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What's Happening at Advantagecom: July 2002

Article index:
July food drive to benefit BMAC
Advantagecom's new blazing fast backbone connection
Advantagecom seeks projects of community interest
Online web designer and programmer directory now available
Why Hasn't Advantagecom Deployed Broadband Wireless or DSL?

July food drive to benefit BMAC  [ top ]
We have scheduled a food drive during the month of July 2003 to benefit Blue Mountain Action Council.

You can help by dropping food donations by our office or, for those of you who are looking for Internet access, first month's fees from new accounts ordered during the month of July will be donated to BMAC's food bank.

If you have questions about the food drive, please call us at 522-3696 or email us at info@wallawallainternet.com . When dropping donations by our office, please bring nonperishable goods such as canned or boxed items. Our office is located at 255 A Street in the South end of the “old” Walla Walla airport terminal.

We're very much looking forward to helping BMAC! Please help us make this food drive a success.

Advantagecom's new blazing fast backbone connection  [ top ]
We recently added a DS-3 backbone connection to TouchAmerica. This connection is capable of 44.2Mbits/sec, or roughly 2 times faster than your average hard drive transfer speed. To put it another way, it is equivalent to 28 T-1 lines or about 1000 average 56K modem connections. This is in addition to our lines to Qwest and WorldCom.

This new line ensures that we will have capacity available to handle even the most demanding bandwidth needs. If you are using dial-up Internet access (56k), you probably won't notice the speed upgrade. However, if you are using a T-1 or faster from Advantagecom you will probably notice snappier performance. Our colocation and web hosting customers will definitely notice the improvement.

Advantagecom seeks projects of community interest  [ top ]
Are you in charge of or know of a project of community interest? Please let us know! Email us at info@wallawallainternet.com   with your contact information, the name of your project and what the goals of the project are.

Online web designer and programmer directory now available  [ top ]
Are you a web designer or web programmer? We now have an online directory of designers and programmers at wallawallainternet.com. It’s free to use and free to get listed! Click here for more information.

Why Hasn't Advantagecom Deployed Broadband Wireless or DSL?  [ top ]
That is actually two separate questions. There are different reasons for each. We have evaluated several ways of delivering broadband Internet access, but none of them have met our criteria for high performance, reliability, and prices that most people are willing to pay.

We have chosen not to deploy DSL because of the recent regulatory instability regarding CLECs and wholesale telco services. This regulatory instability means that wholesale prices for telecommunications services could fluctuate dramatically or the telco could refuse to deliver our DSL service at any time. We have also evaluated being a reseller of New Edge Networks, much like other providers in Walla Walla, but the costs of doing business with New Edge were greater than most users were willing to pay.

We have also evaluated fixed wireless broadband. Because the spectrum used by most wireless broadband equipment is unlicensed spectrum it is prone to overcrowding since anyone can use that spectrum. We have talked to some ISPs in Spokane, WA and they have reported that their wireless offerings have degraded significantly, even under the best of circumstances. The highest data rate they are able to deliver to the average subscriber is about 200Kbits/sec, much lower than the 384Kbits/sec to 512Kbits/sec that most people want from a broadband connection. Further compounding the problem, the spectrum is sensitive to water. This means that most trees with foliage can prevent a signal from reaching the subscriber. Walla Walla has a virtual treasure trove of large trees. They are great for shade and are of historical value, but they make wireless Internet access impractical for many neighborhoods.

A third option we evaluated is contracting Charter Communications (the cable TV company in Walla Walla) to provide subscribers with a connection to our network. This would allow us to provide cable modem Internet access to anyone that can get digital cable service. To date, we have received no response to our repeated phone calls and emails in spite of being told someone would be in contact with us within 24 hours. Other cable TV companies have allowed ISPs to connect to their networks so that the ISP could offer cable modem Internet access. Hopefully, Charter will begin allowing this in Walla Walla at some point. This would allow local ISPs to compete on the merits of their reliability, speed, and customer service rather than the price of the access technology.

A fourth option we evaluated is two way satellite Internet access. This technology is more expensive than the other options and requires a clear line of site to the southern sky. Due to the distance to the satellite from earth, significant latency is inherent. Often times, latency of up to 2000ms can appear. That is about 8 times the latency of a 56K modem. That makes it unacceptable for online gaming and other latency sensitive applications like PCAnywhere.

Advantagecom continues to evaluate new technologies and equipment for delivering broadband Internet access. We are confident that market demand will drive the development of new technologies that will eliminate or greatly reduce the hurdles in deploying broadband Internet access services. When that technology becomes available, we'll be ready.

If you have an idea that will allow us to deploy a large number of broadband connections for a low cost per subscriber, please contact us at info@wallawallainternet.com . If we use your idea, we'll give $500 to the first person that proposed the idea to show our appreciation.

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