[TriLUG] Re: I need a really fast Internet connection at the Outer Banks

[Aaron S. Joyner]

Greg Brown wrote:

> So far they about threw up on themselves when I said $3k per month (I 
> told
> them to expect at least a bill of $1.5k a month, obviously they thought I
> was "way high" on my estimate).
>
> Regardless of cost, this is something that still needs to be done.  
> They are
> now looking to partner with another company to share some of the cost 
> if at
> all possible, something the vendors would probably frown upon in the 
> first
> place.
>
> What I'm really worried about is the condition of the physical plant 
> on the
> outer banks in the first place. From what I can tell from the phone and
> cable infrastructure is nobody really wants to invest a lot of money in
> outside plant if they think it might get washed away in the next 
> hurricane
> season.
>
> But I have not given up hope yet.  I'm heading back out there in two 
> weeks
> to discuss this further.  We'll see what they say.
>
> Greg
>
> On 5/26/06, Aaron S. Joyner <aaron at joyner.ws> wrote:
>
>>
>> Greg Brown wrote:
>>
>> > 100 meg burst, at least.  It's starting to look like a lot of money.
>> >
>> > Greg
>>
>> Did you get any hard quotes from vendors?  If so, would you mind sharing
>> them?  Pricing info that I know I can't give out for non-disclosure
>> reasons of previous employers, not more specific than powers of ten at
>> least.  I can say that the previous poster's assertion that cost is
>> directly related to physical build out is very true, and his example of
>> $3000 for 5Mb/s of guaranteed bandwidth is reasonable.  The build out
>> was probably a painful upfront cost, and if you want a burst rate over
>> the base the cost of that burst bandwidth is going to be more $/Mb used
>> than the $3k/5Mb formula.  Although, once you have the line in place,
>> upgrading from 5Mb/s to 50Mb/s (for example) is just a phone call, so
>> you can scale up and down your bandwidth requirements, perhaps with as
>> low as 1-month granularity.  Ie. you might be able to upgrade on Monday
>> to 50Mb/s for the remainder of the month, then down-grade next-month
>> with no big fees, depending on your contract.
>>
>> Anyway, if you can provide rough numbers based on actual quotes, it's
>> likely to be useful to some one some where.  Also, as a word to the
>> wise, location really matters.  So don't try to apply anyone's numbers
>> to your exact situation with out allowing ~15-30% margin of error for
>> distance from the CO, etc.  Regardless getting with in a range helps
>> people understand the economics better.
>>
>> Aaron S. Joyner
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Generally, getting a business to foot the bill for bandwidth is hard 
unless they're passing that cost along to someone else.  ISPs, other 
bandwidth middle-men, and Internet-focused companies are really the only 
people I know of that deal in large pipes.  If I remember, one of your 
outer banks wireless projects is some wireless-providing trailer park 
kind of setup, where they probably can't justify passing the cost of 
real bandwidth along to the end user, they'll have to be way 
over-subscribed to make any money.  On the flip side, the other reason 
people often think they need big pipes is to do off-site backup.  And 
off-site backup of large data sets over the Internet isn't practical 
unless you a) already have a big pipe for some other reason and b) it's 
mostly idle during some off-peak hours.  Very few people meet both those 
criteria.

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes*,
Aaron S. Joyner

* - or the more modern version, an SUV full of DVD-Rs.