[MLB-WIRELESS] Newbie Hello / wireless article / Mt. Dandenong?

[Will Lotto]

> satellite Internet access.  It seems that a terrestrial radio setup could be
> similar in operation: dish/aerial on the roof for the downchannel and
> upchannel via the PSTN.  However, the terrestrial transmitter bandwidth
> would be cheaper (I would guess) and users would suffer less lag time than
> with a geostationary satellite.  Is this a dumb idea?  If not, why hasn't
> anyone done it yet? :-)

Actually it has, and you almost answered your own question :)
Chello internet provider had a wireless infrastructure in some towns.
Using a modem uplink, customers got their downlink from a terrestrial
radio antenna sitting on their roof. It operated well above 2.4ghz,
but their antennas are almost identical.

They are now closing down because of two simple, yet detrimental
problems.

A. Line of sight. MANY customers found their service to be unreliable
because it only took one tree between the customer's house and the
main tower for LOS to be lost, thus signal to be lost.

and

B. Solving the last mile problem presents you with the great 'telstra
bigpond' problem. ... You offer customers a service where they can
download gigabytes of data each day, and guess what sort of customers
you attract? :) ... Chello, like telstra, found backbone bandwidth to
be expensive.

Will Lotto.


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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759


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