Bob Tanner <tanner at real-time.com> wrote: > > DSL is nice, but the local telcos are dragging their feet deploying it. > IMHO, they are holding out on deploying facilities to starve out the > competition. And you have the whole distance thing. > > IDSL solves the distance thing, but is expensive and slow. > > So, what are the wireless options? There are a bunch of laser solutions on the market, but they're more geared toward corporate customers or others who need the bandwidth (we're talking gigabits in some situations), and areas where you can easily do line-of-sight transmission, though I guess some of them still work well in inclement weather and other non-optimal situations. On the cheap end, a number of people have played around with wireless ethernet hubs, hooking them up to big directional antennas and getting a few miles of range out of them. Of course, those devices aren't designed for that mode of operation, and the FCC probably doesn't really like the idea. However, if they could be set up properly (ie, be highly directional and not interfere with all of the other 802.11 nets out there), it would be a very inexpensive solution. -- _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ _ ___ _ _ __ On the other hand, you / \/ \(_)| ' // ._\ / - \(_)/ ./| ' /(__ have different fingers. \_||_/|_||_|_\\___/ \_-_/|_|\__\|_|_\ __) [ Mike Hicks | http://umn.edu/~hick0088/ | mailto:hick0088 at tc.umn.edu ]