Mobile broadband almost anywhere

[sherab]

Hey folks!
I have been thinking about how to do broadband at my new place in central NY and came up with a solution.
I don't want to do satellite, cable modem isn't available and DSL isn't an option either. What I did do  was sign up for Verizon's EVDO service which in metropolitan areas gives up a 2MB burst speed but even in smaller areas like where I am (Ithaca, NY), it gets pretty fast. (Verizon is jacking up the power here by summer).

Details on Verizon's mobile broadband are here.
http://b2b.vzw.com/broadband/index.html

What Verizon is NOT thrilled about is that after you activate the card in a laptop, you can then turn right around and plug it into a router known as the Kyocera KR-1 and you have wired and wireless access in your house and can hook multiple machines up to it. (They would love to sell you more cards obviously)

The Kyocera KR-1 is here...
http://www.kyocera-wireless.com/kr1-router/ (It's about 250.00)

The Kyocera also comes with a 12v cigarette lighter adaptor (it only uses 5v).

I bought and tested this entire setup last week and it works like a champ. I then let a friend of mine borrow it for a trip to Anaheim California and it worked there too with nary a sonic hiccup.

I think Verizon's only requirement is that you have to sign up for a 2 year commitment and have a voice plan already with them, like a cell phone.

Be happy to answer questions if anyone has questions. I'm totally sold on it and it works great. Now I don't have to deal with dialup.

Julian

[glenn-k]

I was kind of interested in this but my road trips are unpredictable and I hate to break loose with the money. :-/

I think it may be a lot improved since I first looked at it.

[benevolance]

for us low techies...Does the wireless broadband operate off the cell signal? So as long as you have cell signal you would have wireless broadband internet?

If I am wrong fill me in to the details of how the signal for the internet would work when you leave the house...And travel?

[sherab]

Sorry for leaving this key detail out, that's exactly how it works.

Anyone remember a few years ago when Qualcomm stock was trading at ridiculous prices? A big reason for that is because they own the patent for a technology called CDMA which is what makes this possible. If Verizon has upgraded the towers near you to CDMA then you can get the REALLY fast burst speed otherwise it's still about 90K downstream (I'm trying not to stray into turf that is too technical).

One way to see what's near you is to hit this page....
http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/CoverageLocatorController?requesttype=NEWREQUEST

Put in your zip and select "BroadbandAccess & V CAST"

Julian

PS -  I am only recently an employed paid travel writer who's getting paid to be an actual writer. My previous 23 years of employment have been in the technical arena with the last ten being a Systems Analyst for the federal government. So if anyone has any tech questions shoot 'em over. Finally I might know something special.  

I have a special love for fearless leader Glenn since he's completely off grid. My only real technical love these days is with embedded technical systems and building things that actually do something instead of writing code to do something nifty on the 'net.

[jraabe]

Sherab:

Welcome to the site. Interesting information. Thanks for the cell service mapping link. Now I know why my cell phone is useless unless I'm traveling. My woodsy location is in the white area where there is no service.



I'm waiting for Wimax to make all these dead pockets go away. Am I living a pipe dream?

[Doug_Martin]

My only real technical love these days is with embedded technical systems and building things that actually do something instead of writing code to do something nifty on the 'net.

Small world.  I used to do embedded system development (black boxes for military jets and the OS for industrial controllers).  Now I do web development -- its more fun for me (but I know the appeal of embedded work).

[sherab]

Doug,
I think we just started at opposite places and ended up in opposite places.  
If you have questions about any web stuff let me know... I REALLY rock on Perl. It's my primary language and love in programming.

I am super excited about getting into PIC programming. I have bear and deer on my 10 acres and networked, solar powered, Wi-Fi cameras are a dream of mine.

Julian

[desdawg]

In addition to the $60 a month are you burning cellular minutes while you are on the internet? My Verizon phone works great in the mountains and the coverage map says yes in yellow. I have been looking for an affordable solution.

[sherab]

Hi Desdawg, it's unlimited broadband at that price so no problem on burning the minutes. Verizon does require that you have at least some plan with them already though.

Not to confuse any further but having broadband presents a whole new bunch of possibilities.

If you wanted, could do an end run around that whole issue completely by setting up a Skype account and get a normal telephone number through Skype. Then just plug in your USB handset and you have VoIP service attached to a normal phone number. The down side is that Skype can only assign numbers from major metropolitan areas so my Ithaca NY number is actually a Manhattan area code. Doesn't matter where YOU are but the regular phone number attached to your Skype account will be from a major metropolitan area code. I actually have a 502 number additionally so my mother can call me and it's a local call for her but it rings in here in Ithaca. Area codes really aren't tied to geography anymore thanks to our modern age.

Ironically I only pay Verizon my monthly DSL fee  but I use a USB handset with a Skype account that gives me a regular phone number. So I'm technically using Verizon for my phone calls but not in a way they would be particularly thrilled about.  

(Skype's service next year is 14.95 a YEAR for PC to regular numbers!. Can't turn that down). Since VoIP only requires about 24K upstream it should work in theory using EVDO.

Some people get EVDO broadband because in some places like Manhattan, DSL installs are backlogged.

Last two things:
1. If Verizon catches you going hog wild with downloads they might cut you off. Always a loophole for them to use.
2. You do have to activate the card using a laptop, after that you could just plug the card into the  router and keep it turned on.

Unless you have a Mac (Mac's don't have PCM-CIA slots), a normal tower/desktop PC, or want to have multiple machines hooked to the connection, you don't really need the additional expense of a Kyocera router. The card plugged into your laptop will work fine.

Julian

[jstig]

Great info.  I looked up Garrett County in Maryland where I plan to build my cabin and there isnt  any broadband access in the whole county but there is something called Natl Access Extended Services - however this is all useless since my piece of mountain heaven is right in the middle of the only white zone (no cell service) in the county.   Oh well.  I did want to get away from it all.

[Okie_Bob]

Great topic Sherab, thanks for starting it!

John, you asked about WiMax and I know a little about it.
First, there are two pieces to WiMax, the first to be available will be 'fixed' and later we'll have access to 'mobil'. Fixed is what it implies, available for a fixed location, one where you leave your computer in your home or office and can not move it around as you'll later be able to do with the mobil version.
It looks like WiMax will first be available only thru cell phone service providers. Motorola already has a WiMax addition to their base stations in developmental test and I suspect will be available shortly. That means they would add WiMax to their base stations and anyone in range of the base station could buy access, thru the service provider that owns the base station. (I'm trying to keep this as non-technical as possible.) So, if say, Verizon has Motorola base stations and adds WiMax they could sell you WiMax service if you are in range of their base station.
Other base station mfgrs like Nokia are also working on WiMax so whichever cell phone service provider you use, eventually will offer WiMax service.
But, anyone can purchase a WiMax system and offer the service. And I am hoping that the cost will be low enough that a small company could set up a tower and offer the service to anyone in range of the tower. This would solve my problem as I don't currently have any access to broadband/cellular or dsl service at my lake house. My only option is satellite and that is just not something I want to use.
There are other possibilities as well. There are three cities in Tx testing a new internet protocol that comes in over your power lines. From what I hear it is very successful so far.
And I almost forgot, WiMax is now available thru a small company called Clearview. They offer hi speed internet service in selected areas and never refer to it as WiMax but, I am pretty sure that it exactly what it is. They have a website but, you'll have to Google for it.
Wish I had more info but, that's about where the technology stands today. It's coming pretty fast from all I learn.
Okie Bob

[jraabe]

Great information guys.

Just got a call from my son in rural HI and he was wondering if an Internet connection could be made between the farm he is on now and the next one over that has just gotten a satellite (Direct PC?) link up. Everyone in this area is off grid with solar power systems for AC. There is a rough phone line connection but it is minimal with no DSL.

My understanding is that a clean Cat 5 cable can get up to about 500 feet. Don't know if that would be enough....

[glenn-k]

A friend of mine made some kind of link from his shop to his country home in the foothills about 20 miles away.  He is an avionics repairman.  It is some kind of a transmitter-receiver - by line of sight.  

[Dustin]

You can use private point-to-point wireless access points, from Cisco or whatever. We subcontract for these type of installs all the time for customers. Just get a couple towers and some access points with antennas.
There's a wireless access point at each end, pointing their antennas at each other over line-of-sight.
The access points have ethernet and plug into your regular networks, acting like a bridge, so if you know someone with broadband, and you don't, you could feasibly have them set up a wireless AP connection to you.
For shorter distances, you can use your regular old wireless routers (Linksys WRT series with Sveasoft Linux software) with the appropriate external antennas, but for longer distances, you should buy the higher power output wireless APs.

For more about the "home brew" options for shorter distances and the interesting possibilities, read this article:
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2004/pulpit_20040527_000456.html

[Dustin]

After doing some more reading, I found that you could do this for under $1200 (2 Wireless APs, antennas, cabling), and mount it on your roof for long-distance LOS connections (up to 20 mi).
Check out:

http://metrix.net/metrix/products/packages

They have some fairly advanced wireless AP kits that run Linux, and then you buy your choice of directional antenna for each.

Very cool!!

[glenn-k]

Thanks Dustin.

I wasn't sure on how it was done.

[desdawg]

Wow, there sure are a lot of strange names and initials in this thread.  :-/

[sherab]

For shorter distances, you can use your regular old wireless routers (Linksys WRT series with Sveasoft Linux software) with the appropriate external antennas, but for longer distances, you should buy the higher power output wireless APs.

Cringely has some neat stuff on his site. The only problem with using Sveasoft on the Linksys WRT54G is that Linksys has caught onto this and changed their chipset completely making installation of  Sveasoft a fairly tough issue .......for now


If you run across one with firmware pre-V5.0 it can still be done though.

Reminds me of the Maker/Geek Bill of Rights...
1. Meaningful and specific parts list shall be included
2. Cases shall be easy to open
3. Batteries shall be replaceable
4. Special Tools are allowed only for darn good reasons
5. Profiting by selling expensive special tools is wrong, and not making special tools easily available is worse.
6. Torx is ok, tamperproof is rarely ok
7. Components, not entire subassemblies, shall be replaceable
8. Circuit boards shall be commented
9. Consumables, like fuses and filters, should be easy to access
10. Power from USB is good, power from proprietary adaptors is bad
11. Standard connectors shall have pinouts defined
12. If it snaps shut, it shall snap open
13. Screws better than glues
14. Docs and drivers shall a permanent link somewhere on the internet where people can actually access them years later later if needed
15. Ease of repair shall be a design ideal, not an afterthought
16. Metric or standard, not both
17. Schematics shall be included.

Asking too much yathink?  
Julian

[glenn-k]

....and for laptops, how about a power plug that won't destroy the mother board if you bump it and break the plug.

... and I don't want to switch to a mac.

[Doug_Martin]

Great information guys.

Just got a call from my son in rural HI and he was wondering if an Internet connection could be made between the farm he is on now and the next one over that has just gotten a satellite (Direct PC?) link up. Everyone in this area is off grid with solar power systems for AC. There is a rough phone line connection but it is minimal with no DSL.

My understanding is that a clean Cat 5 cable can get up to about 500 feet. Don't know if that would be enough....

If he has line of sight he should be able to do it very cheaply -- you just need a wireless router at the neighbors house, a directional antenna pointed at your son's house and a wireless card on your son's PC.  You can make an antenna for $5 out of a tin can:

http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html

[desdawg]

I just bought a laptop yesterday so I headed directly to my local Verizon store. When I am up north I haven't had any internet service so this will fill the gap. Anyway what I found was a pleasant surprise. The "card" for the laptop in not a card anymore. It is a USB plug device that will fit any computer. So I can now install the software and use it on my desktops as well as the laptop. Had I known this ahead of time I may not have even purchased the laptop. But that is water under the bridge at this point. So now (with a 2 year committment) I now have high speed internet service at all of my locations for $60/month. All I have to do is transport the little USB device from place to place. Even here at home I only had dial up available unless I wanted to invest in satellite service and then it wouldn't have been portable. I am thrilled. The USB adaptor cost me $100 with a $50.00 mail in rebate so $50 when it is all sid and done. I expressed some concerns to the Verizon Rep about not having much signal on my phone in certain locations. He said that with the Wireless Inernet they are only transmitting data while with the phone they are transmitting both data and voice so this performs better than the phone even with a weak signal. After three different cellular providers I hav been happiest with Verizon so I am giving them my nod of approval, at least in the areas where I travel. I have waited a long time for a good solution to this problem and hopefully one has presented itself.

[John Raabe]

Desdawg:

So, to be clear, you are getting high speed internet service over the cell service network and using a USB (modem, router, cell thing-a-ma-jig?) to plug into your laptop or desktop. Is that right? And you continue to have phone (voice service) on your cell phone?

This is similar to the DSL service I started getting a few years ago over the little copper wire that was buried in the ground by my local phone company 30 years ago. I was thrilled to see what you could do with compressed digital information.

[Amanda_931]

Either it's coming down in price, or Cingular is still more expensive.

Now all I have to get is more than one bar on my cell phone up the hill.  

And/or change my cell phone service.  For various reasons (easy number to remember, and besides I've had it for over 16 years) I still have a Nashville number with it.

(and be assured that this really isn't what's killing off the bees--we'd prefer to have almonds and other fruits and vegetables in the future)

[desdawg]

The two services are independent of each other. My USB card was assigned a seperate "phone number" for identification purposes. I can use the internet and the cell phone at the same time. The little gadget that plugs into the USB port is about the same size as a flash drive or a cigarette lighter. It will fit easily into a shirt pocket. The previous version was actually a card and had to be used with a computer with a card slot. Not many desktops had card slots. This gizmo is universal. I am using it on my desktop computer right now.