[Cu-wireless] meeting minutes 4 November 2001

[Clint Popetz]

I'm late to this list and the discussion, but I thought I'd mention a
few things based on my experiences.

On Sun, Nov 04, 2001 at 04:35:35PM -0600, David Young wrote:
 
> How do we connect to the Internet? T1 or multiple T1 mentioned. Allegedly,
> symmetric DSL is newly available from McLeod: $69.90/mo for 384k.
> SDSL obviates the need for T1. Saves money. Symmetric DSL is preferred
> because it lets community members serve their own content.

It happens that I've spent the last year designing/implementing the
hardware/software for an SDSL router.  The only thing I will say is
this: the [CI]LECs have a different standard of quality for xDSL than
they do for T1s.  T1s are old hat, and at least in my experience you
can count on a T1 being up 24x7 with rare exceptions.  Although there
is no technical reason for SDSL connections to have more downtime,
there are several political reasons, and as a result SDSL connections
are flaky.  For example, even if the line is physically up, the atm
cloud may be in a dead state.  Also, the techs have a better feel for
T1 noise issues, and they usually don't for SDSL, so they miss things.
I have spent many hours fighting noise problems on SDSL lines, because
a tech didn't know what a bridge tap was, and why it was causing a
problem.  Many businesses in SF have switched back to T1s from SDSL
due to reliability problems.

(FWIW, all of my experience is in the bay area, so it may not apply.)

> For connecting cells, "dry" pairs, alarm pairs from Ameritech
> were discussed. Ameritech may disconnect these if they're used for
> data. Bummer.

It is, in my understanding, illegal for them to do that according to
the tarrifs in place.  


FWIW, I can hopefully come to the next meeting.  I run a wireless
network at home, with an AirPort running through a firewall to a cable
modem, and my laptop has a WaveLan gold and runs FreeBSD.

				-Clint