[HECnet] Here there be dragons...

[Mark J. Blair]

> On Sep 5, 2020, at 1:13 PM, John Yaldwyn <jy at xtra.co.nz> wrote:
> 
> Hi Mike,
> 
> I live in a rural area here in New Zealand.
> 
> The best internet on offer is 5Mbps/500kbps ADSL, slow satellite with horrendous latency, or rural broadband on 700 MHz LTE.

Your internet options are slightly better than mine... best ADSL I could get is about 3Mbps down, with frequent service interruptions and poor customer support! I connect over a cellular tether, but all three major carriers here have poor cellular coverage in my area. My connectivity is sometimes fast, but very unreliable.


> To solve the Internet problem I found a friend about 6 miles away in the local village area that could get fibre. We set him up with shiny new Gbps service and run a dual polarised 5.8 GHz link with 2' dishes that gives me 400 Mbps downloads and a 1ms typical ping times. 

I'm trying to come up with a similar scheme. The trouble so far is finding an accomplice with a clear line of sight and good internet service. I'm considering sending letters to random strangers in a nearby neighborhood that has cable service. The nearest home with modern internet access is a mere 540 meters from my house.

My parents have similarly poor internet options, and they live 3 miles away with a clear line of sight. Once we get better connectivity at either home, we'll put in a microwave link so we can share it. If I could come up with a business plan that lets me go into business for myself instead of being a wage slave, you can bet that my company would be located somewhere with a clear line of sight to either my home or my parents' home. I've identified three candidate business parks in Riverside.


-- 
Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/