Cohousing-L Mailing List: Computers and CoHousing

[John Eaton (johne]

So is anyone involved in a cohousing project that is Computer Friendly?
I am surprised that this list has very little discussion on computers
in a CoHo setting.

At our last PDX linux users meeting we had a presention from a local
Internet provider. They provide everything from a 14.4 dial up connection
to leased lines. The top of the line service designed for commercial
accounts used ISDN to basicly plug your local lan into their T1 line
and let you run your own node on the internet. Startup up costs were
about 1K$ and about $300 per month service charges. Those costs are
much to high for a casual net surfer but they could easily be absorbed
in a medium sized coho community. All you need is an ISDN connection
in the common house and a computer room with a dedicated net server
with as many user machines as you like. Houses that are close enough 
could even run their own lan cables to the common house. This could
give everyone in the community hi speed acccess to the net at a cost
of what you might pay for 14.4 dial up service. It would be great for
home business and consultants that need E-mail and net access.

It would also be a great way to recycle old computer equipment. I
tend to upgrade every two or three years and am now accumulating
a bunch of old pre 386 machines that still work but are slow. It 
would be nice if I could simply set them up in a community computer
room for the neighbor kids or others who need some computer access. 

If you are really serious then you could run wire from the common
house to all the other houses for phone, cable, lan etc. You could
then use the common house as the tie in point to the phone and
cable companies. You could set up a community lan as well as your
own PBX system and maybe even have your own cable system. The 
possibilities are endless.



John Eaton