Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Internet Connectivity

[Philip Semanchuk (philip]

> On Jan 26, 2024, at 4:21 PM, Lyle Scheer via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] 
> cohousing.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> 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.


+1 to that. When we run conduit, we oversize and leave string inside so we can 
pull more wires later. Later, that is, if the seals on the conduit have not 
failed and allowed the conduit to fill with mud. :-)