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Gotham Communications Research

Discussion in 'Community Broadband & Computers' started by Joe, Nov 21, 2002.

  1. Dwarflord

    Dwarflord New Member

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    Wes,
    How are you able to upload a 100 megabyte file in 15 minutes? On a 128kilobit ckt (which is our advertised upload speed) that would be impossible. During the day I get about 2.8megabits (~350kilobytes) d/l speed and it takes me just under 5 minutes to download 100megabytes. Even at T1 speed (192kilobytes/1.544 megabits) it would still take around 10 minutes to upload a 100 megabyte file. I'm not trying to flame you here, I wasnt sure if we were talking apples and apples here, or if you meant downloading 100 meg. instead of uploading, or maybe I missed something altogether (wouldn't be the first time for me....:) )
    On a side note. Has anyone checked into getting burstable T1s or fractional T1 circuits. I think Im going to look into this and see what kind of prices are out there. Ive seen T1 circuits advertised for $500/mo. which includes the local loop..... , Im sure burstable would be less and a fractional T would be even less still.
    Later guys,

    DwArFlOrD
     
  2. WesGurney

    WesGurney New Member

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    Whoops glad you caught that - my mistake. The time should be ~1 hour 45 min. to upload a 100MB file at 128Kbps.

    Here is my calculation:
    (100 * 1024000 * 8) bits / (128 * 1000) bits per second = 6400 seconds
    6400 seconds =~ 1 hour 45 min.

    So educate me a little, what is a typical price for other available bandwidth plans in our area?

    I have seen this $50/month price thrown around for a shared T1 among 20 neighbors. Isn't that going to be slower than our cable modem service with ("unlimted" down/128kbps up)?

    Wes
     
  3. Joe

    Joe New Member

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    Neighbors,

    I hope some of you find time to read "The Future of Ideas" by Larry Lessig. It's not about bandwidth or latency although I think both will be better with a shared T1, I see no reason to prove it to you. It's about the internet and what the word internet means. Considering the usage policy of cable providers they should not be allowed to call their offering internet access. It should be called "Adelphia online".

    One should not assume that a community internet project would need to top out at T1 speeds. We are 6 miles from the most well connected internet data centers on the planet. The brightest points of the internet where the most bandwidth, lowest latency and lowest cost are ~6 miles from your door. Please dream a little. 6Mbs wireless point to point is easy to do. A T3 (45Mbs) could be covered by ~1,000 homes.

    In fact, growth is a reason that the Internet Service is best handled by Gotham Communications. This avoids the issue of individual PMs unwilling to give up a T1 for the next better link. PMs will only need access to the mesh network. How the mesh is served by the internet will change over time.

    The plan to begin with T1 access is just that, a plan to begin.

    Where are the PMs? No one has emailed me directly!

    -joem


    joem@iim.com

    Edited by - Joe on 12/18/2002 21:08:17
     
  4. hornerjo

    hornerjo Senior Member

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    Joe,

    Was just thinking that it might be a good idea to make a website that clearly desribes everything with a FAQ section, these boards can get clogged and tough to find information. I think more people (PMs) would jump on board if they had a crystal clear description of whats going on and what they need to do step-by step. For example, I don't think any PMs will join up without even know what kind of hardware will be placed on their roof and what that process entails, what kind of hardware will be put in for the T1 and where it will go, how lines will be run in the house to the AP, support for the hardware, etc.

    Would be nice to see all this information in one centralized place. I know I for a fact will not sign up until I'm handed a 'this is what the system is, this is exactly what will be placed at your house and exactly where and how, this is your risks and obligations and this is what's in it for you' document.

    Just a thought,

    John

    ---------------
    Got Broadband?
     
  5. hornerjo

    hornerjo Senior Member

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    Actually believe it or not, it will be much much faster. It's super rare that everyone on the T1 will be downloading something big at the exact same time. In fact, for 12 people I would argue that it's about a 10,000 to 1 chance that would happen. I read a wireless ISP forum every day as well as scanning over a WISP mailing list every other week. The going customer to T1 rate is 60/1. Take a look at this service chart in Potomac Falls (I thought it was in Leesburg, I was wrong about that looking at heir FAQ just now) from NoVa Wireless.

    http://www.geekspeed.net/mrtg/geek-gw.html

    (linked from http://www.novawireless.org/node.php?id=298)

    That's with 12 people sharing a T1. As you can see, their average weekly usage is 2.5% of the T1 for downloads. Keep in mind, this T1 is on all day, all night. I had an IDSL line for 1 year, 128k/128k. At the end of the year my useage was about 6% of the line, and believe me I used it hardcore.

    John

    ---------------
    Got Broadband?

    Edited by - hornerjo on 12/19/2002 09:46:44
     
  6. dgreene

    dgreene New Member

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    Figured I'd throw in some as well.

    As for Adelphia, if any route in your path that's on their network is over 200ms, they will actually bother to take a look into the trouble, but the response has to be 200ms or more, otherwise don't bother calling them.

    Here my latency to google:

    dgreene@reddog:~$ ping www.google.com
    PING www.google.com (216.239.53.100): 56 octets data
    64 octets from 216.239.53.100: icmp_seq=0 ttl=41 time=243.2 ms
    64 octets from 216.239.53.100: icmp_seq=1 ttl=41 time=250.0 ms
    64 octets from 216.239.53.100: icmp_seq=2 ttl=41 time=239.2 ms
    64 octets from 216.239.53.100: icmp_seq=3 ttl=41 time=251.3 ms
    64 octets from 216.239.53.100: icmp_seq=4 ttl=41 time=252.4 ms

    --- www.google.com ping statistics ---
    5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss
    round-trip min/avg/max = 239.2/247.2/252.4 ms

    Which happens to be a tad bit high.

    As for not being about latency or bandwdth, I partly disagree.

    Highly latent networks are not all that worthwhile to travel unless you have alot of patience, of which I lack. If I didn't care so much about highly latent networks I'd get satellite, however the 300ms+ over head that's incurred just to transmit a packet one way and not get to the destination yet is a bit high at the moment, though I may reach it and switch anyway.

    Some network connections drop you due to latent response times (some VPN solutions, some remote access solutions).

    Now wireless does carry some latency, but it appears to be a more viable option then what Adelphia is providing, and I like the community idea over using Adelphia.

    I don't like Adelphia much because I have had to deal with their tech support on more then one occasion, while the people I have had to deal with were not complete idiots, nor argue over my choice of operating system, as long as I could provide the information I needed, having to sit on hold for a couple of hours repeatedly does gets tiresome and annoying.

    As for wireless security, it's not perfect, and not good enough yet, however there are ways to increase some of the security. "War driving" is pretty common, and suprisingly quite a few people do it.
    I can bother to do it from my sharp zuarus (not that that's the only PDA that it can be done from) so that I am more mobile then a laptop would allow.

    A combination of WEP to deter some of the "script kiddies" and a decent security implementation (not policy, as it should be some what transparent to end users) helps reduce some of the risks associated with wireless, however around my own neighborhood there are 5 access points without WEP even enabled, and running default configurations, 3 of which appear to be linksys's that have not been configured.

    Take it as you will.
     

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