Cohousing-L Mailing List: Wifi and internet connections

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Oct 29, 2015, at 11:56 AM, Crystal Farmer <crystalbyrdfarmer [at] 
> gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> A related question is how many of your communities provide Wi-Fi in the
> Common House or in the community? I'm sure there are many homeowners
> without a TV but with Internet. Is it usually bought house by house or is
> there a group purchase? Is Wi-Fi in the Common House set up with
> restrictions or data limits?

We wired the building for internet connections in the CH and each unit. We buy 
internet services as a bulk charge in the budget. We also have an ISP for our 
websites and email. We have Wi-Fi people have wifi in their units and we have 3 
in the CH and two locations near the units that are further way. We also use 
each other’s WiFi by having a common username and password.

We have two modems with business class service in the CH basement and have 
purchased software that the tech pod can use in their units to monitor and do 
some trouble shooting from home.

I highly recommend business class service. The repair people come out right 
away, and often same day. 

It is much cheaper for to have a bulk service. We pay ~$5,000 a year for 
service and equipment that we would need even if we didn’t pay in bulk. For 
each unit to pay individually it would be closer to $3000 but we have faster 
down and upload speeds, better tech support, and redundant systems since each 
modem is from a different company.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org