Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Internet Connectivity

[Lyle Scheer (wonko]

On 1/26/24 1:16 PM, Philip Semanchuk wrote:
> > On Jan 26, 2024, at 3:02 PM, Edwin Simmers <edwinsimmers [at] bellcoho.com> 
> > wrote:
> >
> > While it’s impossible to precisely predict future Internet technology advances, 
> > some lessons of the past 20 years can be helpful. The main lesson is how Internet 
> > connectivity has been switching from physical wiring to wireless technology.
> >
> > Once a provider supplies Internet connectivity to a central location in your 
> > community, plan to distribute the Internet connection to your units and devices 
> > by wireless equipment.
> >
> > Phones, tablets, computers, TVs, and automated equipment are now universally 
> > WiFi-based to the degree that there may be little or no need to use hard-wired 
> > Ethernet cabling in your units. Use the money that you would otherwise spend on 
> > wires to ensure you have a robust wireless system throughout your community.
> What our community found is that as more and more devices appeared on our 
> community-wide wireless network, all those conversations started interfering with each 
> other and network quality degraded to where the network was sometimes unusable. 
> It’s like trying to cram more and more people into the same room at a party. 
> Eventually no one can hear anyone else. We also had a lot of trouble with our wireless 
> base stations (which were outdoors on poles so they could serve multiple households) 
> getting zapped in electrical storms.
>
> We’re in the process of digging trenches to run Ethernet to everyone’s home. 
> Our community is dense; for very spread out communities wireless may make more sense.
>
> For new builds, I would not recommend anything other than wires (Ethernet or fiber) to 
> everyone’s home.
I would not only concur, but would recommend when you trench you run 
conduit so you can pull any new and different wires.... actually I 
thought running fiber to each house was a great idea... just put it 
inside some schedule 40 3" conduit.