Suggestions for high-speed apt access

[electricfox]

My apartment mates (20) and I are thinking of reducing our $1000 someodd payment to big-brother cable company, by going with a more robust connection to share. Since I'm basically the only one who knows anything about this stuff (or is at least closest to said knowledge), I agreed to gather together some info.

But I've been out of the loop for awhile. Is T1 still where it's at? What about sDSL - same speed, but providers downplay it as a "less robust" solution. Don't see how "robust" comes into play when you're talking about spending 1/2 the amount and getting the same speed, but am I missing something?

Any other solutions/providers you would recommend? Should we go with our local telco (SBC) or some other provider (Covad?). If we do do T1, is there anything we should keep in mind as far as maintence is concerned - does it go down at all, and if so, would yours truely find his experience with home router solutions sufficient to manage?

Your experiences are most welcome.

PS: This is pretty exciting for little old me too, because I'll get to run my own box at home, finally! :-)

[electricfox]

Oh, and does anyone know if on 1.5Mbps cable, the 1.5 is shared, or the 1.5 is guaranteed, and you're sharing some bigger amount?

[generic]

You trying to run a web server, or just access the internet?

If just internet access, why not just do a basic cable access and a linksys wireless router. Eveyone in the general area can join in wireless for one account fee of about $45 a month. Spilt 20 ways is about $2 a month each.
Of course your limited to range of wireless.

This seems too simple so I might not understand what you want to do..

[electricfox]

Yes, I hear you. But there are a few issues:
1) cable isn't that fast, especially uploading.
2) a lot of us in the building are students, and almost by definition, heavy internet users
3) wireless definately would not work, because of the size of the building and the old-school plaster-on-metal construction.

I could almost see us sharing one cable connection (it would certainly be cheaper!), but 1) comcast would probably hire henchmen to kill us, 2) unless I'm mistaken (please correct me if so), sharing one cable connection would be slower than each having our own.

[generic]

I would say, no, it would not be faster, but ill leave that answer to a network tech, which I am definitely not.

[soky]

I recommend looking into fixed wireless in your community. Truth is, you can likely find 5Mps+ through fixed wireless and using a linksys wireless router, you could very well share one account with many users.

Also... you may want to look into creating your own hot-spot... there are a few options out there and doing so may provide a source of revenue to underwrite your own broadband access.

[soky]

electricfox : I will likely send you a local contact off list.

[electricfox]

thanks soky, you've got my attention!

[nelsonke]

Finally something I know something about and can contribute! Hope this helps.
1. You are right about Comcast, it is a violoation of all the cable company "residential" agreements that I am aware of to share connections. You could solve this if your local cable company has a "business" cable connection which will cost more but usually offers the same service. You would still have the upstream limitation.
2. You are also correct about the linksys (type) wireless access points. There a a lot of companies that tried selling interent access into apartment buildings using that strategy, I know several and they have all gone out of business becuase of wireless penetration limitations. You will proably have to hardwire your building, or at least put in a lot of access points.
3. The speed of SDSL technology is very dependent on your distance from the Central Office. Unless the technology has changed a lot in the last year, not many are getting 1.5 on SDSL.
3. T-1 being "more robust". I used to be able to do a good explanation of the difference, but for now I would say that you are getting good information. Amoung other things, Telco's will typically monitor T-1's more closely, and restore them before DSL. For example, the typical telco agreement with a CLEC calls for a 4 hour response guarantee on a T-1, and a 24 to 48 -hour response on a DSL, although most trouble is cleared faster.
4. DSL may have a shared use restriction in their agreements similar to cable agreements, see above.
5. Fixed wireless can be a good solution but is not widely deployed - and they may well have "shared" use restrictions like cable/dsl, unless you purchase their "business service". It also has a reputation for not being quite as reliable, and their coverage is affected by tall buildings and antenna locations.
6. Most people don't realize that dsl service is typically concentrated at the central office into what is called a DSLAM, which tpically connected to a ATM switch at a central point. Some companies under engineer that connection and you don't get the full bandwith at peak traffic times, much like can happen with cable service. The t-1 is probably also connected to the DSLAM.
6. COVAD and others like it can provide good reliable T-1 access. My neighbor does hosting out of his garage, and uses a T-! from Covad. In many market areas they will also split out a small part of the bandwidth and give you local telephone lines over the same T-1.

[electricfox]

nesonke, thanks for all that great info. armed with that, I called Covad and spoke with their rep. She seemed convinced that sDSL should have the same speed as T1, just "less" uptime - comparing 99.9 for sDSL and 99.99 for T1. This being a bunch of home users using much-less-reliable cable, I doubt .09 would matter much.

But I don't want everyone to sign up and then have it be slow! SO, there will be about 15 - 20 home users, some downloaders, and maybe one server. Would 1.5/15 sDSL be any worse than 15x 1.5 cable? Should I reconsider T1? FYI, we're at 6,000 feet from the telco.

Have you heard about reduced rates for residential, or do they not do that anymore?

Oh, and covad is okay with us running servers.

Wireless: so is there any other option *above* consumer-grade wireless? I know for sure that my little linksys is not going to extend much past the neighbor apartments, let alone 3 floors and 5 apartments over! But is there some professional-grade package out there that I could consider?

If you have any website links that explain this, I would be very grateful!

[maytricks]

Setup one or two business cable accounts $100-200 each (generally 5-8mbps), then buy a Multi-WAN router or two, followed by a 24 port switch, lots of CAT5e, and a dozen wireless access points.

Setup the modems, routers, and switches in the basement, then run cat5e to WAP's whereever you need them. It is hard to say how many and where you will need them without a site survey.

The intial investment of a system like this will run a couple thousand dollars, but you will make that up in a year. If you find you need more bandwidth you can always add as you go.

T3 rental is upwards of $3500 in most places, T1 would not have the steam for you, and besides the CSU/DSU, routers, and all of the other workings of those types of networks are very costly.

[nelsonke]

1. Good news, if you really are only 6,000 cable feet, and there are no bridge taps or other funny stuff, dsl should work OK. Just as long as you can be OK with the lower response time level. Once it is up and stable for awhile you will probably be OK.
2. It is actually hard/impossible to compare dsl to cable, becuase you don't know about the traffic load at COVAD's DSLAM in the telco central office, and neither will the sales rep, and whatever traffic load exists today will change tomorrow. My cable service is excellent, and most of the time is faster than advertised. But my neighbor is really happy with his dsl.
3. DON'T WANT TO BE SLOW. Think like a telco, start with a 1.5 dsl and if it is too slow, add another. Make sure users are prepared for the rate hike.
4. DSL RATES FOR RESIDENTIAL - problem of prohibition on sharing.
5. SHOULD I RECONSIDER T-1, probably not. BUT DSL is designed to run on a 2 wire twisted pair copper circuit. To create multiple channels, DSL modems divide the available bandwidth of a telephone line in one of two ways -- Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM) or Echo Cancellation. FDM assigns one band for upstream data and another band for downstream data. A t-1 is a 4 wire circuit that transmits 1.5 each way. In theory, if your DSL line is close to the CO, like you are, you can get 1.5 both ways. But if you want to be sure you go T-1. Probably worth trying the DSL first.
6. IS THERE BETTER IN BUILDING WIRELESS. Not really, the all the popular wireless access points are running some variaion of the 802.11 standard, either the a, b, or g. The a variant is faster, but has less penetration. It is rare and more expensive. The b version is by far the most common, and the g is brand new but faster. My recollection is that it is backward compatible - but I doin' remember whether it peentrates as well as b. Go with b or g. If you distribute by wireless you will have to wire multiple access points, ususally done down hallways. It is getting increasingly common to do this in college dorms.

I have a 2 story house with a brick vaneer, with the access point on the second floor. We cover the whole house, (6 computers). On my machine on the second floor I can pick up signals from 3 neighbors homes.

One last tip, in my experience it may be best to stay with the same brand of access point and nic card. I have a linksys router, and 3 wireless linksys nic cards, and 3 other well know brands. The linksys cards work much better.

[nelsonke]

Agree with Maytricks in infrastructure design.

And obviously I am good with the cable modem network access, provided you don't need the upstream speed.

[electricfox]

I'm also a linksys guy myself, so I'd probably be leaning toward that anyway. So is there no way (currently?) to have unwired repeater modules for wireless? That (in my rudimentary but growing knowledge) seems like it would work...

Also, how would I best secure my network, as in, only allowing access to those who pay (assuming that not everyone wants in on the deal)? I could do WEP, but when I'd have some easily sharable code out there. I almost like how UC does it here, where when you first access the internet after some timeout, you enter your ID and password. I suppose off-hand it might be possible just to disable DHCP and assign IPs, but do you know of a more robust solution?

[electricfox]

LEGAL:
I hope I'm not bugging you with all these questions, but I also wonder about filesharing - if someone fileshares something illegal, I guess I'm the one who gets spanked?

REPEATER:
http://www.linksys.com/products/prod...id=563&scid=35
According to Linksys, their standard WAP11b can serve as a repeater - so is there any disadvantage to just putting a couple of these per floor (6 total), all getting data from the one? Or do they all need to "see" the main hard-wired one, rather than jeapfrog?