IBB Delayed.

Sloth

I asked IBB again when I would be able to get their services in Dublin 15 presuming it would be withing the next month or two but I was now told that it would be "at least 3-6 months". This is a shame really as I was hoping to make the switch once my contract with Via was up, anyone have any ideas as to the reason for the delay?

Lemming

Dunno if it's related or anything, but they're having spectrum problems with the 3-rock mast (someone else is flooding onto their connection) which I'm on. A mate of mine is on the Donnybrook connection and he's having problems too with bandwidth, as is a mates-mate in Sandyford apparently

Perhaps they're trying to get these sorted first?? I really dunno and I'm just guessing.

That and perhaps they're having difficulties getting access/rights/costs to ideal locations?

Again - I'm guessing, so really don't take this post as any sort of scripture.

Sloth

Well theres that massive aerial near the vet's in Blanch as well as that big new building at the shopping centre, they seem like ideal locations to me. The only reason she gave for the delay was:
"however we in negotiations with property owners in the area." which as you say might mean that they're having problems negotiating a suitable location.

Kevok

I was told that aswell Lemming. (spectrum trouble).

AKAIK IBB use a very low power because of licence restrictions no? How come they can't get a higher power licence from the comreg?

kamobe

Ever since they started up they've been in 'negotiation' for a site in Dublin 15. I find it hard to believe that negoriation takes as long they say it does.

Sloth

Especially when it would be such a lucrative market for them. Maybe Eircom are standing on their heels so that they can get as many people signed up to i-stream before IBB launch. If IBB had managed to launch here when they said they would they would have been able to rake in the cash.

kamobe

How could Eircom prevent them from releasing their product?

Sloth

Well look at how they've acted before, would you put it past them to hire ninjas to go around at night knocking down all the wireless transmitters?

Dustaz

Originally posted by Sloth
Maybe Eircom are standing on their heels so that they can get as many people signed up to i-stream before IBB launch.

for gods sake, read the posts. IBB have ALREADY launched. They launched a long time ago. What people are talking about is NEW locations.

kamobe

IBB have ALREADY launched. They launched a long time ago. What people are talking about is NEW locations.

I'm sure this is just a mis-understanding of words, I believe he means the 'launch' of a D15 service...

50Cent

SLOTH!! i was told the exact same as you about "bla bla negotiating with property owner in area blaaaaa"

I dont know whats going on...it could be true...

LFCFan

back in October I was told early January 2003. In January I was told in the next month or so, in February I was told soon, probably a few weeks and now they are saying 3 - 6 months. My patience for IBB is seriously wearing thin now. Unfortunatly €ircon or €shat have absolutly no intention of upgrading my local exchange so I can forget about Broadband for the foreseable future.

Sloth

Whats the initial capital involved in putting up one of those transmitters? I doubt IBB are actually making much money atm since their service is only available to such a limited group of people, maybe thats part of the reason behind it.
You know if it's already been delayed like this already theres no reason to believe that it will actually be out in 3-6 months, by the time they actually get a move on ntl and esat could be in the market. I get the feeling that IBB are pretty much shooting themselves in the foot.

quozl

Originally posted by Kevok

AKAIK IBB use a very low power because of licence restrictions no? How come they can't get a higher power licence from the comreg?

ComReg follows the european guildines of 20db eirp (c 100mw). If anyone could transmit however much power they wanted the big commercial organisations could simply flood the spectrum and drown out the little guy.

2.4gig is one of the few spectrums where private individuals have as much access as commercial organisations.

Commercial companies can pay money and buy a license for a block of the spectrum, I can't (afford it). Along with other members of irishwan, I'm helping build open community based wireless networks. If companies were allowed flood the spectrum then that's another one of the possible routes out from under the teleco's monopolies gone. And a loss of a valuable public resource.

Greg
PS The power levels they have are enough to cover a couple of miles radius anyway. There's limited bandwidth available (due to spectrum width), so having larger coverage wouldn't help as much as you might think (and would even result in less bandwidth overall). IBB know this and are trying to set up a decent number of sites covering a few miles around them.

dieselfreak

sorry that was me bashing my head off the wall...

I'm connected to a NON ADSL enabled exchange, I've got 4000 tonnes of concrete blocking the view from 3 rock so no LOS to the Leap or IBB, yet I enjoy 100Kbs downloads from the web.

www.irishwan.org

seriously guys, theres a bit of work involved, but hey if half the energy spent moaning about the lack of broadband was focused getting off your arse to do somthing about getting it yourself. you'd have had it long ago...

dieselfreak

hasn't anyone got anything to say about the comments made here ??? (regarding IrishWAN)

it seems that if someone makes a comment which requires more than more grumbling about the bad situation here ure all lost...

come on lads.... In know that things are REALLY BAD here, but really, a solution is offered on a plate that puts two fingers up to €ircon and u just ingore me and the others that post about it !

what is the situation. Why are people ignoring this VERY CHEAP way of getting BROADBAND access to the Internet ?

Id really like, to hear what people have to say about this ? what is it, antenna installation costs, fear of neighbours opinons ?????

LFCFan

I'm in the process of getting a wireless connection up and running and looking at connecting to the D15 Wan.

nahdoic

Sourcing an internet connection to share is very difficult.

zynaps

Originally posted by dieselfreak
what is it, antenna installation costs

Yes

Also, it's dependent on some of the users acting as a gateway to the internet which is confusing and would require a proper internet connection to, then there's the guilt over possibly usurping too much bandwidth since the other users in contention for it wouldn't be as faceless as they would in like.. a dsl exchange.
It'd be nice though, but setting up wireless eq. for something that's not guaranteed to work out is a lot to gamble on when you still live at home

zynaps

dieselfreak

Well the kit for the installation will cost you about €200...

Installation of the kit, do it yourself... (no chance I'm getting on a roof) so that worked out at the princely sum of €40, there are lads with ladders and means to transport etc, in IrishWAN, who will help out if asked !

LOS, and connections can be tested with IPAQ handheld or Laptop before installation

And if it doesn't work out, sell the kit on www.irishwan.org/board

Yes, this is a lot more hassle than, phoning a telco and getting an "expert" round with a CD to install drivers for you. (admittedly most of the users of this forum would not required that or want that ;-) )

But if your living in an area where €ircon are unlikely to upgrade your exchange for a while, this is a real alternative.

quozl

Originally posted by zynaps

Also, it's dependent on some of the users acting as a gateway to the internet which is confusing and would require a proper internet connection to,

It's not that hard, there's people on the network doing just this with windows, linux and bsd machines. And people on the mailing list or forums will bend over backwards to help people who are setting up nodes. I must have built half a dozen linux servers for nodes.

And even if you can't get dsl, perhaps you can see someone who will route your traffic to others who can. We have people in dublin west sharing a dsl connect in kildare, and others connecting over 8km to share a leap connect (leap know it's being shared and have no problem with it)

then there's the guilt over possibly usurping too much bandwidth since the other users in contention for it wouldn't be as faceless as they would in like.. a dsl exchange.

Well, you know the people you're sharing with and you can easily work it out with them how much you pay, or if you want to be nice you can schedule horrible downloads for overnight. But if you share a connect with 3 other people, chances of you all being online and all downloading at a high rate are pretty slim.

Or you 4 could get a better connect than you could afford alone, and share that between you. Resulting in on average a much better connection.

Also the server node can do bandwidth limiting if they really could be bothered.

It'd be nice though, but setting up wireless eq. for something that's not guaranteed to work out is a lot to gamble on when you still live at home

yes, but before you set stuff up you can see if it'll work out. There's people on the list and forums who will lend equipment for LOS tests (or even perform them themselves). If you can see somewhere you can connect to it. So it's not that much of a gamble you just have to do some tests before you set stuff up if you're not sure you have line of sight.

Greg
PS The point of DubWAN is to build a open dublin-wide network. People do share internet connections on it, but that's just one of the services. Albeit the most important to a lot of people.

Sloth

Whats the max/minimum connection speed you can expect to get on this?

dieselfreak

Originally posted by Sloth
Whats the max/minimum connection speed you can expect to get on this?

Thats depends on what exactly you mean...

I can transfer patches for games etc from an ftp server running on the DubinWAN network at over 500kbps...

the speeds of operation vary depending on the quality of connection that you have to the network e.g. no "forest" in the way.

802.11b can run at 1mbps,2mbps,,5.5mbps and 11mbps

so the network itself is a damn site faster than even the most expensive ADSL connection you can get, and best of all its free.

Connections speeds to the internet will vary depending on how many people are sharing the same connection, but as Greg explained because there are a few people sharing the cost you can get a very high bandwidth connection cheaply, with Leap they can even give u a SLA to gaurantee the level of service you will get.

but as an example, I piggy back off a 1mbit ADSL and consistantly get 80-105kbps off the web.

quozl

almost all the network connections are currently using 802.11b, so the throughput is about 6.5 mbit. That's obviously shared, but one node in saggart has (I think) 5 different 802.11b links so thats about 32mbit bandwidth at that node.

DubWAN doesn't provide internet connections, I'm guessing that's what you ment not the network bandwidth. We're just building an open access network, on which people can provide whatever services they wish.

Many of our users are sharing broadband connections, from 512kbit upto 2mbit(that's the biggest single internet connection I think). So if you connected through one of these server nodes then your bandwidth would depend on the speed of their connection and the number of users concurrently online. It's hugely better than isdn anyway and it's flat rate always on.

One thing to watch out for, is that some isp's don't allow sharing of their connections. Mine doesn't so I don't. But some do.

I do want to reiterate that internet connection sharing is not the raison-d'etre of dubwan. I'm more interested in gaming/file sharing and the technology itself personally, as I already have BB. But it is the killer ap. for many users
Greg

Kevok

Are many games played over it?

bkehoe

Here in wexford I've upgraded to a 802.11g link between the nodes for up to 20MBit speeds between them - clients still connect via 802.11b but performance doesnt suffer due to downloads and stuff. I share my connection on the network here, and yes, we play a good few games and have a few dedicated game servers going.

quozl

there's a good bit of gaming going on in the dublin west segment of DubWAN. I'm not connected to that yet (I'm in donnybrook) but hopefully should be within a month.

MagicBusDriver

Is a linux server a requirment to connect to DublinWan. Is it possible to connect with a NT server.

quozl

A couple of the server nodes use windows, including the largest one in Dublin. All you need is an OS that supports routing, NT server and 2k server seem to work fine, though the majority of people use some form of unix (linux or bsd)
Greg

One server node is using a win98se router, but I think that was just to see if it was possible.

Dustaz

You can connect to dubwan with any os (afaik)

quozl

oops, I ment, to run a server node you need a routing os like nt server or linux. You could connect as a client with anything that can support an ethernet card.

dieselfreak

Almost all the nodes in the DubWEST part of DublinWAN are running Micro$oft operating systems, there are a few Redhat boxes... RedHat 8 & 9

as for games... ah lads you dunno what yer missin

average ping times of about 2ms, 15ms to nodes on another network.. e.g. Clondalkin to Lucan Via Saggart !

fantasic craic... using TeamSpeak www.TeamSpeak.org to chat (hail abuse) whilst gaming as well.

CitySickness

Any Macs on DublinWAN? I'm running OSX, and thinking quite seriously of this as a BB alternative...
That is, if the setup costs aren't prohibitively high, and the monthly outlay is at the same level or lower than current DSL offerings.
And if it's available in my area, of course. (off Stradbrook Road, Blackrock)

Mailman

How do members of the Dublinwan share the cost of accessing the internet?
Surely if one of them has a business version of DSL that he is sharing out he is not setting himself up as a charity?

Da Man

Sorry if I missed this info, but isn't line of sight purty important? If this is just a bunch of people with houses how do you manage any serious areal coverage?

dieselfreak

Originally posted by Mailman
How do members of the Dublinwan share the cost of accessing the internet?
Surely if one of them has a business version of DSL that he is sharing out he is not setting himself up as a charity?

open a bank account in the name of a "club" then all members of the club pay a standing order into the account. very simple really.

Thats if you want it all above board etc... some just pay cash as they now the guy who stumps up the cash to the provider.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, some of the service providers, dont care what you do with the service, they install the box on wall or antenna on roof, you get your 512kbps or 1mbps service and after that is up to you...

Others service providers dont like this at all, and would probably stop providing the service, if they found out what you were doing.

I think were most of the providers will have a problem, is if someone actually RE-SELLS this as a product so-to-speak, trying to make a few quid.

dieselfreak

Originally posted by Da Man
Sorry if I missed this info, but isn't line of sight purty important? If this is just a bunch of people with houses how do you manage any serious areal coverage?

Line of sight is important in wireless networks, well the 802.11a/b/g variety anyway...

its not really as hard as you might think... I just fortunately live in an area that has a high vantage point, so from the roof of most houses in my area you can see my antenna.

You'd also be surprised just how much of you surrounding area you'll see from the chimeny on your house

We also for example have a node and a mast half way up the mountains, in Saggart, from which you can pretty much see most of Dublin, so a good few links go through variours antennas on that mast.

dieselfreak

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=91644

or

www.irishwan.org