Big Island Wirelsss

[Bill]

We heard about a guy named Bill Wiecking who has setup a wireless
internet network around the entire island. Is this still going? Is it
available to visitors? If not what is the best alternative for
wireless and dial-up? thanks

[Dan Birchall]

Post by Bill
We heard about a guy named Bill Wiecking who has setup a wireless
internet network around the entire island. Is this still going? Is it
available to visitors? If not what is the best alternative for
wireless and dial-up? thanks

I'm not aware of a wireless network that's island-wide. I do remember
hearing of one up around Waimea (Kamuela) that covered a wide area, but
there are fairly few major towns here, and a LOT of low-population areas
in between, so full-island coverage would be amazing.

[Bill]

Here's the article I got this from

http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,514558,00.html

fiction or fact??





On Sat, 17 Apr 2004 18:40:03 -0000,

Post by Dan Birchall

Post by Bill
We heard about a guy named Bill Wiecking who has setup a wireless
internet network around the entire island. Is this still going? Is it
available to visitors? If not what is the best alternative for
wireless and dial-up? thanks

I'm not aware of a wireless network that's island-wide. I do remember
hearing of one up around Waimea (Kamuela) that covered a wide area, but
there are fairly few major towns here, and a LOT of low-population areas
in between, so full-island coverage would be amazing.

[Dan Birchall]

Post by Bill
Here's the article I got this from
http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,514558,00.html
fiction or fact??

Two years ago when the article was written, the second paragraph of
it was largely fact. Verizon Hawaii hadn't rolled out DSL in a lot
of rural CO's; here on the Big Island in particular, at most three
had DSLAMs - downtown Hilo, Kona, and Kamuela. (I happened to move
to the island the month before the article came out, but am within
DSL range of downtown Hilo, so it wasn't unavailable for me.)

Now, DSL availability is *much* better. There are only 5 Verizon CO's
on the island still without DSL according to dslreports.com - Honomu,
Laupahoehoe and Pa'auilo on the Hamakua Coast, Mountain View in Puna
and Pahala in Ka'u.

Cable was available some places DSL wasn't, even in 2002, and has been
expanding its reach as well.

That said, this is the BIG island. There are a lot of people who live
a good long way from town, far enough out that DSL simply can't do it,
and in some cases, cable doesn't reach them either. The article says
Wiecking had over 300 square miles of coverage... that's great, until
one realizes that the island is 4,028 square miles, and growing. :)

I don't see much in the way of links to recent information on the
workingwireless.net site at this time, and I don't think I've seen
any unknown networks showing up to my laptop lately. :)

There are, I should note, Internet providers on this island that _do_
offer _fixed_ wireless. Live up a hill? Got line-of-sight to town?
Point a directional antenna at them, and so on. http://www.greensand.net/
is one I'm aware of here in Hilo.

-Dan