going to be practical soon. I'm willing to share, especially if it improves my uptime and peak bandwidth. Nick -- Nick Arnett Phone/fax: (408) 904-7198 [EMAIL PROTECTED] > -----Original Message----- > From: Matt Almgren [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Friday, August 15, 2003 1:24 PM > To: Nick Arnett; [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: RE: [BAWUG] Co-op in Santa Clara ? > > > Wow! We're practically neighbors! :) Unless you are on the other side > of San Thomas or Homestead. I'm within 100' of Nicholson and Robiero. > Just driving around I have seen a few grid antennas pointed towards the > West, but not sure if they're connecting to anything or not. > > Currently, I just got a wireless card and small antennae, along with my > own wireless network at home, but I have been doing research and it looks > promising. > > I'm just throwing around numbers, but getting about 20 neighbors at > $50/month would eaily cover the cost of a T1 line. (I checked already > and they run about 550 for 2yr aggreement with local loop, router, and > included installation) to my house. I can see more rooftops than that > from my house. The hard part I see is just getting people involved and > finding a cheap way to install the client antennaes. I've looked around > at other community co-op web sites and it CAN be done with the right > planning and marketing to people. Or getting them to dump Comcast at > 49/month and go wireless. :) > > This something that I definitely want to look into and get feedback from > others, especially if you live nearby and know of possible problems, > ideas, etc.... > > - Matt > > > > > > > > --- Nick Arnett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Matt, > > > > Where are you, exactly? There are a couple of us near Homestead/San > > Tomas > > Expy who are thinking of pooling our access, mainly for reliability, > > but who > > knows... And I keep meaning to cruise the neighborhood with > > NetStumbler to > > see who else might be able to participate. > > > > -- > > Nick Arnett > > Phone/fax: (408) 904-7198 > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Matt Almgren > > > Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 3:10 PM > > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > Subject: [BAWUG] Co-op in Santa Clara ? > > > > > > > > > Does anyone know of a co-op or cheap WISP either starting or already > > > formed in Santa Clara ? Not the county, but the city. If so, please > > > send me any pertinent information. I am familiar with BARWN, but it > > > doesn't seem to stretch that far down into the south bay. I'd like > > to > > > get involved with either helping with network infrastructure or just > > > being a client. > > > > > > Thanks, > > > Matt > > > > > > > > > > > > __________________________________ > > > Do you Yahoo!? > > > Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software > > > http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com > > > -- > > > general wireless list, a bawug thing <http://www.bawug.org/> > > > [un]subscribe: http://lists.bawug.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless > > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software > http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com -- general wireless list, a bawug thing <http://www.bawug.org/> [un]subscribe: http://lists.bawug.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
