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August 19th 04, 02:26 AM

In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

(N2EY) wrote in message
.com...
S. Hanrahan wrote in message
...
On 2 Aug 2004 08:25:26 -0700, (Brian Kelly) wrote:

Wires for any type of communications purposes are already on their way
into history. BPL was stillborn from the gitgo.

The future is satellite. Wi-Fi will just be a fad like the laserdisc.

Wi-fi is already much bigger than the laserdisc was and it's growing
exponentially. The laserdisc died on the stores shelves from the
gitgo.

For reasons listed in another post.

Probably not - that is, if we're talking about customers directly
accessing the satellite.

It's the cost of consumer direct access to the satellites which is the
show-stopper and I don't see it coming down to dialup costs for years
if ever. 80% of the U.S. consumers with access are still using dialup
connections and most of 'em are not going to move to broadband until
the costs get a lot closer to dialup than they are.

Absolutely. This is where DSL can really get the market, because with DSL you
don't need a second phone line.

While there's definitely a future for satellite comms, the
"last mile" problem combined with the enormous bandwidth of fiber
limits its usefulness as a general-purpose broadband access method.

Say you orbit a new, state of the art satellite. How much bandwidth
can it provide to how many customers?

A whole bunch. Even the old birds which have been up for years can
repeat something like 900 TV channels and those are not considered
high-capacity satellites.

That means 900 customers can have 6 MHz of bandwidth each. Or maybe 5400 can
have 1 MHz each.

When the satellite repeats a channel, it doesn't matter how many people watch
it. Internet bandwidth is a completely different beast.

Compare that to what is
available in a single fiber. Also remember that once the duct is in
place, pulling another fiber isn't that expensive, and that new
technologies permit more bandwidth in existing fibers.

What "ducts"?? There aren't any ducts running into farms and vacation
lodges out in the boonies. They'll have the last mile problem for
years to come. Until the phone companies replace their twisted-pair
wiring with cable, fiber optic and otherwise.

I meant ducts that carry it to within a mile of the customer. Ducts that go
across the country, etc. Satellites can't create another RF spectrum.

Fiber and Wi-Fi...watch out...

One caveat!

A lot of folks are setting up their own little wireless networks. The stuff is
becoming cheaper than the cable it replaces!

But not enough folks understand the need to encrypt. Without good encryption of
your network, anybody can drive by with a lapper and access your network - and
your hard drives, etc. Your internet firewall won't help because your network
thinks the invader is *inside* your network, not outside. You need for the
network itself to be encrypted.

Where's my RJ-45 plugs?

73 de Jim, N2EY

73 de Jim, N2EY