[Discuss] satellite Internet vs. fixed wireless

[matt at mattshields.org (Matt Shields)]

On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 6:00 PM, Dan Ritter <dsr at randomstring.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 09, 2013 at 04:54:13PM -0500, Tom Metro wrote:
> > It makes you wonder what happened to fixed wireless around here? People
> > were all excited about it back around 2000. I think there are still a
> > few companies in the Boston area doing expensive fixed-wireless links
> > for medium+ businesses. Nothing for consumers or small businesses. It
> > seems like we got distracted by Wimax, which had more technical
> > challenges dealing with mobile end-points, was undercut by cheap cable
> > Internet, and increasingly cheaper 3G and now 4G cell data.
>
> I had TowerStream service in Cambridge in 2003-2004. At the time it was
> terrible: high packet loss, worse packet loss in rainstorms or with high
> winds, service randomly out. It was very fast to install,
> though, and priced reasonably (at the time.)
>
> Their website currently advertises a special price of $500/month for
> 5Mb/s service. That's... not good. If you're in a Cogent-lit building,
> you can get 100Mb/s for $1000/month. If you are in a facility already
> served by another major ISP, you can probably get prices around $15-20
> per Mb/s. Local loop charges can be nasty, if you have to pay them, but
> you are still unlikely to have to pay $100 per Mb/s...
>
> -dsr-
>
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Their service has gotten better.  I currently use it at my office as a
redundant connection.  Their prices do come down at the higher speeds.

Matt