Possibility of tower usage for nonprofit WISP?
Hi all, I'm a ham radio operator with an interest in disaster preparedness. A few years ago I moved to Seattle from Portland, where I had volunteered with MCARES and PBEM. Recently, I've been considering purchasing a home in the Toledo/Chehalis area. I see that Toledo has fiber but Boistfort/Ceres/Meskill/surrounding areas have very poor internet service coverage. One of my requirements is to have (relatively) fast home internet, so this is a problem! Being a wireless mesh nerd, I'm mulling over the idea of starting a nonprofit WISP to bring coverage to myself and others in the area. I see there's a site up on Boistfort Peak/BawFaw. I know that HamWAN itself can't be used for internet access, but is tower space available for this purpose (e.g. a few Ubiquiti radios & antennas)? Thanks, Pavel
Hi Pavel, I don't have an answer for you, but I do wish you luck. Please keep us advised if you end up finding a way to get your wisp up and running. I am one of the EOCs of the Centralia ARES group and we, as well as the Lewis County ARES have several members facing the same problem as you, living in that same part of Lewis County. I don't want to contribute to thread drift any more than I already have, so feel free to contact me at KE7PCB@ARRL.net or by HamShack Hotline phone at 4557. 73 Paul On Tue, Sep 10, 2019 at 8:10 PM Pavel Kirkovsky via PSDR <psdr@hamwan.org> wrote:
Hi all, I'm a ham radio operator with an interest in disaster preparedness. A few years ago I moved to Seattle from Portland, where I had volunteered with MCARES and PBEM. Recently, I've been considering purchasing a home in the Toledo/Chehalis area. I see that Toledo has fiber but Boistfort/Ceres/Meskill/surrounding areas have very poor internet service coverage. One of my requirements is to have (relatively) fast home internet, so this is a problem! Being a wireless mesh nerd, I'm mulling over the idea of starting a nonprofit WISP to bring coverage to myself and others in the area. I see there's a site up on Boistfort Peak/BawFaw. I know that HamWAN itself can't be used for internet access, but is tower space available for this purpose (e.g. a few Ubiquiti radios & antennas)?
Thanks, Pavel _______________________________________________ PSDR mailing list PSDR@hamwan.org http://mail.hamwan.net/mailman/listinfo/psdr
On 9/10/19 11:10 PM, Pavel Kirkovsky via PSDR wrote:
I've been considering purchasing a home in the Toledo/Chehalis area. I see that Toledo has fiber but Boistfort/Ceres/Meskill/surrounding areas have very poor internet service coverage.
If service is available you should have it as part of your contract that you will pay to install and test service from the provider before closing, and should it not be able to be installed you can cancel the contract. Most ISP's have no idea if their service is truly available in your location until the installer shows up. I've seen multiple people buy homes now and have this happen. Many were told that PON/fiber was on their street and sold it by the provider, only to find out that's not the case. These people now are stuck in a home which has no option for internet service other than dialup. Even if your entire subdivision has it, there is no guarantee that the service can be provisioned until it is. This is simply devastating to buy a home where you've been told gigabit PON is 59.99 and find out 2 months after closing there is nothing other than bonded ISDN/IDSL for 250/ or DS1 service for 1500/month. One of my coworkers commutes 10 miles to a starbucks for conference calls for this reason. Good luck! -- Bryan Fields 727-409-1194 - Voice http://bryanfields.net
Have you tried running home internet on some unlimited LTE plans? I have no trouble running my home internet this way. However, I don't know if you get good cell coverage at home. Kun ________________________________ From: PSDR <psdr-bounces@hamwan.org> on behalf of Pavel Kirkovsky via PSDR <psdr@hamwan.org> Sent: Tuesday, September 10, 2019 8:10:37 PM To: psdr@hamwan.org <psdr@hamwan.org> Subject: [HamWAN PSDR] Possibility of tower usage for nonprofit WISP? Hi all, I'm a ham radio operator with an interest in disaster preparedness. A few years ago I moved to Seattle from Portland, where I had volunteered with MCARES and PBEM. Recently, I've been considering purchasing a home in the Toledo/Chehalis area. I see that Toledo has fiber but Boistfort/Ceres/Meskill/surrounding areas have very poor internet service coverage. One of my requirements is to have (relatively) fast home internet, so this is a problem! Being a wireless mesh nerd, I'm mulling over the idea of starting a nonprofit WISP to bring coverage to myself and others in the area. I see there's a site up on Boistfort Peak/BawFaw. I know that HamWAN itself can't be used for internet access, but is tower space available for this purpose (e.g. a few Ubiquiti radios & antennas)? Thanks, Pavel
participants (4)
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Bryan Fields -
KUN LIN -
Paul Barwick -
Pavel Kirkovsky