Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing and the information age...

[Rich Lobdill (richardl]

Dave:

I have championed a similar network here at Tierra Neuva Coho (formerly
Grell Coho). We've got some people who are quite interested and some who are
not what I would call friends of techlology.

What I learned from talking with the Imformation Systems designer of the
group who is doing our power/information design is that there are alot of
questions which need to be answered to decide exactly on what Network system
should be installed (at least questions we have yet to explore regarding
data rates, repeaters and servers) but there is only one important thing you
need to design-in up front and that is the conduit from houses to where the
server will reside. If you design in the condiut (he stongly suggests 2")
running from each house to the server in a star pattern, then you can figure
out later what to pull through the conduit. 

He was very adamant that if you run standard Cat 5 cable through undergound
conduit, it is guaranteed absorb moisture over time and will degrate your
data rates due to the change in the characteristic impedance of the lines.
You need to use cable specifically designed for underground use or, better
yet, fiber optic cable.

Some arguments which I presented to the group which I did not see on your
list were:

1)      By providing means to telecommute, you offer the possibilty of less
automobile trips

2)      The community may be able to afford a single high quality network
printer which could sit in the common house for all to use. Or individuals
who own printers can make theirs available for network use.

3)      I pointed out the marketing opportunity which this provides by
making the houses "Telecommuter-ready".

Rich Lobdill
Tierra Neuva Cohousing
Oceano, CA