[123046] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Locations with no good Internet (was ISP in Johannesburg)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Daniel Senie)
Fri Feb 26 16:46:30 2010
From: Daniel Senie <dts@senie.com>
In-Reply-To: <4B883FE5.2000606@freedomnet.co.nz>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:45:52 -0500
To: James Jones <james@freedomnet.co.nz>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
=46rom what I've read, they may well get higher bandwidth out to the =
town centers on fiber. There has been little discussion of how to =
distribute from there. I suppose Verizon, the only company offering =
anything out there, will take advantage and use the fiber to improve =
speeds in the centers of towns. But there's no CATV in most of the hill =
towns, and unless MBI intends to stretch fiber out to the neighborhoods, =
I remain skeptical.
Today, most of the town halls have public access wifi, and people drive =
up and sit in their cars and get their email that way. This isn't a =
solution.
On Feb 26, 2010, at 4:40 PM, James Jones wrote:
> The Massachusetts Broadband Institute is currently working a middle =
mile solution to help with some of the issues in western ma. Thing do =
sound promising.
>=20
>=20
> On 2/26/10 4:34 PM, Michael Sokolov wrote:
>> Daniel Senie<dts@senie.com> wrote:
>>=20
>> =20
>>> Better than western Massachusetts, where there's just no =
connectivity at =3D
>>> all. Even dialup fails to function over crappy lines.
>>> =20
>> Hmm. Although I've never been to Western MA and hence have no idea =
what
>> the telecom situation is like over there, I'm certainly aware of =
quite a
>> few places in "first world USA" where DSL is still a fantasy, let =
alone
>> fiber.
>>=20
>> As a local example, I have a friend in a rural area of Southern
>> California who can't get any kind of "high-speed Internet". I've run =
a
>> prequal on her address and it tells me she is 31 kft from the CO. =
The
>> CO in question has a Covad DSLAM in it, but at 31 kft those rural
>> residents' options are limited to either IDSL at 144 kbps (not much
>> point in that) or a T1 starting at ~$700/month. The latter figure is
>> typically well out of range for the kind of people who live in such
>> places.
>>=20
>> That got me thinking: ISDN/IDSL and T1 can be extended infinitely far
>> into the boondocks because those signal formats support repeaters. =
What
>> I'm wondering is how can we do the same thing with SDSL - and I mean
>> politically rather than technically. The technical part is easy: =
some
>> COs already have CLECs in them that serve G.shdsl (I've been told =
that
>> NEN does that) and for G.shdsl repeaters are part of the standard
>> (searching around shows a few vendors making them); in the case of
>> SDSL/2B1Q (Covad and DSL.net) there is no official support for =
repeaters
>> and hence no major vendors making such, but I can build such a =
repeater
>> unofficially.
>>=20
>> The difficulty is with the political part, and that's where I'm =
seeking
>> the wisdom of this list. How would one go about sticking a mid-span
>> repeater into an ILEC-owned 31 kft rural loop? =46rom what I =
understand
>> (someone please correct me if I'm wrong!), when a CLEC orders a loop
>> from an ILEC, if it's for a T1 or IDSL, the CLEC actually orders a T1 =
or
>> ISDN BRI transport from the ILEC rather than a dry pair, and any
>> mid-span repeaters or HDSLx converters or the like become the
>> responsibility of the ILEC rather than the CLEC, right?
>>=20
>> So how could one extend this model to provide, say, repeatered =
G.shdsl
>> service to far-outlying rural subscribers? Is there some political
>> process (PUC/FCC/etc) by which an ILEC could be forced to allow a =
third
>> party to stick a repeater in the middle of their loop? Or would it =
have
>> to work by way of the ILEC providing a G.shdsl transport service to
>> CLECs, with the ILEC being responsible for the selection, procurement
>> and deployment of repeater hardware? And what if the ILEC is not
>> interested in providing such a service - any PUC/FCC/etc political
>> process via which they could be forced to cooperate?
>>=20
>> Things get even more complicated in those locations where the CO has =
a
>> Covad DSLAM in it serving out SDSL/2B1Q, but no other CLEC serving
>> G.shdsl. Even if the ILEC were to provide a G.shdsl transport =
service
>> with repeaters, it wouldn't help with SDSL/2B1Q. My idea involves
>> building a gadget in the form factor of a standard mid-span repeater
>> that would function as a converter from SDSL/2B1Q to G.shdsl: if the
>> loop calls for one mid-span repeater, stick this gadget in as if it
>> were that repeater; if the loop calls for 2 or more repeaters, use my
>> gadget as the first "repeater" and then standard G.shdsl repeaters
>> after it. But of course this idea is totally dependent on the =
ability
>> of a third party to stick these devices in the middle of long rural
>> loops, perhaps in the place of loading coils which are likely present
>> on such loops.
>>=20
>> Any ideas?
>>=20
>> MS
>>=20
>> =20
