Rural Broadband

August 1, 2004 7:05 PM

Someone I know is moving to a tiny rural town in Southern Oregon, which has a population of about 700 people and no broadband. The nearest broadband is in Roseburg, located 17 miles away.

The property they will be on has a hill, which might make it possible to use some kind of tranceiver on an antenna and establish a connection with someone over in Roseburg -- either Qwest, the local phone service, or the Douglas FastNet, which is interested in bringing broadband to rural Oregon. Alternately, there are satellite services, such as Starband or DirecWay which does this kind of thing too.

Do any of you have any thoughts on the best (or most cost-effective) solution available for broadband in such a situation? Also, we are interested in knowing how to go about creating a wireless network / coop / small ISP that would service the local region. Any ideas on how to get the bandwidth, what kind of equipment we'd want to use, how to wire the town, and how to reduce latency?
posted by insomnia_lj to Home & Garden (2 answers total)

Rural wireless broadband is hot this year and last, with new incentives just announced by the FCC.

Inventive wireless providers go rural, and Silos bring internet to farm country should give you some pointers. Co-op is one way to go. These folks may help.
posted by dhartung at 10:32 PM on August 1, 2004

Lots of very helpful satellite info here, if you wind up going that way. (For the record, I went with DirecWay, and am 90% happy with it.)
posted by ook at 9:03 AM on August 2, 2004