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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: [funsec] Not so fast, broadband providers tell big users (fwd)
On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 14:50:43 EDT, Joe Abley said: > However, just because you're remote doesn't mean that there aren't > options in the last mile, so long as you're prepared to do something > rather than just complain about others not doing it. The island of > Niue in the South Pacific has had free, nation-wide wifi available > for all since 2003, for example, and you don't get much more remote > than Niue. Keeping this in perspective, the CIA Factbook says that Niue had a population of 2,166 in July 2006, an area of 100 square miles (1.5 times the size of Wash DC), and a highest elevation of a whole whopping 250 feet. Meanwhile, Montgomery County, Virginia has some 85K or so people, 393 square miles, and more ridgelines and hollows than you can shake a stick at (elevations from 1,300 to 3,700 feet inclusive). Probably 70K of those people are crowded into about 40 square miles in 2 main plateaus - those are easy to cover. The other 15K people scattered across 350 square miles of ridgelines and hollows are a lot harder to cover. I posit that those 350 square miles are more remote, measured from "the point the big fat cable lands at" (whatever landing station Niue has, and the 2 or 3 main telco CO's here), than any point on the island of Niue. At least measured by criteria that matter to the guy engineering the towers. Attachment:
pgp00006.pgp
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