[TowerTalk] The Socialized Power Grid

[tower@coffeepower.net]

  In the past my first 'high speed' internet was DirecPC (downlink only
sat.)  You use your exisiting modem to transmit your requests and
everything comes down over the satellite.   You CAN (or could) get good
speed off of sat.  I used to multi-thread my downloads and get T1 speeds
all the time.  Of course DirecPC had serious customer service / quality
issues as they liked to randomly throttle people that actually wanted to
USE the bandwith they were paying for.  'Fair access policy' they called
it.  Oddly enough I didn't think there was a big demand on my bird at 2
in the morning on a wednesday or the like.

  I am currently using 802.11b wireless interenet access off of a tower
that is probably between 5 and 10 miles away (guessing).  I currently
get about 750k speeds off of it.

The whole 'speed' discussion is really moot as I can, and do, watch
streaming TV from overseas while I and the YL both surf the web and I have
a 4th computer downloading files.  No sweat.   Most places that people
download files from or ftp files from throttle them back to between 50 and
150k (typically) anyway.  Web stuff isn't an issue.

Higher speed is, largly, an advertising gimmick.  It's like a guy buying a
Ford F-350 super cab dually and never hauling or towing anything.  He got
it because he thought it looked cool and he could afford it.  Advertising.
:)

Cost is another story.  I don't recall how much I paid for sat. but I am
currently paying about 50 a month for 2.4ghz wifi.   I don't think this is
an issue of being raked over the coals either, I believe it is just
demographics.  I live out in the country and there just aren't that many
people who are willing to pay much for internet service so the cost is
higher and business tend to pick up a larger ammount of the burden. 
Darned near everyone is paying a nice chunck in the area for satellite TV
(most in my area) and if my bill is a middle of the road bill then I
assume most pay 50 or more if they get some premium stuff.   However I can
count on my hands how many people have satellite or wifi internet.

Not too long ago though my electric company sent out flyers asking if
people were interested in 2 way satellite though.  Interesting.

I agree that satellite (unless things change) isn't the way to go for the
general masses, there are only a few players and you can only over-sell
the stuff so much on existing birds.  Wifi though is the true wave of the
future, if we could just convince the government of that! :)

    Michael  W5NIG