Re: Firefox Tool Bar gone...

Douglas Handy wrote:

Dan,

Interesting setup, Doug.  Why the HA requirement?


Because it is cheap insurance against problems at one ISP.

When I could first get cable, they would have spuratic outages which did not
seem related to weather.  As someone else said, once you've had broadband
you can't fathom going back so once DSL became available, I got that too.  I
figure having two different connections coming in over two different wired
paths from two different ISPs using two different backbone connections, I'd
maximize my chances of always having service even when one ISP had technical
or physical problems.

Being in rural FL, I still run the risk of weather taking out all the
options, but at that point I probably have other things to worry about
instead...

I had a business class of cable service (to get higher speeds, mostly) but
once they offered a high-end residential service which was faster yet
cheaper still, I opted to switch to it which partially offsets my
incremental cost of the DSL too.  When I had one-way satellite, I paid
around $85 for it plus another $30 or so for the phone line I dedicated to
the return path.  Now for roughly the same cost I get a 7Mbps plus a 6Mbps
connection with low latencies (and 768k/512k up respectively), instead of a
slower satellite with a 33k uplink and high latencies.

And what is WISP? (I'd guess Wide-area Internet Service Provider, but that's

a WAG.)

Wireless Internet Service Providers.  They use technology similar to
802.11WiFi, but made for long range, multiple customer use and some of
which is in
different frequency bands from 802.11.  WISPs usually run in either the
900MHz, 2.4GHz, or 5.8GHz bands (at least in the USA) but 900MHz has the
best foilage penetration.  The access points for WISPs are usually mounted
on water towers or co-located on cell towers or radio towers, tops of tall
buildings, etc.  Being rural in flat country, I bolted an antenna mast to a
tree trunk to get my access point up where I could without either the
expense or visual distraction of my own tower.  It sticks a few feet out the
top of the tree, but from most of my yard you'd never know it was there.

Doug