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WISPS Mean Cable and DSL Aren't the Only Choices
Posted by
timothy
on Fri Feb 06, 2009 07:33 AM
from the ephemeral-connection dept.
from the ephemeral-connection dept.
Brett Glass writes "Feel like you're stuck with a no-win choice between expensive cable modem service and slow DSL for Internet? Currently using satellite, with long latencies that make it impossible to do VoIP or interactive gaming? One of America's best kept secrets, so it seems, is the wide coverage of WISPs — terrestrial (not satellite or cellular) wireless broadband Internet providers. The linked article gives an overview of WISPs and provides a handy map showing their nationwide coverage (more than 750,000 square miles of the continental US — and only about one third of the WISPs in the US are on the map so far). Most WISPs are small, independent, consumer-friendly, and tech savvy, making them a better choice than big, corporate ISPs who can't even tell a penny from a dollar."
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They work well too (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Dialup costs me just $7.
DSL costs me just $15.
How much is the Wireless Service Provider?
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It must be nice to have such cheap internet. I happen to live in the only state shown with no WISP coverage. High speed internet links here are ridiculous.
I have two options:
1) AT&T (formerly BellSouth). If you have a land line you can get 768k/128k for $19.99/month, but you must have a land line which adds another $15+/month. Naked DSL is available, but the cheapest price is $34.95/month for 1.5M/256k.
2) Charter cable offers internet by itself. Their minimum advertised speed is 5M. The price is almost
Re:They work well too (Score:4, Insightful)
>>>It must be nice to have such cheap internet.
If I can get Netscape dialup for 7 dollars a month, you should be able to get it too. As for DSL, I think part of Obama's stimulus bill should include a requirement for ALL phone lines to be upgraded to DSL, if the customer requests it. So you'd simply call-up your Baby Bell, and they'd be forced to upgrade the line for DSL capability. The costs of the upgrade could be funded by the Universal Access Fee.
Upgrading existing phone lines is the quickest-and-easiest way to provide broadband to virtually everybody.
>>>AT&T (formerly BellSouth). If you have a land line you can get 768k/128k for $19.99/month, but you must have a land line which adds another $15+/month.
What's wrong with that? The prices are different ($15 and $5 respectively), but it sounds similar to my setup with Verizon. Oh and yes you can stream video over a 750k line. I just finished watching Live CNN this morning, while downloading Saw 5 in the background. Plenty of speed.
For comparison the Wireless ISP in my town costs $300 a month. Ouch.
Parent
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Amazing how different people have different standards of living.
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Hmmm. $300 in my area. Pass.
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As with the other guy, I ask, what's the price?
I looked at the article, and was amused:
> One of the most common claims made by proponents
> of government regulation of the Internet (AKA
> âoenetwork neutralityâ) is that it is necessary
> because broadband is a duopoly. At best, these
> people claim, most US residents have a choice
> between the telephone company and the cable
> company; thatâ(TM)s it.
I'm not in a huge city (Columbus Ohio), but we have a large number of ISPs.
Cab
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Yes most people on the east and west coasts have multiple options:
- Dialup (many, many companies)
- Cable
- DSL
- FiOS
- Satellite
- Cellular
Some of these like dialup may be slow, but if you're just reading email or listening to music, you don't need anything faster. Also I'd like to see Cable monopolies removed, and instead run Comcast, Time-Warner, Cox, and Charter run to every home. There's enough room underground to supply 4-5 cables, and thereby let the homeowner have the Power of choice. ("Libertarians
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The WISP's in my area.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
My building has a deal with a WISP. Free internet in the lobby and a pair of APs on each floor above for subscribers. Off peak hours are OK and it's cheap, but generally too congested to stream video or game on. Also, If you download more than 2GB they drop your speed to 128K for the rest of the month.
Lastly, they require a periodic web based login to use the service, so even though I bridged in my LAN to their AP, computers on my LAN often failed to perform late night updates and automated functions, which
*rubs hands together* (Score:5, Interesting)
I look forward to the day when I can tell the incumbent cable provider (Rogers Cable) here in Canada to go fuck themselves with a chainsaw.
Them and their, "we're upping your price for the second time this year", and "you're on our do-not-market-to list, but we'll just send you all sorts of spam and upgrade offers along with the semi-annual price increase letter!", and their overall scummy existence.
TekSavvy (Score:4, Informative)
TekSavvy, THE best ISP I have had in a long time. Everything is upfront, they do not throttle (though those on slashdot may have heard that Bell is throttling all ISP that go over their lines, bitches). You can get their 200GB/mn or unlimited (true unlimited). Static IP addresses for 3$/mn, MLPPP. Love their tech support, one of the few companies where using "tech" is justified.
If you can't get DSL, tough luck. TekSavvy does provide WISP in certain areas.
Parent
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"This Account Has Exceeded Its CPU Quota " (Score:4, Funny)
Dad has that service (Score:4, Informative)
From these guys [infowest.com]. It's purely line of sight [infowest.com], of course, but most of the town is line of sight to the tower. Works very well even in heavy snow, which Cedar gets quite a bit of. An average storm in Cedar would be apocalyptic in London,England.
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For an extra $2 they'll even clean the internet!
--
mafia rpg [mafia-rpg.com]
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Incomprehensible? 3 options, with cost directly related to speed,Dad went with the 1.5Mbit. Looks pretty comprehensible to me. Especially compared to the bundles that the local cable and telcos offer where I live. Those require a good spreadsheet ot track.
google cache here (Score:3, Informative)
google cache here:
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:Ngzp1j7HI10J:bennett.com/blog/+bennet.com+blog+WISPs&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a [74.125.47.132]
Re:google cache here (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you serious? Did you check out your link at all?
"If you would like to add your WISP to BWE's National WISP Directory, the cost is $250 per calendar year. If you want to update your listing, you'll need to make sure that you have paid the 2007 listing fee. If you have not paid for the 2007 listing, you can do so by clicking here."
They charge for listings and probably don't promote at all, and they haven't updated in 2 years!
I even searched the areas that I've live in recently. Of the 5 or 6 areas I looked at, only the largest had any listings at all. 1 was a dead link, the other sells equipment. It's not even a provider!
Parent
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Basically, you're best off going down this list and choosing the first one available to you most of the time.
1. Locally provided (University, shared owned connection, etc...) Ethernet type connections
2. FiOS
3. U-Verse
4. Cable/DSL (if you have both then compare the available plans to see which is best
5. WISP
6. 3G Cell service -- But be careful of tight usage caps
7. Satellite
8. Dial Up
9. Carrier Pig
Poorly done (Score:3, Insightful)
That map is pretty much useless. I looked at it, and there are tiny yellow spots in my state of Oregon, as well as every other state. Unfortunately, the cities are not marked, so I can't tell if those yellow spots cover my city or not. Fail.
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That map is pretty much useless. I looked at it, and there are tiny yellow spots in my state of Oregon, as well as every other state. Unfortunately, the cities are not marked, so I can't tell if those yellow spots cover my city or not. Fail.
I found it usefull. No yellow in SC.
I'm going to go cry in a corner now.
Price and Speed suck (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, WISPS are great aside from the high prices and slow speed. We have a few carriers around here, installation is generally around $150, plus $60/month for a 512/512 or $100 for a 3M/3M.
My $45/month cable modem for 15M/1M starts to sound pretty good after that.
I've looked at starting my own in another area a while ago but unfortunately the high equipment prices, insanely high bandwidth prices (which you usually need to buy from your competitors), and limitations of the equipment relative to going wired means that to stay afloat you really need to charge high prices like I mentioned for a relatively slim amount of bandwidth. I've also read stories where the plot goes something like "people want broadband, WISP sets up and prospers, cable company sees success of WISP, cable company sets up broadband for half the monthly rate, WISP dies". It's scary stuff considering how much the WISP equipment costs and how long it would take to actually payoff.
All in all, I don't see how a WISP can really survive against the traditional competition. Personally I'm a big fan of municipal fiber, but that's a rant for another day.
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512kb/s is plenty for people who aren't movie watchers or gamers or P2Pers, for $60 much better than a 28k - 56k phone modem and magnificent compared to nothing at all. A person could even download their distro's CD ISOs with that kind of connection.
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Have you actually used satellite? It sucks donkey balls for anything other than web surfing and email. Interactive applications, like ssh and remote screen, are painful at best. VoIP is delayed so long you might as well use smoke signals.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Fortunately, ATT just installed a DSL substation across the street from me (I was formerly 18000 ft from central office) and now I can get their minimal package 1.5/0.5 for $15/mo.
As someone who worked in a WISP (Score:3, Interesting)
We only did good in areas without DSL. If you couldn't get anything else, wireless is far better than a satellite.
However, if an area we serviced suddenly got DSL, we lost most of our customers in that area.
And let me tell you, DSL is only going to grow.
Also, a WISP usually gets its bandwidth from the same phone company that has DSL in an area. So the phone company wins either way.
It is VERY hard to compete against a phone company.
Users switching from DSL to WISPs (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the things that WISPs do is enable people to "cut the cord."
Re:Price and Speed suck (Score:5, Insightful)
> I don't see how a WISP can really survive against the traditional competition.
Well, they can't. But, then, what kind of moron is going to target a WISP at a market where they'd go against traditional competition (if you can call the local telco and cable monopolies "competition")?
I'm on a WISP and while the speeds aren't anywhere near the DSL I used to have in town, the only other option where I live is dial-up. On rural phone lines. Maxing out at about 28kbps. If you want to talk about price and speed sucking, I can tell you all about it. I did the dial-up thing for a bit after being on DSL for years, and it's almost bearable if you have a second phone line, a dedicated dial-up server/router, a wireless LAN, and you know how to batch downloads at night.
Well, fuck that. As soon as they stuck their gear on the nearest tower, I was signed up. For maybe $200 installation costs and $50/month (which is about $5 more than dial-up and a second phone line), I get well over 20x dial-up speeds and all I have to worry about is the occasional drop out due to weather and tower maintenance.
If you live anywhere close to a DSL or cable operation, a WISP is a terrible choice. Anywhere else, it's a no-brainer.
Parent
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Not necessarily that expensive. I'm using a WiMax provider [p1.com.my] as a backup for my sometimes-flaky ADSL connection; it's cheap enough that it's worth it in order to be sure I can get online when I need to. $30/month for 1200/500 with 20GB cap (after which the speed drops to 400kbps down for the rest of the month).
It's been mo
Astroturfing? (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps the post is informative and useful, but y'all should know that Brett Glass [is] a sole proprietor doing business as LARIAT, a wireless Internet service provider in Albany County, Wyoming, [brettglass.com]
This Account Has Exceeded Its CPU Quota (Score:2)
That didn't take long. Slashdot strikes again.
$0.002 != 0.002c (Score:2)
I know there are plenty of people who have trouble with calculus and other higher forms of math. But, it's scary to think that the difference between $0.002 and 0.002c is well understood!
No wonder the guy posted the phone call on YouTube.
Worst map ever (Score:3, Interesting)
Which WISPs serve my coverage area? Is it even more than one?
Your Mileage May Vary (Score:5, Informative)
My experience has been quite the opposite of the story summary. I've been on a line-of-sight wireless connection for two and a half years now, with two different providers and two different frequencies (900 MHz and 2.4 GHz). I have found the service to be slow and unreliable, and I live on farmland (no trees, mountains, large buildings, etc. To get in the way). The most I can say about my current provider is the service sucks less than the first one. In that case it was so bad I was able to get out of a 3yr contract.
The speed (as mentioned in a previous post) is very slow - VPN access to the office is *just* do-able, but don't try to do anything else at the same time. You can play on-line games such as WoW and Eve without much trouble from a latency standpoint, but having your link go down is not fun.
I have an unlimited cellular data plan I keep as a backup and I am working with my local council to get better broadband penetration in my area.
Acronyms and Assumed Knowledge (Score:4, Informative)
For f$ck's sake, if you are submitting an article with an acronym in it, expand it the first time so that everyone knows what the hell you are talking about. This goes not only for slashdot, but for articles in all technical venues. In some tight technical circles, some assumed knowledge and common language can be expected, but
Kinda lame... (Score:2)
I looked into Xohm, the one in my area. Verizon beat their monthly deal at 3Mbps, and has free equipment sorry to say (Xohm's is $40-90). It's funny. Since their physical infrastructure costs so much less you'd think they would try to be competitive :-/
meh
It'd be nice to be wireless but I have so much better stuff to do than to get any use out of a wireless MAN. My laptop never leaves my desk at work.
-Viz
Cellular was the answer for me (Score:4, Informative)
There is a WISP in my area, but their service guy said that he couldn't get a clear enough signal from my roof. If I put up a 40-foot tower, I *might* be able to get it (people down the road do). Aside from the tower, that would be about $300 installation and $60/month, with a maximum speed of about 3Mbps download.
Turns out that I can get on the Rogers cell phone 3G network. The bandwidth is limited (1GB/month for $30, 3GB/month for $60), but I can live with that. There was no installation fee (wireless USB stick was free with 1-year contract) either.
"Nationwide coverage" (Score:4, Informative)
Re:"Nationwide coverage" (Score:4, Interesting)
As for coverage: WISPs cover more of the area of the US than cable modem and DSL combined; we also serve more of the population. And we're growing as fast as we can to cover more. But most WISPs are self-financed and not public companies, so folks have to know about us and patronize us before we can build out.
Parent
Do your research (Score:3, Informative)
Depending on the technology, there are many things to consider before jumping into bed with a WISP. I get my service from an ISP with a wireless division, though it's not their core business. From my understanding, the technology used is a mix of 900Mhz and 2.4Ghz, depending on distance & line of site. The closer and clearer the LoS, the more likely they will put up a 2.4Ghz antenna. Otherwise, it's 900Mhz. Often it requires mounting on an antenna tower, unless it's cellular based.
Problems I've had with it are mostly related to bandwidth saturation. Quite often these wireless PoPs will be piggybacking on one another to a central location, so unless it's properly provisioned, be prepared to be frustrated. Also, many times the WISP will put their tower on a pre-existing structure and depending on security situations, they may not be allowed to go on-site unless the owners of the property are also on-site. Think places like central grain storage co-ops and the like.
My connection is a pretty poor value. I pay roughly CDN$70 for a connection that is, at most, 1Mbit. The upside is that it is synchro, so while my downstream is pretty low, my upstream is better than most. Ping times are all over the place, but that is more a function of an over-subscribed service than anything else.
Cellular based technologies are available here, but the caps are dangerously low with overages being charged at a pretty obscene rate. And it doesn't work with my pre-existing router, which is a big negative for me. Rogers Wireless is I think $25 a month, but that's for only 500MB if memory serves. I can't verify this at present since the Rogers website sucks hairy arse.
Maybe if done right... (Score:2)
I used to work for a dialup ISP that broke into the wireless market--fair enough, it was a rural area with no prospects at the time for DSL or cable.
Too bad it was hilly and heavily forested. Service calls got real interesting once people who had great signal in the dead of winter had all the trees on their property burst into leaf.
Besides that, they crammed all their customers onto a pair of T1s (the connection was unimpressive in performance to say the least) which brings me to another question--in an are
Find a WISP in the U.S.? (Score:3, Informative)
Or roll your own for a few bucks (Score:3, Insightful)
Long-range wifi with consumer stuff can work. :(
I built one for giggles (USB wifi key on old sat dish) and picked up my home signal from miles away... Wife promptly banned me from surfing web during family picnic
Many sites with 'how tos', for example here:
See here, for ex: http://www.engadget.com/2005/11/15/how-to-build-a-wifi-biquad-dish-antenna/ [engadget.com]
People have claimed for than 125 mi LOS with bigger stuff.
All you need is a friend in line of sight with broadband. (OK, a big 'if' in hilly country, but you can always hide a passve repeater in a tree on top of a hill. Again, see instructions on web)