Rural Internet No Longer So Off the Grid
By Bernhard Warner
LONDON (Reuters) - Attention country bumpkins, vacationers and beach bums: competing broadband Internet access alternatives are extending high-speed online connections deeper into the hinterland.
Increasingly, vacationers are able to log in to check e-mails and send last-minute updates to business presentations from the ski chalet, the boat moored off shore and even the camper van.
High-speed connections have also reignited in some the dream of turning the country home into an office, particularly as the technologies improve and costs fall.
Whether it be through an electrical power line, satellites orbiting the heavens, wireless (news - web sites) transmitters on a grassy hill -- or a combination of the three -- scores of firms are trying to crack the remote broadband market.
"I doubt if I'll ever see (high-speed Web access via phone) in my neighborhood and my local cable company is in bankruptcy," said Carl Zetie, a Forrester Research analyst who works from his home office in rural Waterford Glenn, Virginia. He's a couple of hours outside of Washington, D.C., in the northeast corner of the state.
Last year, Zetie installed a short, 30-centimeter directional antenna on his roof that points to a wireless broadband cell tower located two miles away. He can now surf the Web at one million bits per second; 20 times as fast as a conventional dial-up Internet access via standard phone lines.
DOES THE ANSWER LIE IN THE HEAVENS?
A thicket of technological snags prevent conventional cable and DSL broadband providers from ever entering most out-of-the-way communities, leaving between 5 percent to 10 percent of all homes and businesses in North America and Europe no choice but to seek an alternative, analysts say.
The cost and complexity of satellite-based Internet connections are falling. One provider, Europe Online (http://www.europeonline.com), offers satellite service for European customers, charging 150 euros for a year's worth of access. A satellite dish runs an extra 100 to 300 euros. It provides so-called digital subscriber line (DSL) access at speeds roughly ten times a standard phone-line Web connection.
Yet satellite still has its limitations. Users complain the service cuts out during periods of heavy rain and snow, and, in North America at least, an impeded view of the southern sky's orbit path can cause service interruptions.
"Satellite systems are good provided you understand their limitations," said David Farmer, project manager of One North East, a tax-payer-funded U.K. nonprofit organization with a mission to get England's rural Northeast on the broadband train.
One Northeast (http://www.n-e-life.com/broadband/) has used satellite and short-range wireless network technologies to bring broadband access to 15 towns and 12 rural outposts, including a local country pub, in the northern English counties of Northumberland and Durham.
WIRELESS IN THE WOODS
The next big wave is wireless technologies, analysts say. Wireless LANs and Wi-Fi hotspots are being set up to bring fast 'Net access to everywhere from Texas motorhome parks to yachting marinas along Italy's ultra-glamorous Amalfi Coast.
Italian start-up, Nocable S.P.A. (http://www.nocable.it), expects to introduce wireless Internet service by the end of this year in 100 coastal resorts in Southern Italy. It plans to charge nine euros per hour, enabling Europe's power brokers to check stock quotes from yachts via phone or computer links.
Bob Grose, host of a BBC television home remodeling program, teamed up with a friend, Gordon Adgey, to establish Buckfastleigh Broadband last year to bring high-speed Net access to the idyllic Devon countryside in southwest England.
"The whole thing was born out of frustration. We could see the whole broadband thing kicking off in London and didn't want to be left out," Adgey said. Adgey and Grose are looking to sign-up 100 of their neighbors, who can expect to pay 40 pounds per month -- a point at which they believe the operation should break even, he says.
It's not just mom-and-pop organizations hoping to bridge the last mile. A host of electric utilities are again buzzing with plans to offer high-speed Internet connections through wall sockets, a technology that analysts say is still a ways off.
The United Power Line Council (http://www.uplc.utc.org) in the United States and Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE.L) are plugging the technology's simplicity. Where available. the connection hooks up directly into a wall socket to bring one million bit a second surfing speeds.
Rural Internet No Longer So Off the Grid
By Bernhard Warner
LONDON (Reuters) - Attention country bumpkins, vacationers and beach bums: competing broadband Internet access alternatives are extending high-speed online connections deeper into the hinterland.
Increasingly, vacationers are able to log in to check e-mails and send last-minute updates to business presentations from the ski chalet, the boat moored off shore and even the camper van.
High-speed connections have also reignited in some the dream of turning the country home into an office, particularly as the technologies improve and costs fall.
Whether it be through an electrical power line, satellites orbiting the heavens, wireless (news - web sites) transmitters on a grassy hill -- or a combination of the three -- scores of firms are trying to crack the remote broadband market.
"I doubt if I'll ever see (high-speed Web access via phone) in my neighborhood and my local cable company is in bankruptcy," said Carl Zetie, a Forrester Research analyst who works from his home office in rural Waterford Glenn, Virginia. He's a couple of hours outside of Washington, D.C., in the northeast corner of the state.
Last year, Zetie installed a short, 30-centimeter directional antenna on his roof that points to a wireless broadband cell tower located two miles away. He can now surf the Web at one million bits per second; 20 times as fast as a conventional dial-up Internet access via standard phone lines.
DOES THE ANSWER LIE IN THE HEAVENS?
A thicket of technological snags prevent conventional cable and DSL broadband providers from ever entering most out-of-the-way communities, leaving between 5 percent to 10 percent of all homes and businesses in North America and Europe no choice but to seek an alternative, analysts say.
The cost and complexity of satellite-based Internet connections are falling. One provider, Europe Online (http://www.europeonline.com), offers satellite service for European customers, charging 150 euros for a year's worth of access. A satellite dish runs an extra 100 to 300 euros. It provides so-called digital subscriber line (DSL) access at speeds roughly ten times a standard phone-line Web connection.
Yet satellite still has its limitations. Users complain the service cuts out during periods of heavy rain and snow, and, in North America at least, an impeded view of the southern sky's orbit path can cause service interruptions.
"Satellite systems are good provided you understand their limitations," said David Farmer, project manager of One North East, a tax-payer-funded U.K. nonprofit organization with a mission to get England's rural Northeast on the broadband train.
One Northeast (http://www.n-e-life.com/broadband/) has used satellite and short-range wireless network technologies to bring broadband access to 15 towns and 12 rural outposts, including a local country pub, in the northern English counties of Northumberland and Durham.
WIRELESS IN THE WOODS
The next big wave is wireless technologies, analysts say. Wireless LANs and Wi-Fi hotspots are being set up to bring fast 'Net access to everywhere from Texas motorhome parks to yachting marinas along Italy's ultra-glamorous Amalfi Coast.
Italian start-up, Nocable S.P.A. (http://www.nocable.it), expects to introduce wireless Internet service by the end of this year in 100 coastal resorts in Southern Italy. It plans to charge nine euros per hour, enabling Europe's power brokers to check stock quotes from yachts via phone or computer links.
Bob Grose, host of a BBC television home remodeling program, teamed up with a friend, Gordon Adgey, to establish Buckfastleigh Broadband last year to bring high-speed Net access to the idyllic Devon countryside in southwest England.
"The whole thing was born out of frustration. We could see the whole broadband thing kicking off in London and didn't want to be left out," Adgey said. Adgey and Grose are looking to sign-up 100 of their neighbors, who can expect to pay 40 pounds per month -- a point at which they believe the operation should break even, he says.
It's not just mom-and-pop organizations hoping to bridge the last mile. A host of electric utilities are again buzzing with plans to offer high-speed Internet connections through wall sockets, a technology that analysts say is still a ways off.
The United Power Line Council (http://www.uplc.utc.org) in the United States and Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE.L) are plugging the technology's simplicity. Where available. the connection hooks up directly into a wall socket to bring one million bit a second surfing speeds.
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