On Sat, 06 Sep 2003 10:45:47 +0100, Andy Hall wrote:

So this is a house to house type of scheme?

Not really. It is a wide area scheme built with several backbones from
a central point feeding remote access points. If you can "see" an
access point you can get service. At a guesstimate I should think
there is about 60sq miles of coverage available.

I just happen to live at a handy point that can see both ends of one
of the backbone links that otherwise have a great lump of rock between
them. One end has a couple of access points for the village and
environs the other end has another link down to the main connection
point.

How many do you typically have in a chain back to the central point
with the land line access?

Most users are 2 or 3 hops from the connection into the net. However
that is also provided over 4 or 5 more hops before it hits a decent
sized copper/fibre pipe.

Have you done any traffic shaping, or do you just rely on everybody
being reasonably well behaved?

Most people are well behaved. I believe there is some teaking done,
like incoming HTTP has a slightly raised priority and the serious
bandwidth hogs like Kazaa are disabled. Biggest problem of late has
been the pesky windows welchia worm.

The thing is though that a car with darkened windows and a 24" dish
...

But a tatty small van with Bloggs - Plummber with blacked out rear
windows and the aerial firing through a window thus not visible
wouldn't be noticed.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail