AAO25.com
Community => The Lounge => Hardware/Software => Topic started by: Spanky on Wednesday, September 15, 2010, 19:58:13 PM
-
First off, if anyone local runs into this posting, I'm Nate Rowe from Potlatch. I perform computer repair for the local area: www.natescomp.com
That's my ISP. Living out in the country means that getting internet is difficult since for a company to lay all that cable would be expensive. Luckily out here, they did it cheaply: wireless. They offer services from 800kbps/128kbps (down/up) to 4mbps/1mbps (down/up) through their point to point service. Living where I am, my signal goes about 1.5 miles across my neighbors property, a valley and various trees. It is a line-of-sight service they offer so any interferance relates to higher ping, packet loss and jitter. A couple weeks ago I realized that with no other internet programs running, I couldn't even play BF2 online with my 1.5mbps/256kbps speed. It did work before but it had been months since I played. I tested my connection with PingTest.net and got frequent D and F ratings with packet loss anywhere from 2-25%. Pretty unacceptable. It had been about 3 years since First Step had been out to install the antenna (which is directional) and since then there have been trees that grow but also my neighbor acquired a 35-40ft semi-truck trailer and parked it on the edge of their property really close to the line-of-sight the antenna needs. I got up on a ladder and stood in front of my antenna and while I could see the tower 1.5 miles away, the back of their trailer was parked really close.
This is where the antenna looked: (I held my camera flush against the face of the antenna and took a picture)
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdl.dropbox.com%2Fu%2F464376%2Fheadshot%2Finternet%2FDSC07573.JPG&hash=56769d8a4e8c6897e3ad1a82af04bb92)
The red dot is the tower 1.5 miles away, you can see that it's not centered in the photo and thus the antenna isn't facing it perfectly. Also the back of the trailer, being metal, I believe gave issues with reflections and messing with the signal. There are also trees that are almost blocking out the line-of-sight.
I decided to move the antenna to get a better view that was also more tree-future-proof. I got a pole and mocked it all up and have been using that for a week or so and instead of D's and F's on PingTest.net I was getting mostly C's and the occasional B which is fantastic for me. Towards the end of last week, I almost shit my pants when I saw a First Step car pull up the driveway. Having been scolded for downloading material before and also being warned that if my moving of the antenna were to cause problems on their end, they would charge for a $50/hr repair to fix it. I went outside to meet them, ready to piss myself and this guy's looking around and sees me and says "We were wondering if you guys would be interested in hosting a tower for us and in exchange we'll give you free internet." Wow. Completely the opposite of what I was thinking. Of course the answer was hell yea. That was last week, since then they've been out 3 times. The first 2 were just to look around (mind you this is about a half hour drive to get out here from their main hub in the city so they must be excited about this). The 3rd was today and they had an electrician come out to see about getting electricity to a pole they're going to use for an array of antennas.
I do know that First Step got a $2.4 million grant (http://btop.fsr.com/) awarded and I think this is part of the upgrade that they're going to do system-wide.
This thread will be a progress list of information and pictures.
10/7/2010 - First Step crew came out, installed electronics to run the antennas.
10/5/2010 - Electrician came by and wired everything up. Waiting on First Step to come out and install the equipment in the box.
9/30/2010 - First Step crew mounted all the antennas (see twitpic below). Equipment box is still empty as there is no electricity due to the electrician still being MIA. I found out that I will still have as many wireless hops as before but hopefully with this higher vantage point and newer equipment, the signal will be better.
http://twitpic.com/2trlyr
9/29/2010 - Guys came out again. Electrician is MIA, kind of a wasted trip for them to come out but they were courteous and wanted to tidy up and fill in the trench they dug yesterday.
9/28/2010 - Local wireless technician came out today with a trench digger for the electrical lines. Contract officially states 4mbps/1mbps (down/up) free internet while the contract is valid which is 7 years. *EDIT* The guy that came out just left (I would mention a name but, although he's nice, I don't want to overstep privacy). PVC conduit is laid for electrical, CAT5e for my hook up is laid out as well. Little bit more filling in, running the electrical lines and setting up their equipment and it should all be done.
http://twitpic.com/2su9sj
9/27/2010 - Received call saying that their crew will be out tomorrow morning to dig. Internet company digging for electrical lines... confusing along with digging before signing a contract.
9/24/2010 - Met with head honcho over at First Step to discuss contract. Talked it over and a revision will be sent out when it gets written up. Apparently they don't need to order parts so work may start next week.
9/23/2010 - Received the contract. A few thing need to be explained and gone over/changed with it. Hopefully will setup a meeting in person to
9/22/2010 - Finally got the phone call expected almost a week ago. Contract will be written up and sent sometime. Parts will be ordered and work will continue in a couple weeks which is a couple weeks after they said they would start so, who knows.
9/16/2010 - Guy came out to check for phone lines prior to digging for the electrical line. Apparently he was only responsible for the main line, not the line that runs from the pole to our house so his trip was wasted seeing that the main line isn't close to where the digging will happen.
9/15/2010 - First Step crew came out for 3rd time with electrician. I wasn't home but I when I got back home they had installed a box that will house the electronics to run the antennas. They also spray-painted and flagged the existing underground electrical line that the electrician will attempt to dig up and use.
Pictures: (click for a larger view)
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdl.dropbox.com%2Fu%2F464376%2Fheadshot%2Finternet%2FDSC08185.JPG&hash=f4692d8f3c12f69f48cc797880a3e46e) (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/464376/headshot/internet/DSC08185.JPG)
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdl.dropbox.com%2Fu%2F464376%2Fheadshot%2Finternet%2FDSC08186.JPG&hash=8368fa479c8595dd0a0cbd8847ebe238) (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/464376/headshot/internet/DSC08186.JPG)
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdl.dropbox.com%2Fu%2F464376%2Fheadshot%2Finternet%2FDSC08190.JPG&hash=01cab25700cd6b89f0878a92bfef9e60) (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/464376/headshot/internet/DSC08190.JPG)
-
That's incredible. Maybe I have a biased point of view because I hate my ISP but that was not at all what I was expecting when I started reading.
-
That's incredible. Maybe I have a biased point of view because I hate my ISP but that was not at all what I was expecting when I started reading.
It was not at all what I expected when I walked out to meet the guy :) At first I had little issues with First Step (they had to come out and realign the antenna and fix something) but pretty much it's been maintenance free and problem free for years. Surprisingly it even works in a blizzard where I can't see much past 50ft outside let alone 1.5 miles.
-
One word, awesome. Can't wait to see more progress, we need lots of pictures! And lol@ziggy huffing paint.
Also stickied topic.
-
Sounds 1337. You should leave donuts out for them or something.
-
I'll probably be out there with them since I hope they'll work on my setup as well (move my antenna up to the pole or connect me to their antennas or something).
-
If your hosting their tower you'll probably connect through that instead of your antenna. It's like people who have the availability of an electric pole in their backyard to steal cable from.
-
Yea, I wish I knew more about how their end worked. The guy said I could either have my antenna on the pole or have the antenna where it is now and just point it at the pole. I'd like to avoid any un-necessary wireless leaps since that introduces latency and issues.
-
Personally I would point the antenna at the pole because I don't know how having the antenna on the pole would make it communicate. I always try to believe that tech is stupid so I set it up the right way the first time.
-
Dish on pole means its going to be taking the net from the same place you get it from now. Dish pointed at the pole means it gets the signal and relays it to your dish on the ground... at least thats what I'm thinking.
-
There's going to be an antenna pointing south and one pointing where mine is pointed now. I don't know if what they're setting up can help me but if nothing else, them putting my antenna on the pole means there should be less obstacles in my way for a good line-of-sight to where it's pointing now.
-
Don't you have a telephone phone line, Can't you get DSL down it? Less latency.
There will probably be an Ethernet switch in the box at the bottom of the tower and you will must likely get your free connection from there, You will need to run a CAT5 cable to the tower. Or point your receiver at the tower but that would add another wireless hop.
-
Don't you have a telephone phone line, Can't you get DSL down it? Less latency.
Yea, there's a phone line but Verizon sucks ass and we dropped them. DSL isn't available to my specific location due to distance restraints on DSL (that 1.5 miles is to the center of town, where the DSL substation is located). The guy at the end of my road has DSL but I can't. It would be shitty dial-up (low-quality phone lines) or this. I also believe this provides faster speeds than DSL.
Or point your receiver at the tower but that would add another wireless hop.
This is exactly what I want to avoid. I think what they're doing is basically adding in a powered repeater for more coverage. The antennas they're going to add are bigger than mine so I'm thinking that the signal will be greater but I'd rather just hook into the repeater rather than adding an extra wireless path that can add latency, even if it's a tiny amount.
-
I have dsl and am about 1.3 miles from my substation and...it BLOWS.
-
Older ADSL standards can deliver 8 Mbit/s to the customer over about 2 km (1·25 miles) of unshielded twisted-pair copper wire. As of 2009, the latest standard, ADSL2+, can deliver up to 24 Mbit/s, depending on the distance from the DSLAM. Distances greater than 2 km (1.25 miles) significantly reduce the bandwidth usable on the wires, thus reducing the data rate. ADSL loop extenders increase these distances substantially.
Again, I'm 1.5 miles away. With the info above, you're talking about 1-3mbps as long as you're closer than 1.25 miles. I'm probably going to be getting 4mbps. I think what my ISP is doing out here is great, I think more rural areas should have something like this. First Step provides coverage for about 100 miles north to south and 80 miles east to west.
-
Added today's happenings.
-
I find it very interesting you can't get DSL on a 1.5 mile long line, interesting because I work for British telecom installing DSL lines and Verizon must use a VERY different system to us... We have 4 mile long lines achieving sync rates of 2048/448 even 5 mile long lines at 512/256. although any longer than 5 miles and it usually does not work at all, and there are people on my patch that are over that limit and can only get satellite. We do not use any repeaters or anything, that is just a plain copper telephone line coming from the local exchange. At the upper limit my line is 1 mile long and I get 19330/1180 and thats just ADSL2. BT at the moment are rolling out VDSL2 tho it not coming to my area for a while, I am in a rural and sometimes backwards part of england so will have to wait until 2012, But that will give us 40mbit/10mbit with the DSLAM located in cabinets at the end of each street. I just can't understand why at 1.5 mile DSL doesn't work..
Edit: Just looked it up on Wikipedia, Not so different after all...
The official maximum loop length for Verizon High Speed Internet, as of 2006, is 18,000 feet (5,500 m) (3.4 Miles) from the Central Office or remote DSLAM. Work is currently in place to extend the local loop length out to 24,000 feet (7,300 m) (4.5 Miles) The availability of DSL service depends also on details of outside plant including wire gauge and the absence of bridge taps, repeaters, load coils or other devices that augment the telephone signal and impair the DSL one.
We also have repeaters and load coils but we take them off when the customer orders DSL.
-
Most likely the line length is longer than what Spanky is describing. Also, you have old phone lines that were put in place 30 years ago, and spliced together dozens of times. All of this causes increased noise on the line. Basically if you have a perfect phone line you might be able to get it over the 3 mile limit.
If Spanky really is only 1.5 miles (line length) from his central office he should be able to get DSL without a problem, that's actually not far at all.
-
and then theres europe with there awesome internet
There are still a few people who can't get any Internet at all but generally European governments subside the roll out of high speed internet so they get to use tax money to do it. Downside is we pay much more Tax in Europe than in the US.
-
and then theres europe with there awesome internet
There are still a few people who can't get any Internet at all but generally European governments subside the roll out of high speed internet so they get to use tax money to do it. Downside is we pay much more Tax in Europe than in the US.
Barack Obama is trying his hardest to make it that with his socialist viewpoint. I don't care if we get free Internet and health care, the world isn't perfect, nor will it ever be. All this president it going to accomplish is running this counties financial system into the ground. But lets not get off topic here. :)
-
My ISP got a grant from this:
http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/home.aspx
The 1.5 miles I describe is line-of-sight distance from my house to the tower my antenna points to. I assume the cable follows roads and it may be longer. When I first moved here, we had a Verizon guy come out and install a phone for us and he said the lines are so bad that we would be looking at 26k dial-up. There also wasn't any caller-id or many special features available for us here (even though those a-holes charged for it anyway...). I think it has to do more with the line than the distance although it looks like, by road, it's about 1.8 miles to the Verizon brick building. My neighbor is on dial-up with those same lines and they're always complaining about disconnects and issues (they had me try to swap out their dial-up modem several times).
-
We are getting fiber rolled out in Australia at the moment, skrewy and I should have it avaliable to us within 1-2 years.
Isn't that all up in the air again now you've had a change of government? and what will happen to telstra when its finished, Lots of BT engineers used to emigrate to aus to go work for telstra, tho they don't want anyone at the moment, guess this is why?
-
In late 2010, the fate of the National Broadband Network lay in the result of the 2010 Australian Federal Election, with the opposition Coalition party vowing to scrap the NBN if elected, replacing it with subsidies and incentives to private companies to improve the legacy network.
Don't know what the latest is with this.
-
What does anyone legally do with that speed? I can kinda understand the upload speed, that would be nice but the download?? That's overkill for HD YouTube streaming. I believe that's even overkill for 1080p streaming, unless it's RAW. If you're being illegal, that's a great speed but then you gotta wonder about using that 24/7 and being watched. Unless you're using those speeds all the time, and I don't see how you could legally, it's a waste of money IMO. I would go for one tenth of that speed if it meant incredible ping and jitter.
-
I know what you mean, I'm at 256kbps upload and I usually don't bother with anything past 200mb. 25mbps would be great for upload, I couldn't imagine anything faster than that though really.
-
Added an update.
-
Added an update.
-
Added today's happenings.
-
Added recent events.
-
Updates! Still not hooked up...
-
Who's telegraph pole is that they have used for their kit?
-
Who's telegraph pole is that they have used for their kit?
It was an old ghetto-rigged light pole.
-
Updates!
-
Today I was messing with installing some scripts on my router and something went fubar so I had to bypass it to get online and find a fix. While I did that, I thought I would run PingTest and SpeedTest to see what it's like when my computer is the only one connected directly to the system. I got some pretty amazing results (at least to me):
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdl.dropbox.com%2Fu%2F464376%2Fwebsite%2F27355367.png&hash=b92a3d6e3e8fab816c5f197a84d8f589)
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdl.dropbox.com%2Fu%2F464376%2Fwebsite%2F1016066461.png&hash=e8b08fb7884107c1d7003327d58d5870)
:P I'm only supposed to get 4/1
-
Is that speed consistent? Because sometimes SpeedTest.net will mess up. ;)
-
Is that speed consistent? Because sometimes SpeedTest.net will mess up. ;)
That's the best I've gotten directly connected. Glitch or not, I'm taking it. I do consistently get just under 4mbps down and just under 1mbps up. Connected to a router, I get a couple more ms latency.