Cable Modem / Router / Wireless

[Matt Graham]

On Tuesday 17 July 2007 13:53, after a long battle with technology, 
Darrin Chandler wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 17, 2007 at 10:26:59AM -0700, Shawn Badger wrote:
> > BTW, what / who is "PHB"?
> Pointy-Headed Boss (Dilbert)

I thought it was "Pointy-Haired", since the cartoon character has pointy 
hair.  At least that's the acronym expansion I've usually seen.

> The proper thing to do is find a company with services that match
> your needs, rather than entering into an agreement you have no
> intention of honoring.

The real problem is when no local ISP offers the services (or just the 
lack of blocking/filtering) you need at a price you can afford.  Then 
what do you do?  I haven't had to deal with this, but if you live out 
in a tiny town, you might.  I've heard of people doing something called 
a "member-owned cooperative" approach to getting bandwidth, but that 
was in Alaska and the guy was kind of sketchy with details.

In a large metro area, it should be reasonably easy to buy some lit-up 
fiber and some routers, but then you need people to keep that stuff 
running.  And that costs money.  And you also need some way of 
distributing that bandwidth to subscribers.  Buying access rights to 
the copper the local evil phone monopoly has laid is one way.  A guy in 
GLLUG had a plan to put up a tall tower and put many 802.11 antennas 
and cantennas on it, providing reasonably fast service to many people 
in the small town where he lived.  I don't know how that worked 
out--probably not well, because of zoning boards and local politics.  
I'm sure there are other ways of doing this.

-- 
  Kimono dragon: found mainly on Pacific islands and atolls, this is the
  more dangerous version of the somewhat placid bathrobe gecko.
  --jghanc
There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see