On Tue, Mar 06, 2001 at 10:04:39AM +1300, Richard Naylor wrote:
> At 05:10 PM 3/5/01 +1300, Alex King wrote:
> >People are getting excited about co-op 802.11 radio networking
> >of neighborhood(s) (eg. Consume net, Personal Telco Project) but what
> >would be really cool would be to get fibre cards for our linux boxes
> >and string fibre around the neighbourhood.
> >
> >Of course I imagine the problem (appart from where exactly you string
> >the fibre) would be cost and availability of fibre cards. Does anyone
> >know if sutable beasts exist?
>
> Yes - but don't bother buying them. 10mbps cards are expensive. 100mbps
> cards are frightening.
>
I suspected that.

> The answer is DON'T USE FIBER. For a few years now we have been installing
> Network Interface Devices (NIDs) - they run cat-5 into the premises (yes we
> do houses). Cat-5 is good for 1000mbps (yes GbE) over 100meters. There are
> tricks with running copper based ethernet between buildings but we solved
> those and have many of them around Wellington at the fringes of the CBD. We
> also have Radio NIDs with Linux based 802.11b radios in them. If you look
> at www.paremata-webcam.co.nz you can see one in action.
>
Hmmm.

What are NIDs? What problems do you have running Cat-5 between
buildings? Earthing?

My NID of choice is a realtek card - 100Meg, $32+GST Quantity 1 :)

Certainly fibre won't get close to this. However, there are some
advantages to fibre - Gigabit over 200M or 100Mbit over 2km, but
possibly also higher bandwidth in the future with new technologies.

Perhaps if cable is being laid in the neighborhood (how does your
neighborhood network work?) Cat5 and fibre could be laid - cat5 for
now and fibre for possible future applications.

> What you are talking about does work. Around my house clicking on
> "neighbourhood network" means what it says :-)
>
> The problem is the link to the Internet. Last months Jetstream600 bill was
> $1000+ after the "neighbourhood" shifted 5Gig. Everyone denied doing it. My
> son eventually confessed to a strong interest in Napster and visited the
> bank :-]
>
This is going to be a problem in any type of community network. From
my perspective there are two answers to this: 1. don't share the
internet 2. log every packet and set up billing scripts :)

> If you want photos of the NIDs email me.
>
> richard.naylor@citylink.co.nz

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Received on Tue Mar 6 11:05:35 2001