Farmers and high speed internet access

[oneoff]

Here is a rural internet status report

http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2012/05/10/19744236.html


If this were the 1920's farmers would do something about getting widespread telephone service. They'd create widespread cooperative prairie grain handling companies. If it were the 1950's there would be rural electrification programs created on a widespread basis. The same for modern water and sewer infrastructure decades ago.

Now how come we remain so far behind in affordable rural high speed internet.
Should this not be driven by rural people. Have those people forgotten how to get things done by themselves?

[hobbyfrmr]

I have high speed via a cell phone tower to a dish
does this count?
Some farmers have Yourlink which I think is
satellites. It sure sounds like garbage, and they
really don't like it. There must be money in it for
them, because they have same access to cell
tower that I do. I see a collection of antennaes,
and stuff on top of their elevator, so I am thinking
they are being paid to distribute or leasing their
roof space which is fine, if it works!

[malleefarmer]

We have very average internet service were i live in australia but its functional albet slow. But it works.

Is the govt spending million and millions of $ to improve it gonna put more dollars in my bank account......most think leave it as it is and spend more hospitals roads etc not sure if you have same argument in canada

[grassfarmer]

We are getting quite good network coverage in
Alberta through CCI Wireless. This company was the
vision of rural gas co-ops that realized they already
had the infrastructure and connections to bring high
speed internet to rural AB. Not sure if there was
Government money involved or not. They are setting
up towers, we got one about 5 miles miles away 18
months ago and it works really well. $45 a month but
it really is high speed better than the Explore satellite
service we had before. We receive it through a little
box rather than receiver dish and you can get your
"land line" phone service through the same
box/company.

[oneoff]

Don't forget the studies which I believe totally accurately say that rural farmers are not well served by high speed internet service.

You would be well satisfied by 2 to 5 Mb/sec download speeds and the standard full 500Kb/sec upload. You can stream multiple Netflix and Hulu Plus (yes from the USA if you choose); have VOIP, surfing and room for more. Rate caps and nothing less than an "unlimited" data plan should be the goal. And service for everyone that wants it.
Now that Coop mentioned just above sounds like they are one the right track. Satellite isn't the answer at the present time, because it suffers from inadequate capacity and high relative costs.
Wireless in open conditions (line of sight) works well where the noise floor from other equipment using unlicenced frequencies is sparse. That certainly includes most farms what farms 1 to 5 miles apart; and not solid trees. . And you don't have to be an ISP or millionare businessman to use exactly the same equipment Homeland security and disaster assistance group and cities have all tested and used. There is a side story about some of the experiences that the bigger cities have experienced; but I will leave that for the time being.

You'd be suprised what $6000 budgeted for the RM golf tournament and $16000 wasted on APAS could do if people diverted this to their functional high speed internet system for absolutely everyone.

[tstep]

Have Yourlink service and it is excellent.Lot faster than what the people in town have thru cable. Have dish on roof of house pointed at the local elevator, 8 miles cross country.

[oneoff]

Please provide details about your Yourlink service. Go to www.speakeasy.net/speedtest and click on Seattle and then click on the speed test. Right click somewhere and the results scren and "copy"; then paste into a reply back to the agriville forum. Then we are talking apples to apples. Here's the results of my two LAN services I created and am using for my own farm purposes.

One service potentially covers a "7 mile radius" with a 2.4 GHZ channel to any Computer WiFi card or "USB range extender" capable of enough signal to reach a node. It could also be a WIFi enabled cellphone, blu-Ray player or smart TV etc.

Last Result:
Download Speed: 3076 kbps (384.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 513 kbps (64.1 KB/sec transfer rate)


and the point to multipoint network shows speeds of
:
Download Speed: 4223 kbps (527.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 527 kbps (65.9 KB/sec transfer rate)




©2012 MegaPath, All Rights Reserved. MPLS University Privacy Policy Terms of Service Site Map Contact Us Check for Service

Better yet click on the Speedtest Beta Plus link in the top right side of the same web page. You need a newer computer with Java for this to fully work. (enhanced speedtest/jitter and latency testing) Then please get back to readers with the results, costs and limitatations imposed by Yourlink.

Here are my results with the Beta speed test





Download Speed




2.51Mbps




Upload Speed

0.54Mbps




Packet Loss

0%




Latency

93ms




Jitter

3ms









Location: Seattle, WA
Your broadband connection and line quality is Good.



MegaPath
wholesale
blog
support
login
contact us



And on the other LAN network the results are:






Download Speed

3.33Mbps




Upload Speed

0.5Mbps




Packet Loss

0%




Latency

113ms




Jitter

11ms

MegaPath
wholesale
blog
support
login
contact us






Monday, May 14, 2012 5:35:25 AM PDT





Test Again


And another test shows:












Download Speed

3.87Mbps




Upload Speed

0.53Mbps




Packet Loss

0%




Latency

110ms




Jitter

4ms









Location: Seattle, WA
Your broadband connection and line quality is Good.

[oneoff]

tstep ........ What we should ask ourselves is if "everyone" (Its that "line of sight" reality) wants that same excellent service at "every" location (like at least in the open in every field) within that 8 mile radius.
Because that isn't the direction of many internet service providers I have run across.

[oneoff]

My preferred solution is that the "dish" on your hose is the "gateway/router/access point" for all your farm field as well as residence based 2.4 GHz enabled electronics to directly access the whole world internet system.
That makes it a long distance telephone system; a base station for RTK GPS receivers; weather data transmitters; your world wide camera system and so on. Later you can add more to the list of uses you would like it put to.