[LINK] Re: The PLAN, and broadband speeds?

[Tom Worthington]

At 10:42 AM 20/06/2007, Jan Whitaker wrote:
>Tom mentioned this morning the idea of an industry of add-ons to 
>boost performance etc. ...

I found a WiMAX to WiFi Outdoor Gateway to be on sale later in the 
year: <http://www.zcom.com.tw/program/ZMAX-8300AG.asp?infoId=D|sE|u>. 
This has the electronics and antennas built into a weatherproof box. 
Add a solar panel and battery for about $200 extra and you would have 
a self contained unit you could strap to a pole, water tank or 
windmill, to relay the wireless service around a farmyard. Apart from 
Internet access, the same unit would also provide telephony using 
VoIP/WiFi handsets.

Perhaps such units could do double duty to relay the WiMax signals to 
other units in a mesh network. That way the carrier might be able to 
get the customer to pay most of the capital cost of the service. The 
customer would buy a unit to give them access to the network and 
(unknowingly) at the same time be putting in the infrastructure to 
connect their neighbors. It would also make the system more robust, 
as it could route around failed stations.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                http://www.tomw.net.au/
Visiting Fellow, ANU      Blog: http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/atom.xml