With Minnesota repeal, number of states restricting public broadband falls to 16.

  • mosiacmango
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    7 months ago

    If youre friendly with your neighbor, point to point wifi is cheap and very effective. You can share their interent if they are okay with it.

    You buy 2 wifi antennas for $200, set one up at the point of origin and line it up with the other at the end point. Plug each end into a router and you’re all set.

    You dont even need perfect line of sight, although it does help. Range is 5 miles, so 1000ft shouldn’t be a challenge. They are preconfigured, so basically just plug and play.

    Edit : they have an even better set for $400 if you want 1.5x the speed above.

    • @[email protected]
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      57 months ago

      My mom is in a rural area, and her internet is basically just a wifi connection to a tower on a hill nearby.

      • mosiacmango
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        7 months ago

        Very common in rural areas. She is most likely a customer of a WISP, or a wireless ISP. They will often partner with a township to set up on a water tower or grain silo or some other high point, then have a fiber internet line brought to that tower.

        From there, they will deploy pretty much this exact device for each client, sometimes piggy backing on client sites to extend their range.

        5G cell service modems and starlink are making wisps less common, but they are still out there.

        Here’s a great older article about a home grown WISP setup in the rural islands near Seattle. After years of terrible and unreliable internet service, the neighbors got together, paid for a microwave tower internet stream from the mainland, and rigged up relays and wireless access points in trees in order to get good, reliable internet to everyone involved. Most everything described here would be considerably easier today.