
One man’s DIY fibre Internet service connects Marin County hamlet - gfredtech
http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/amp/One-man-s-DIY-Internet-service-connects-12175313.php
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amazon_not
Good job. Unfortunately efforts like these are contingent on being in a
location where you have reasonable access to wholesale bandwidth and enough
population density to defray the costs of buying bandwidth and building the
network.

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jzl
Marin county is very, very hilly. Somewhere between hilly and mountainous,
given that Mt Tamalpais sits smack in the middle of it. While most of the
population is close to the freeway on the inland side, there are many many
lightly populated areas with awful or no cell reception and issues with high-
bandwidth type connections of various sorts. Many of the ocean-side areas are
largely cut off from the main population by the mountains. I've never been to
Dillon Beach, but it doesn't surprise me at all that Marin is where something
like this would happen!

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gaze
What are the logistics of laying fiber yourself? How do you legally dig up the
ground and put the fiber down?

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increduloushulk
He didn't lay it himself; he found that AT&T had nearby fiber and paid them to
run it to his garage. Then he connects to his customers via antenna.

"Kuykendall now buys Internet service at a bulk rate from AT&T, then beams the
connection wirelessly to other homes. Some customers get service free in
exchange for hosting Mimosa equipment that relays the signal around corners
and over hills to reach more homes."

