Broadband in a Box INTRO

[Stargazer]

In the next 10-15 years satellite is NOT going to be the only option to those in rural areas.

White spacing is going to allow broadband to go where people can pickup television stations with an outdoor antenna. To those that cannot receive signal transmissions this way, it can be hopped down to areas by having a repeater put up on hilltops like we do with cell phones amplifiers.

Wireless internet service providers will continue to gain coverage to rural areas.

New technologies will emerge to allow expanded coverage.

DSL / Cable is also going to expand into more rural areas due to costs dropping.

Grants are going to allow companies to expand to the more rural areas.

There will be some sort of technology that will allow signals to be transmitted from the sky such as the stratellite above the weather in the stratosphere. I have also read up on doing it with balloon launches every so often. I think this is the future of signal transmissions. This is what I currently have a lot of interest in and am talking to a company about using their technology to do that in my area as it is already being used for other types of signal transmissions currently.

 

[KE4EST]

Thing is people already have cell phones. I can't think of anyone I know that doesn't have a cell phone. I guess things are quite different in my area. I have a couple of friends that don't even have a land line on their property since it was too much for the phone company to run a line to their property. So they went with cell phones instead. I guess you can say cell phone coverage has exceeded the coverage of land line in some areas around here.

What we are all trying to get across to you is 1 way satellite internet has been dead for years in our eyes and area. It's not coming back...people love the 2 way too much. Most of them can care less if it works during the 5-10 minutes it is out during the down pour, just as long as it doesn't require a phone line. And also from what I can remember playing with a Wildblue system it would exceed the upload speed of a v92 connection anyways. But as many pointed out if you can get a clean connection of v92 up to 53/44k then you wouldn't have satellite anyways, you'd have DSL with a line like that. Most rural areas are lucky to see 24k dialup connections.

I totally agree..:up

 

[Stargazer]

digiblur quote : But as many pointed out if you can get a clean connection of v92 up to 53/44k then you wouldn't have satellite anyways, you'd have DSL with a line like that.

Not the case in lots of areas. Just because you have a line available that has great download and upload speeds dont necessarily mean that you will have DSL available to you. I get 53K and live within 300-500 feet of their box and they do not provide DSL in the area. They said there is not enough work in the box to support their costs for providing DSL in the area.

 

[grohgreg]

I get 53K and live within 300-500 feet of their box and they do not provide DSL in the area. They said there is not enough work in the box to support their costs for providing DSL in the area.

Which almost certainly means they do not have a digital grade feed to that box. They'd have to run one from the DCO to the box, before being able to extend a service line to your residence.

Or have you not volunteered to pay for service line and drop segment yourself?

//greg//

 

[Stargazer]

They have a fiber from the nearest town to this box (8 miles away). I know its a fiber feed because I talked to the Verizon repair crew and I can see the big thick black lines that go to it. They said the box has what is needed to put in DSL equipment. Lightspeed or something like that, can't remember the exact name of it.

When you said that, you must have been thinking that since there was no digital grade feed to the box that I should volunteer to pay for it. Wouldn't that have been very expensive if it was not there already?

There is another peice of equipment that need to be placed into the box. Unfortunately I think the rest of the community down the road operates out of another seperate box because when we had outages that lasted for a day or two on on a few occassions (due to fiber getting cut when a tree fell on it) the trailer parks a mile down the road from me still had their phone service. I believe their fiber feed runs from the other town that is the same distance from us.

I would like to get a grant to offer the service here due to the high costs of getting infrastructure in place. I had it here with several hops from town but lost one of my hops due to an issue with someone during contract renewal that did not want to live up to their end of the deal. It was awesome when I got everything working, as fast as 4.5 MBPS and the only reason why it was not faster than that was an old AP that was only capable of 11 MB due to it only supporting B mode and it only being half duplex.

I know that I could get a T1 but they want $400 for that although I might be able to get a better deal if I talk to them but 1.5 MB is not very much these days. They quoted me $900 just three years ago but I know that they are pricing it as low as $300 to some businesses in some areas. With a fiber they make you get a minimum of 6 MB which would be around $700 per month and I could increase bandwidth as needed. That's a lot of customers that I would need to get to pay that bandwidth bill off though and at any time a cable company could come through here and offer the service or Verizon could start offering DSL themselves after I start offering it and sign a long-term three year contract for the fiber. To say the least I don't want to take on that kind of risk for the fiber without some sort of grant. If I had a grant I could bring broadband to this area.

 

[grohgreg]

When you said that, you must have been thinking that since there was no digital grade feed to the box that I should volunteer to pay for it. .

No, you obviously misunderstood. What I was trying to get across was that - if there already was full DSL functionality as far as "the box" - you could volunteer to pay for the last 200 feet between the box and your residence. That's the service line, and it's plain old twisted pair copper. It goes to the "little box" on the side of your house. From there to the modem is the drop segment. There is no shortage of folks on this forum alone that have gone that route.

From your subsequent description, it's not apparent that "the box" lacks full DSL functionality. That makes it premature to worry about the service line and drop segment. If your analog modem is operating at peak performance already, I'd say your service line and drop segment are probably DSL-ready too. So volunteering to fund the segment between "the box" and the residence becomes moot. All that's really lacking is DSL functionality at "the box" - and a modem inside the residence. But if you're not satisfied with your analog modem performance either, you might be looking at replacing the service line and or drop segment eventually anyway. The service line is actually the telcos responsiblity, but volunteering to pay sometimes serves to move the job along a little faster.

//greg//

 

[Stargazer]

The "box" that I am referring to I think they call it SAI (Service Area Interface) in which serves my area with phone service. It is not a central office but the fiber runs from a central office to it. The DSLAM is what is needed to be placed into the SAI in order to get us DSL in this area. About three years ago there were more than a hundred people that signed a petition to get DSL in the area. They said that we needed 200-300 people to sign a petition before they could bring DSL in here.

I am thinking that a lot of the signatures probably came from people that did not receive phone service from this SAI and I know the area down the road from me has a seperate SAI. I am sure having two SAI's to serve the area does not help on getting a DSLAM installed. The SAI is capable of having a DSLAM put into it from what the Verizon technician has told me before. That SAI has only been there for around 10 years.

Since the SAI does not have the DSLAM then I cannot get DSL. I am very close to the SAI though which is why I probably get the great connection speeds through the dialup modem. I rarely get disconnected.

I know that some areas about 25 miles from here that is running out of space in their SAI's for new phone service are being upgraded with DSLAM and everytime they do an upgrade in their SAI they have 20-25 people that are able to get 768k DSL. Once in a while more openings are available in those areas to where they can add 20-25 more people.

I would get a fiber line from the SAI if there was someway of subsidizing some of the other costs somehow. There is a grade school that has a T1 about half a mile from me. They only pay $150 per month for it though since they get a special deal since it is a school. I was told by the tech guy at the board of education that if I could beat that price then I could provide the service to the school.

 

[iwc5893]

In the next 10-15 years satellite is NOT going to be the only option to those in rural areas.

White spacing is going to allow broadband to go where people can pickup television stations with an outdoor antenna. To those that cannot receive signal transmissions this way, it can be hopped down to areas by having a repeater put up on hilltops like we do with cell phones amplifiers.

Wireless internet service providers will continue to gain coverage to rural areas.

New technologies will emerge to allow expanded coverage.

DSL / Cable is also going to expand into more rural areas due to costs dropping.

Grants are going to allow companies to expand to the more rural areas.

There will be some sort of technology that will allow signals to be transmitted from the sky such as the stratellite above the weather in the stratosphere. I have also read up on doing it with balloon launches every so often. I think this is the future of signal transmissions. This is what I currently have a lot of interest in and am talking to a company about using their technology to do that in my area as it is already being used for other types of signal transmissions currently.

Where I live, our county PUD (Public Utility District) has an ambitious plan to run fiber optic to every home in a community in the next 5 years. For those that don't live an organized community, we have at least four WISPs (one of which I work for). I would say that at least 75% of the customers I install each week are switching from satellite or dial up because they're tired of the slow speeds and/or FAP's.

I agree to an extent your post to an extent. There will be some areas that will only be able to get satellite broadband, but these areas are going to get fewer and farther in between. Cable/DSL/Fiber may start working their way out there, but there is still some pretty hefty infastructure costs associated with bringing services out to BFE. This is where the WISP's have the advantage...if they are smart about exploiting it.

 

[broadbandinabox]

Awesome conversation folks! I agree that Wisp's are providing a vital solution and I am the first to tell people that if wireless is available you'll be a lot happier with that service over our solution. There is no comparison, wireless smokes satellite. While our focus is partnering with the rural incumbent local exchange carriers, I have kept an eye on this portion of the industry and feel that our technology is a Perfect Interim Solution to connect people TODAY for no sites and homes and businesses who fall outside of your networks. Work referrals, get enough business in an area which will make it cost effective to invest in a tower, install them with wireless, take our hardware and move further out.

iwc, what percentage of prospect calls are no sites and homes and businesses who fall outside of your networks?

 

[Stargazer]

Higher bandwidth caps are needed than what satellite offers. This is one reason why people do not get satellite and stick with dialup because dialup has no limits.

 

[broadbandinabox]

Many DU providers monitor the actual time their customers spend online rather than the bandwidth they consume.

 

[grohgreg]

Many DU providers monitor the actual time their customers spend online rather than the bandwidth they consume.

Including SkyWay. They spell out right in RUP section of the Subscriber Agreement the rules you have to follow to avoid having them drop your dialup connection. Since a complete loop is required, this means the satellite side drops too - until you reconnect on the dialup side.

I'm still wondering why the newere SW20 hybrid mode is still using the old 10Base-T Ethernet technology. If SkyWay hasn't answered you yet, I have another question. Why did they also go with the old v.34 dialup standard (33.6k transmit)? It surely couldn't have cost anymore to use the more current v.44 standard (44k transmit).

//greg//