[lug] Broadband in Eastern/Rural Boulder County?

[Ryan Kirkpatrick]

On Thu, 10 Jul 2008, Ryan Kirkpatrick wrote:

> > Robert Racansky wrote:
> > > 
> > > Wispertel shows coverage in the area, although I don't know what it's
> > > like in Boulder.
> 
> Thanks for the recommendation. I had hear of Wispertel before, but thought
> they were only in Northern Colorado (i.e. Fort Collins area). Just got off
> the phone with them and they are pretty sure they can get a signal at my
> parent's house!

Well, bad news I am afraid, the tech from WisperTel was unable to get a
stable signal at my parent's house. I will testify to his determination,
he spent three hours on the roof in the hot sun with three different
antennas and many different positions trying to find a sweet spot. In the
end, there was no such spot. :(

I double checked with Qwest and SpeakEasy, and they are at 19.5k feet from
the CO, just too far for anything short of T1 or IDSL (both too
expensive). A neighbor around the corner (~18k feet from the CO) has
225kbps ADSL from Qwest, right at the very edge of range. :(

Looks like we are left with Sprint Mobile Broadband, 3G, so nice and fast,
$70/month, so not too expensive, but with a 5GB/month transfer limit, okay
for web surfing and email. The tricky part is that I need to share such a
link with multiple computers in the house. Looks like the Sierra Wireless
USB dongles have Linux drivers, so I should be able to whip up a Linux box
firewall/router. Anyone have any experience in sharing a cellular
connection with a network? Any recommended hardware? Thanks!

PS. The only other option I see is getting a dry pair from my house (which
had Qwest DSL) to their house, and run something over that. Only getting
such a dry pair will probably be next to impossible, and then got to find
something that would do 35k feet. :) And no, there is no line of sight
between the houses either. So much for the 21st century. :(

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|   "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."                    |
|                                            --- Philippians 1:21 (KJV)   |
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|   Ryan Kirkpatrick  |  Boulder, Colorado  |  http://www.rkirkpat.net/   |
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