WiFi at AirVenture (was:Does your airport WiFi?)

("RST Engineering" wrote)
I don't promise what I am not absolutely SURE of delivering, but it is
these little amenities that a friendly person on the EAA Board of Directors
might be able to bring to pass.


A broadband in every po(r)t?


Montblack

On Wed, 27 Apr 2005 21:39:57 GMT, George Patterson
wrote:

Dave Butler wrote:

NorthNet http://www.ntd.net/internet.htm claims to offer DSL.

In nearly all of the U.S., the internet providers are running on lines that
they've taken over from the local Bell company. The lines are still provisioned
by the local baby Bell. If the local Bell says that they can't give you DSL at
your location, nobody else can either. That doesn't stop the internet service
companies from claiming they can. I think the baby Bell in that area is Ameritec?

Here, Earthlink was claiming that they could provide me DSL for two years before
my line could actually support it. Verizon had to condition the line for DSL
before anyone could provide service on it.

In order to handle DSL, the service address must be pretty close to the central
office (IIRC, 5,000'). The entire cable must also be free of load coils. Most
ISPs simply check the distance but have no way of knowing if coils are on the cable.

thread drift warning (you have been warned)

Contacted the local telco (brand V) several years ago concerning my
new residential service. It was a line running in a ditch for about
3/8 of a mile from the neighbor's junction box and literally
duct-taped to the poles to cross the road to my house.

Got passed around for awhile, and ended up with the engineer
responsible for jobs in my area. My primary concern was garbage coming
in from the street goofing up my brand new wired network in the house
(half telco/half LAN). Had no idea if it would be an issue-that's why
I was asking.

He assured me that the job would be completed by the end of the week
(it was) and asked me if I had ever considered DSL. Told him all the
contacts with the "sales team" told me that it was not available in my
area. He mashed a couple buttons on his keyboard, came up with my
location, and asked me how far away I was from the "box".

Turns out I was 8,200' of wire away. He did a "line test", and put me
in contact with a person within the company (not related to the sales
team) that had me hooked up within 2 weeks.

The company has since made a nationally advertised plan available in
my area. I knew it was going to be a PITA, but I switched to save $25
a month. Took about three days on the phone to convince them that I
had existing fixed IP DSL and get signed up for an annual contract.
Took another week on the phone to get the info I needed to get hooked
up/swapped over to the telco ISP. Initially, my existing service was
cut off, and I was told again that DSL wasn't available in my area,
and that I never should have been offered/sold service.

Long story short, have talked to other locals (a lot closer than my
8200') who were sold "self-install" kits and contracts from the sales
team and found out from the same engineer that their lines were not
suitable/compatible.

Cable is not a available option for me, but if the cable companies
offer any customer service at all, it's no surprise that they are
kicking the phone company's collective asses.

TC

George Patterson wrote:

In order to handle DSL, the service address must be pretty close to the
central office (IIRC, 5,000'). The entire cable must also be free of
load coils. Most ISPs simply check the distance but have no way of
knowing if coils are on the cable.

My ISDN line (128k) back in the mid 90's was over 40 miles long. My DSL
line(s) today are under 18,000 foot. Even with 3 DSLs and a cablemodem
connection, I'm still saving money over what I used to pay...

As long as someone wants to line Poberesny's pocket, he can come to
AirVenture. Doesn't matter if he's selling WiFi or pussy.

On Wed, 27 Apr 2005 09:34:10 -0400, Dave Butler wrote:


On a related note: there was a thread here earlier about wireless access at
Oshkosh. IIRC the sad conclusion was that there was no access very nearby.

I wonder whether anyone has contacted EAA and requested that they get on the
stick and provide WiFi on the North 40.

Is there any chance EAA would do something like that?

Any idea how to approach EAA or whom to contact about it?

How about some entrepreneur/vendor/display booth setting up an access point on
the grounds, either for a fee or as a public service for the advertising value?

Dave

I'll vote for the misguided Jim Weir. Hey, if can't make California
governor, then EAA director is just as good. I know he'll be just as
aggravated serving either one.

On Wed, 27 Apr 2005 16:05:23 -0700, "RST Engineering"
wrote:

I don't promise what I am not absolutely SURE of delivering, but it is these
little amenities that a friendly person on the EAA Board of Directors might
be able to bring to pass.

Just a thought, mindya.


Jim

wrote:

Cable is not a available option for me, but if the cable companies
offer any customer service at all, it's no surprise that they are
kicking the phone company's collective asses.

Here, they don't. I'm paying $40 a month *less* for my DSL line than the local
cable company wants for computer access cable. The Comcast customer service
lines were a real PITA when we had cable. Verizon's service lines were great,
except for the long holding time. The hold actually wouldn't be so bad, except
that they would play the "self-help" tips over and over again while you were
waiting. With Comcast, if there was a problem in the area, they just wouldn't
answer the phone.

One of the advantages of DSL is that I have a direct line to the switch -- I
have to share the bandwidth on cable. Granted, if there's a lot of traffic on
the server, I'll still see a slow connection, but I don't see the service
degradation caused by congestion on the cable. IIRC, cable was frequently a
little faster than my DSL line usually is, but there were also times when it
crawled, and I don't see that on DSL.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.

"Dave Butler" wrote in message
news:1114630866.771623@sj-nntpcache-3...
Juan Jimenez wrote:
The fastest connection you can get at AirVenture, because of its distance
from the nearest facility, appears to be ISDN.

I'm not sure there's no DSL, you could be right. DSL advertisers are
notorious liars. Also, there's satellite. If the bandwidth can't support
the demand, the number could be restricted to some arbitrary number of
simultaneous users, first-come first-served. Better than nothing.

If you think about it, the area where the show takes place is well separated
from the rest of civilization. For DSL to work you have to be a certain
distance from the closest telco facility, due to limitations of POTS wire.

There's no DSL, that I know of, or anything faster. ANN sets up WiFi but
encrypted for use by the staff and stringers. It would be ridiculously
easy to slow down an ISDN to a crawl if it was opened up.

ISDN is not a practical solution.

In order to handle the traffic for so many people at the show EAA would
probably have to temporarily setup multiple T-1's, and that costs a lot
of money for just one week of the show...

I'd be willing to pay for access if there were an on-field provider. I
suspect I'm not alone.

There is. If you can use a cellphone, you can probably use one of their
PCMCIA access cards and hook up that way. If you can rent cellphones, why
not the cards? There's a business opportunity for ya. Pitch it to EAA.

Juan

But to where? What part of Wittman Field? WiFi will get you about a 300 ft
radius, maybe a bit more if you get fancy with the antennas. You then have
to deploy an infrastructure to which you can connect the access points. It
takes money, and all for 1 week's worth? Maybe 2 if you count exhibitors,
volunteers, etc.

"Dave Butler" wrote in message
news:1114631015.415430@sj-nntpcache-3...
Juan Jimenez wrote:
The fastest connection you can get at AirVenture, because of its distance
from the nearest facility, appears to be ISDN. There's no DSL, that I
know of, or anything faster.

NorthNet http://www.ntd.net/internet.htm claims to offer DSL.

wrote in message
...
On Wed, 27 Apr 2005 21:39:57 GMT, George Patterson
wrote:

Turns out I was 8,200' of wire away. He did a "line test", and put me
in contact with a person within the company (not related to the sales
team) that had me hooked up within 2 weeks.

I believe the limit on DSL is 15,000 ft from the telco facility and at that
range, quality of the signal is so degraded to be almost worthless. But
under exceptional conditions, you may get service at that distance.

One choice is EVDO. If the area has coverage, you can feed an 802.11b
access point from the cellular service. At least one commercial
product https://evdo.sslpowered.com/wifi-router-evdo-sharing.htm
and one project (StompBox) do the trick.
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