At one time I looked at WiMAX. WiMAX is a licensed system just as cell phones are licensed. (YES, they are licensed via the FCC sale of frequencies for bega-bucks, NOT mega-bucks). Then I looked at my son's house in Ashfield, a typical hill town install. WiMAX allows more power than WiFi, antenna gain, etc., so I would expect much more range. Again the issue is the hills. Form Jim Jr's place I could easily transmit to his place, probably a few more folks (plus many cows and a few bears) in the nearby valley, if I could secure the hill next to his house, and put a tower on it. HA! Simply the generated revenue from a few folks and many cows wouldn't cover the cost of building permits. Did I say I also would have to get a tower and radios? Oh yes, I didn't mention the FCC sale of the frequencies. That shouldn't be too high, tho, W. MA is not a popular spot for high rollers. 600 ft range: Wireless range is very dependent on the propagation path. The Friis equation describes range in free-space. On earth we never get close to that. From experience I would guess that downtown Springfield has terrible propagation because of the buildings, etc. As a example, communication with the Space Station is easily done with a 5 watt transmitter and simple antenna at 145 MHz. That is free space propagation. Yet it is difficult to communicate across Northampton with the same transmitter and antenna. That's the reason every police and fire dept has a repeater on the mountain (here it is Mt Tom). So spacing wireless transmitters every so many feet on phone poles doesn't do it. Every path has to be looked at. Some will work fine, some will fail, others will be marginal. San Jose found this out. They gave up on their free wireless system. Jim Ussailis jim at nationalwireless.com Original Message: ----------------- From: Christopher Eliot cre at chriseliot.com Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2010 19:25:07 -0400 To: matthew at corp.crocker.com, hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net, townwebsites at gmail.com Subject: Re: [Hidden-tech] WiredWest fiberoptic broadband ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area. ** If you did, we all thank you. How about: > > -- State builds a regional fiber network to every town (MBI is > working on this) > -- Towns build a municipal fiber network to every street (town funds > via bonding like building a road or bridge) With a wireless access point every quarter or half mile along the street? Would that be enough? Can wireless reach 1/8 or 1/4 miles? _______________________________________________ Hidden-discuss mailing list - home page: http://www.hidden-tech.net Hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net You are receiving this because you are on the Hidden-Tech Discussion list. If you would like to change your list preferences, Go to the Members page on the Hidden Tech Web site. http://www.hidden-tech.net/members -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://link.mail2web.com/mail2web