[sclug] Wireless Broadband in Slough and Windsor areas

[Simon Heywood]

On Sun, May 23, 2004 at 04:36:40PM +0100, John Dickson wrote:
> b) because the frequency band (3.4 GHz)is lower than those originally 
> allocated to wireless DSL (4.5GHz I think)the modem can "see out" through 
> brickwork and/or roof tiles (if you want to put it in a roof space). This 
> is not possible at higher frequencies.

Ah. The nearest I got to an answer on that was something like 'It uses
4G technology.'

> c) On the question of line-of-sight to a base station he was less 
> forthcoming, saying that the location of their base stations was a matter 
> of commercial confidentiality.

Strange. The guy I spoke to in the Oracle said they were sited on
existing mobile phone masts.

> As far as the Netvigator service being no better than ADSL over copper is 
> concerned, this is a marketing decision by them which I think is entirely 
> misguided, but I wouldn't let that worry you.

I think they're pushing two supposed advantages: (i) there's no set-up
hassle as with DSL (although I can imagine you'd have fun in mediocre
signal areas and possibly with setting up PPPoE), so it'll appeal to the
plug and play crew, and (ii) it's cheaper than (most, I presume) ADSL
offerings.

> OFT I think I will try to put together a more comprehensive guide to
> this connectivity wilderness.  If anyone has any other other
> information/experiences to share please let me know.  Perhaps it would
> be better to e-mail me directly rather than flood this mailing list?

We haven't really had a flood (yet), and at least people can see / link
to the discussion. But if you fancy putting up a web page or something
then go for it.

S.