Community Broadband. What is it? What is involved? How much does it cost? What to do next? Common Questions

Transcription

1 Community Broadband What is it? What is involved? How much does it cost? What to do next? Common Questions Technical Details

2 1.WHAT IS IT? A different type of internet access has been set up within this area, using wireless connections rather than the traditional delivery over phone lines. The aim is to try to deliver faster internet services than is currently being offered by the traditional telecommunication providers to rural communities. The service uses a high speed internet connection in the middle of Edinburgh, and then a series of radio links to propagate the signal out to this area. Within a community, a small access point antenna will be located in order to allow end user homes to establish a connection. End users can subscribe to the service just as they would to a regular internet service provider. The main radio links back to Edinburgh are shared between all the subscribers, so at times there could be contention on the links. There isn't a guarantee of dedicated connection speeds or response times; however, if you look at the details for most domestic and commercial broadband offerings, you'll find they have contention ratio's of 50:1 (domestic) and 20:1 for commercial users too. Internet connection speeds are targeted to be around the level of 10Mb/s with a fair usage limit of 100Gb/month on a connection. Unlike standard broadband offerings, the connection is symmetric, so you are likely to get around 10Mb/s upload speeds, making tasks such as sending s with attachments much faster.

3 2.WHAT IS INVOLVED? Although the service is available within your area, the coverage isn't 100%. Before getting over excited, you need to verify your property can see the local access point. Once you have verified you should be able to use the service, you need to: Request a connection to the network and receive your router and antenna; Install the antenna on your property so that it can establish a connection to the local access point; Cable the antenna into your house and connect the router. Some people will be happy to attach and cable the equipment themselves, while others will prefer to get someone else to do the installation; especially if it involves heights and/or ladders. The antenna comes in two varieties; both can be mounted externally, however one can also be fitted with a suction cup for window mounting. If you have a suitable location in your house that has visibility of the local access point through a window, it may avoid having to externally mount the antenna. For those that need the antenna to be installed externally and would like someone else to do the work, the following company has been used in other locations and will understand the requirements: Mark Henderson 'The Aerial Man' t: ; m: sales@aerialmanedinburgh.co.uk

4 3.HOW MUCH DOES IT COST? Pricing is as follows: Activation of a new connection, including the antenna and router is 125; Subscription to the service is 25/month; Average installation cost for the antenna to a property is 120 for a 3 rd party install; obviously less if you are doing some/all of it yourself. The standard residential connection has a fair usage quota of 100Gb/month; this equates to about 400 hours of iplayer at normal definition, or 50 hours iplayer at full HD per month. These are estimates as individual programs stream at different rates, but give you an idea that it is pretty 'fair'. Rates for businesses are available on request. Note: When considering installation yourself, please make sure you budget for external grade networking cable for anything that will be exposed. Standard networking cables found in the likes of PC World and Maplin are intended for internal use, and will quickly deteriorate when exposed to the elements and especially UV. Any cables you need to make up yourself will also need to have 'RJ45' ends crimped onto them, so you are likely to need the crimping tool, as well as the RJ45 plugs themselves.

5 4.WHAT TO DO NEXT? If you are interested and have a window from which you can see the local antenna, you can arrange to borrow a set of loan equipment to try it out for a short period of time. Unfortunately, external cabling and installation of the antenna is not an option for the loan equipment, unless you are prepared to do it yourself. To request a connection to the network, please contact Gordon Hughes via 'stobonet@gmail.com'. This will instigate the process for allocating and setting up the equipment, and someone will then be in touch to arrange to drop it off. You will also need to arrange for the antenna to be installed and suitable cabling to be run to the appropriate location within your house. This can be done yourself, or arranged through a 3rd party installer. If you know of neighbours that are also planning to get antenna installed, you may be able to negotiate a group rate. Once delivered, the antenna and router are supplied ready to go. Cabling is as follows: Antenna network socket <=> power block, 'POE' port Power block 'LAN' port <=> router, port 1 The supplied router has built in wireless capability, the details of which will be supplied to you with it. In addition, any non-wireless devices can be plugged into the router directly, using ports 2-5.

6 5.COMMON QUESTIONS What speed will I get? This depends on proximity to the local access point along with any obstructions between it and your antenna. The aim is for roughly 10Mb/s. What is the reliability? The network runs from the centre of Edinburgh out to rural communities, using a mixture of on and off grid power sources. Both of these power sources have weaknesses, be it trees that fall on power lines, or wind turbines that fail. The overall reliability of the network is good, but there are a number of power related items that are out with our control; weather being the major factor. Can I use my existing broadband with it? Yes. If you wish to keep your existing broadband supplier and use it in conjunction with the community broadband, there are technical options available listed in the next section, or you could just switch the connection physically on your device. Change the cable into the other router or attach to a different wireless signal. Can I link it into my own existing home network? Yes. The supplied router has 4x free network ports and wireless capability. You should be able to connect devices to it in the same way you would with a regular broadband router. For more details on the technical aspects, see the following section. Will the wireless signal reach all my rooms? The supplied router has wireless capability, but the signal is dependent on the distance your device is away from it, as well as obstacles (walls etc) in the way. What works for a small house will probably not for a 14 bedroomed stately home. Additional products are available to let you place WiFi repeaters in other locations within your home, using standard electrical sockets and your power cables to distribute the signals. These avoid having to install network cabling; especially in older properties with limited access. An example of such a WiFi repeater is : BT Mini WiFi Home Hotspot 500:

7 6.TECHNICAL DETAILS Antenna The antenna supplied has a single RJ45 network port to attach a standard network cable to. This cable takes the data connection to the router, but it goes via a power injector block. The power injector sends power back up to the antenna using spare cores within the cable, which means there is only one cable coming down from the antenna. Router The antenna is designed for external use but can be used internally if desired. The power injector block is for internal use only. The supplied router has 5 standard network ports on it. Port 1 is configured to connect to the antenna, ports 2 5 are available for your own equipment to be attached. In addition, the router has wireless capability for your own devices. By default, the router is configured to use: Local network address: /24 DHCP addresses from Wireless authentication using WPA or WPA2 The network address range and wireless settings (SSID/password) can be changed. The DHCP server can be disabled if you wish to run your own on your network.

8 Using your own router The router connects to the community network using PPPoE to authenticate. If you wish to use your own router, it must be capable of being a PPPoE client; the PPPoE user details and password will be given to you when you take out a subscription. To use your own router, connect the appropriate router port to the 'LAN' port on the power injector and then activate your PPPoE client using the user details supplied with your subscription; it should authenticate with the network and obtain a network address. Using Multiple Broadband Providers You can use a broadband load balancer such as the TPLink R480+ to combine multiple broadband suppliers and either use them all concurrently, or select them in a failover mode, so a slower ADSL style line can be used when the community broadband connection is not available. The TPLink R480+ has a built in PPPoE client and has been successfully used in a number of installations. When using a device such as this, any wireless capability on your existing broadband router will not give you access to the community broadband connection. As the TP Link R480+ doesn't have any wireless component, you will also probably want to install a separate wireless access point for your home network, and use that to connect to the internet via the load balancer. Further details and configuration settings for the TP Link R480+ are available on request. External Addresses You are allocated a static address with your subscription which will be included with your user and password details. This means the router (supplied or your own) will always get the same external IP address, which in turn means you can enable incoming VPN connections or the like without using dynamic DNS.

9 7.CHANGING YOUR WIFI SSID OR PASSWORD To change the name or the password for the WiFi network being offered by the supplied router, you need to log on to the administration page of the router from a connected device. Open a web browser and go to the URL: You should be presented with a login page as shown to the right. You should login to the administration page using the password given to you when you joined the community network. If you don't have the password or have forgotten it, please get in touch and we'll send it to you. Once logged in, you should get to a rather complicated page showing all sorts of options. The section you are looking for is as follows: Change the name of the network in the 'Network Name' box and you can change the password in the 'WiFi Password' box. Once you have made your changes, please click on the 'Apply Configuration' button, located at the bottom right hand corner of the page. If you are making these changes over the wireless connection, you'll have to reauthenticate your device with WiFi, using the new settings.

10 8.CONTACTS & FURTHER INFORMATION For further information on the services provided, please contact either: Gordon Hughes Marty Lee Maui Systems is working in conjunction with SDCN on the provisioning and support of the community broadband infrastructure. In addition, they also offer consultancy services to individuals and businesses on IT related solutions. For further information contact Marty Lee: Web: Phone: or

11