What Is Wireless Internet? Really.

Hi.

This may sound like a dumb question to you guys but I'm serious. Is wireless internet ONLY for going online at Starbucks and MacDonalds or is there wireless internet service available for homes?

I have a really crappy phone line with dialup and would like to find out what my alternatives are. I found some satellite providers but it's pretty expensive. Is there a limited range on wireless? If residential wireless is available who are the providers? I've done a lot of searching and have only found the WISP service for being in an immediate area.

Thanks.

Reply to
Ulysses
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Thanks. No, there is no cable TV or DSL in my area. I can't seem to find a WISP provider either. Do you know if any of the big cellular phone companies are WISPs? I've checked many web sites such as Sprint and Cingular but I think they are refering to a modem connected to a cell phone.

Reply to
Ulysses

Southern California. And everyone thought we were all cosmopolitan here. I did find some satellite providers but they are a bit expensive. I just want to find out what all of my options are before I buy anything.

Reply to
Ulysses

Um, I think maybe we are talking about 2 different things. I'm looking for (if they exist) a wireless provider, not network. I can't even get good dialup where I am. Absolutely no internet when it rains :-(

Reply to
Ulysses

If you can't get fast access, you can still run a wireless system. There are routers which support a dial up modem. I believe that there are even some router/AP combinations which support a dial up modem (Airport?).

Reply to
Jerry Park

I'm in a land called Sage. It's not a town, just a place. It's east of Temecula and South of Hemet.

I don't think you would have to worry about DSL taking over here. The phone lines are too bad to believe. Even DSL needs a phone line to work.

Reply to
Ulysses

Thanks for the warning. I'd heard that the upload was with a phone line on satellite systems. That would mean that I still would have no internet when it rains.

Reply to
Ulysses

I like that. "mused." How appropriate. In my favorite translation of The Odyssey "muse" is the third word in the book.

Um, uh, so, if I had wireless internet I could download my favorite version of The Odyssey. How's that for getting back on topic?

Reply to
Ulysses

Damn, where do you live in SoCal? I might move there and start a WISP.

Last time I did that, cable and DSL moved in within 5 months - after years of saying "Sure, someday we'll offer broadband."

Reply to
Rôgêr

I forgot to mention that the cable for cable TV is probably about 10 miles away at the moment. It was about 13 miles away when I bought this land about 5 years ago. So at that rate you could sell WISP for about 16 or 17 years.

Funny, but I was just thinking about the possibilities of starting a wireless internet service here. I'm pretty sure the guy next door would subscribe. If 20% of my neighbors subscribed that would give me only about

10 customers within a couple of miles. It's very hilly here so I doubt (based upon complete ignorance of how it works--VHF perhaps?) that it would work more than 5 miles away. With that range I might be able to get 25 or 30 customers if I could sell it cheap enough and convince everyone it's better.

Not that it's practical, but what would it take to start up a WISP company?

Reply to
Ulysses

OK. You might check out the offerings of the cell phone providers. I know Verison offers internet access. Probably others too.

Of course, that is going to be at best about the speed you would get with dial up, but if your dial up is flaky, it might be a viable alternative.

Reply to
Jerry Park

Taking a moment's reflection, Ulysses mused: | | This may sound like a dumb question to you guys but I'm serious. Is | wireless internet ONLY for going online at Starbucks and MacDonalds or is | there wireless internet service available for homes?

Most "in home" wireless is, like mine, a wireless receiver (access point) connected to my cable broadband internet connection. So, while I have a wireless internet connection for my laptops all through the house, I am really only using my existing cable connection. This can also be done with DSL.

| I have a really crappy phone line with dialup and would like to find out | what my alternatives are. I found some satellite providers but it's | pretty expensive. Is there a limited range on wireless? If residential | wireless is available who are the providers? I've done a lot of | searching and have only found the WISP service for being in an immediate | area.

If you cannot get cable or DSL in your area, then a WISP is your only remaining option for wireless. A WISP sets up access points over an area, and you connect to these from your home. However, a WISP must be operating in your area (obviously) before you can use them. So, check for cable/DSL/or WISP services in your area.

Reply to
mhicaoidh

They are referring to a cell phone acting as a modem, but the speeds can be impressive.

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"typical speeds of 400-700 kbps, capable of reaching speeds up to 2 Mbps"

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Navas reports 10KBpS ftp throughput, which is slower than the Verizon Broadband, but available in more areas.
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These run $80 per month for data-only, but Cingular offers the data mode as a $20 add-on to a $29 voice plan.

Reply to
dold

If everything else is working perfectly with no lag, it takes about an eighth of a second from the time you click on a link for those packets to get to the satellite (45,000 miles away), another eighth of a second to get back to the earth station, another eighth for the requested data to go to the satellite, another eighth back down to your PC. 1/2 second latency if everything else is perfect.

Reply to
Rôgêr

A T1 line, a few networking gadgets, access point, a really high place to put the access point (usually a tower). Oh, and the customers and their equipment. That's all.

Reply to
Rôgêr

Speaking from much experience, IMO you should avoid satellite Internet like the plague. For all practical purposes, it's latency and other issues make it barely the equivalent of dial-up for anything but file downloads. And that's when everything is working right. Which it seldom is on either of the 2 U.S. consumer satellite systems.

Reply to
Bob Horton

starts me wondering what remote area you live in ?! maybe you should have a look at iridium, very wireless, via satelites, a bit more expensive though ;)

Reply to
Martin!

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prepared to risk everything from your sanity to your fortune.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Hi,

It used to be that satellite internet providers required you to send your upstream data via dialup, however many are now providing systems that are fully capable of tranceiving from your parbolic antenna. Such service plans, I believe, are quite pricey though. I've never used such commercial satellite systems, although I have experience with military satcom. I believe one of the main disadvantages with satellite provided internet, besides cost, is the inherent lag. I want to say that the lag is due to data sitting in a buffer in your local radio, awaiting it's allocated time slot, before transmitting. Not 100 percent certain if the lag (with these commercial providers) is from that. Anyway, such lag wouldn't be much of a problem with just web browsing and downloading email, however many folks find the lag to cause too much latency for streaming multimedia and online gaming.

Cheers,

-Eric

Reply to
Eric

Business plan, market analysis, rate schedule, insurance, funding, financing, business license, legal contracts, credit check service, billing service, bookkeeper, tax accountant, attorney, backups for everything, coverage maps, test equipment, site survey tools (spectrum analyzer?), outsourced after hours support, phone tree, monitoring (SNMP) system, remote admin, spam protection, virus filters, beg ARIN for routable IP's, AS number assignment for BGP4 routing, ad nausium.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

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