Rural broadband, no initiative in my area

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › Rural broadband, no initiative in my area - self help possible?

PhantomNVD

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#113511 19-Jan-2013 02:28

Hi all!

As a long time lurker, but first poster, i have read as much as i can about maximizing my connection speed, and utilized 8 different ADSL modems of different brands, but at 5.4Km's from the exchange I realise I'm a borderline distance from feasible ADSL anyway.

RBI on chorus map totally ignores my small coastal village,

and the exchange [Glenbrook] is listed as BUBA, which only lets me synch on g.dmt @ 1024/480 on a 6/13SNR synch, though the snr climbs to 7.5-8 over very little time [cant synch better with 5SNR or at all with lower].

ItemDescriptionProduct NameSmartAX MT882Physical Address00:1b:9e:f1:2e:0eSoftware ReleaseV100R002B021 VODAFONEFirmware Release3.7.9.98Batch NumberRTC20P0.021.37998Release Date2009/09/24ADSLDescriptionADSL StateShow TimeData PathInterleavedOperation ModeG.dmtMax. Bandwidth Down/Up(kbps)1152 / 664Bandwidth Down/Up(kbps)1024 / 480SNR Margin Down/Up(dB)7.0 / 13.0Attenuation Down/Up(dB)63.5 / 31.5Power Down/Up(dBm)13.0 / 12.0CRC Down/Up0/ 0FEC Down/Up45/ 0HEC Down/Up0/ 0System Up Time0:33:33DSL Up Time0:24:16
I'm currently using my old MT882 as it doesn't require a telnet session to resynch at top speed when occasionally the power fails (or my 4 year old gets into the wires again!) or i decide to reconfigure something ;)

Most routers, including the Netgear DG632, VF Echolife "home complete", Dynalink 1320, DLink 502T and Thompson 582 v6 et al. all synch on a more conservative 12Db @ 740/400kbps :(

so I'm SOL for RBI or even cabinetisation... does anyone know if it's possible to get a DSL repeater installed (at my expense) which would at lest give me a chance at 2Mbs [by my understanding] as there IS a cabinet only 1Km away, which could both house the repeater and also be within the normal range of ADSL?

TL:DR can a repeater be user-initiated, or is there anything else I could do to improve my link to the world (save moving)

Cheers,
Neil

P.S. house is newly Cat5e Ethernet wired from telecom box, one cordless phone is only wired though a double-filtered (though standard) phone jack, and ADSL2 was "disallowed as the line won't support this" though the 6Db SNR is plenty stable for my needs. I'm on Vodafone's 'mega' pack which is fs/fs and regularly use 75Gb+/month - just want not to have to buffer for 10 minutes before actually watching a clip :(

P.P.S. I _think_ I'v covered all the relevant details, but feel free to chip in any comments or questions if more needed?

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nickb800

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#748002 20-Jan-2013 22:37

This comes to mind, although there are clear differences. Perhaps they are a 'flexible' organisation that would at least hear you out on your business case http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/5007463/Broadband-isolation-over-for-Wellington-suburb

Re: needing 3 relay stations, you could use solar to power the APs, although this would increase complexity and upfront cost

PhantomNVD

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#749788 23-Jan-2013 19:36

sbiddle:

How serious would people be? And where would a point be where a connection could be fed from? What sorts of speeds would people expect?

I'm thining 30 to 50 people couldn't really share a single connection (exchange is still only ADSL1, so I'd actually need to partner with someone who could have equipment in the exchange (ie adsl2+ ISAM) and perhaps a dual line at top ADSL speeds would share quite well (comparatively) for 30-50 people 5Km's away?

See http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=66&topicid=11352&page_no=13 for my current 'lan' setup, where essentially 4 houses are all sharing a sub 1Mb connection simply to HAVE a connection that isn't dialup.

I now have the following new info on my exchange:

" There is no long range profile for this customer as they are hosted off a Combo, customer is 5787.9 m from the cabinet, unfortunately the rates are as good as they are going to be.
The current rates are better than what the neighbours are getting. Unable to do NTS as this Neax card type not testable.
If they do not have a splitter installed and there modem is not conencted to the Master JP , they may want to look at getting one installed."

apparently Chorus are the only ones who might be able to improve this, essentially by upgrading the exchange and/or the backhaul to the local cabinet - so i guess thats my next step..... what chances? :(

sbiddle

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Biddle Corp

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#749791 23-Jan-2013 19:51

You can completely forget about a Chorus DSL upgrade because it's never going to happen. Firstly even if the exchange is upgraded you're too far away, and secondly you're not going to get a cabinet closer because your solution is already in place - the Government funded wireless RBI network which is designed to cover people such as you who were outside the RBI DSL upgrade.

Your solutions are either to pool together and partner with somebody to build your own network which would have a lot of variables but could be in the $10k - $20k range or simply use the RBI network that is in place now. I don't know what Vodafone site you would connect to but there are plenty There are upgraded Dual Carrier RBI sites already delivering up to 25+ Mbps.

coffeebaron

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#749828 23-Jan-2013 20:53

PhantomNVD:

would your organisation be willing to partner with a local initiative like sbiddle suggests CoffeeBaron?

how many confirmed signups would I need? (currently have 36 @ +/- $100/mnth)

Have already started looking into this; but won't make any promises or give time frames at this stage.

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jjnz1

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#749909 23-Jan-2013 22:47

PhantomNVD:
coffeebaron:
PhantomNVD:

would your organisation be willing to partner with a local initiative like sbiddle suggests CoffeeBaron?

how many confirmed signups would I need? (currently have 36 @ +/- $100/mnth)

Have already started looking into this; but won't make any promises or give time frames at this stage.

AWESOME!

without making any binding statements, what kind of user base might be necessary for this to become financially viable for you guys?

Can you get more than 25 subscribers connecting to one site within your area? For example the farm hill (rise) just east of Ronald Ave?

If you can't then the cost goes up considerably. If you can and you can get the farm owner to agree (via lease), a solar site could be erected there, providing backhaul to the nearest high site.

A quick calculation sees that around 25+ customers may work so your 36 customers @ $100 per month may be fine. (like the may's!) That would also give you around 20Mbps download/10Mbps up.

Remember, be prepared to sign a term contract for a solution like this.