FBO's and WiFi

"Mark Astley" wrote in message ...
Another data point for you...

Lincoln Park Aviation (N07) in New Jersey also has wireless. I regularly
bring my laptop over to get the latest weather, DUATs, etc. before a flight.

It should be a no brainer if you already have DSL/Cable. Your overhead is
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

That's the gotcha at most smaller G/A airports. Around here DSL would
cost $350 for the "approved" DSL modem, plus another $300 installation
fee and then because the FBO would be a "business subscriber" the
monthly bandwidth service + phone line fees will cost $99/month
instead of $49/month like a residential account would pay. And then we
find out that the airport is almost 3000 feet too far in terms of wire
length from the nearest phone company central office building for DSL
to even work. ISDN service might reach out here but would cost
$140/month plus the $350 modem plus $300 setup fee. Of course they'd
be happy to sell us a fractional T-1 line for $450/month plus
installation and equipment costs. I hate the phone company. They're
hardly selling any broadband accounts because they refuse to sell
anything unless they can first make a killing off each one.

Cablemodems still aren't available since the airport is located in a
quasi-rural area. Maybe in about another year they'll have TV cable
run out to this neck of the woods. Meanwhile we're hoping someone will
open up a long-range wireless ISP with those outdoor parabolic grid
antennas. The thought of installing a 50-75' tall antenna pole next to
the FBO building that close to the runway doesn't sit too well with
most folks around here however, but the airport sits down in a hole
and reaching back into town to a WISP's tower will be tough.

We can't even get decent dialup service because the analog phone lines
servicing this area are decades old and have so much sizzling and
crackling static on them that 19.2k - 21.6k baud is doing good if you
can keep the connection alive for more than 10 minues at a time. And
the phone company was going to attempt to use these same old copper
lines for transporting DSL, ISDN or T-1 signal. Shyeah right.