[Tfug] why not cable?

[Angus Scott-Fleming]

On 15 Sep 2006 at 13:57, t takahashi  wrote:

> how hard or expensive is that to do?
> 
> 
> On 9/15/06, Angus Scott-Fleming <angussf at geoapps.com> wrote:
> > On 13 Sep 2006 at 10:39, RushD  wrote:
> >
> > > If anybody has any suggestions, I'd certainly explore them.
> >
> > Do you have line-of-sight to anywhere in Tucson?  Perhaps you could find
> > someone willing to set up a long-haul WiFi relay point for you.

See this article:

------- Included Stuff Follows -------
I, Cringely . June 28, 2001 - Reach Out and Touch Someone | PBS
    How Bob and His Binoculars Found More Bandwidth and Learned to Stop 
    Worrying and Love the Bond
    By Robert X. Cringely

  My house sits on a hill in rural Sonoma County, 36,000
  feet from the telephone company central office and 22,300
  miles from the GE satellite that provides my Starband
  Internet service. I have written two previous columns
  about Starband, but this isn't a third one. Rather, it is
  a column about my feeble attempts to move beyond Starband
  and gain better service. Starband is nice, but the latency
  is real, the upload speeds are a joke, and some protocols
  can't be carried at all. Internet telephony, for example,
  works great, but only in one direction. So while I am not
  ready to dump Starband, I'm certainly looking for
  alternatives. And now I think I've found one - an 802.11b
  wireless link from Hell. Remember, I am a professional.
  Don't try this at home. 

  The whole idea was to piggyback off some other person's
  DSL connection. There had to be someone I could find who
  was close enough to the phone company central office for
  dependable DSL service, yet still within line-of-site from
  me. So I bought binoculars, then a telescope, then a
  larger telescope. In the early morning and late at night,
  I would sit on my deck scanning for neighbors with DSL
  potential. That's when the light was best and the haze was
  least. My immediate neighbors would be no help because
  they were all just as far from the phone company as I was.
  Most DSL needs to be no more than 18,000 feet from the
  C.O., so anyone else in Bennett Valley was off-limits.
  That left me peering through two little gaps on the
  shoulders of the mountain between my house and Santa Rosa.
  Through one gap I could see what looked like street
  lights, and through the other I could see what I was sure
  was a traffic signal, both between five and 10 miles away.
  To a man with slow bandwidth, such things are exciting.
  Enter telescope number three, finally big enough to
  actually see what was there - evidence of habitation! 
--------- Included Stuff Ends ---------
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20010628.html

See also
  I, Cringely . July 12, 2001 - I Network, Therefore I Am | PBS
    "Further Adventures in the World of Bootleg 802.11b"
  http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20010712.html

Might be some more follow-ups to it about his success doing it.

Cringely had to use $600 Apple AirPorts and expensive custom cables, but now 
you can do this with inexpensive wifi routers / bridges that already support 
external antennas. Cantennas are available commercially for $40 now from 
cantenna.com, or you spend more and get D-Link antennas.  Check Provantage.com 
for pricing and products, or search D-Link's website.  I have several WiFi 
bridges working in Oro Valley for longish connections (up to a mile, I think, 
is my longest) bridging segments of lans in different buildings.  I've been 
using D-Link DWL-2100APs and D-Link ANT-1400s for my short (1/2 mile) bridges, 
but the longest bridge uses some older Proxim Tsunami gear (we set it up a few 
years ago before the prices came way down).

Angus