Richochet is planning on rolling the service out again to the public here soon. They are testing it in Denver now. I still have a pcmcia ricochet card, but it's not that impressive. Connectivity is spotty, and very slow in most cases. It's better than nothing, but it's still kinda sketchy. http://www.etherlinx.com/ has an interesting "last mile" solution using 802.11b. It basically uses your neighbors access point to hop off of and eventually get routed to the ISP's network. The more people that sign up, the more coverage they get. Motorola has something called Canopy (http://www.motorola.com/canopy/index.html). This actually looks very interesting. Same type of deal as above, but seems to have a greater range. Pricing isn't bad either. http://www.ecommwireless.com/canopy.html Access points run around $1000, and subscriber modules run around $500 each. An ISP starter kit runs $30k. I'd be very interested in playing with this stuff. There seems to be much more potential here than with standard 802.11 equipment. Plus, if a bunch of us could get a basic network set up and running, we'd have the ability to provide public access to it and possibly make some money too. Jay > -----Original Message----- > From: Bryan Halvorson [mailto:bryan at edgar.sector14.net] > Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2002 5:41 PM > To: tcwug-list at tcwug.org > Subject: Re: [TCWUG] Richochet boxes? > > > BN wrote: > > > > This is a multi-part message in MIME format. > > > > ------=_NextPart_000_001A_01C22CE6.A2EE1F50 > > Content-Type: text/plain; > > charset="iso-8859-1" > > Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable > > > > Are those richochet boxes still in the twincities? I heard > they were = > > bought by another company, but that is the last I have heard.=20 > > > > Maybe, and this is a BIG maybe, we can strike a deal with > individual = > > cities. Offer wireless access to city employees, civil engineers, = > > inspectors, etc in exchange for the nonexclusive right to > put some = > > wireless access points around the city. > > This is exactly what Richochet did. They offered free network > and intranet access to any city that would allow them to > place their boxes on city owned property and lightpoles for > free. Richfield police have > laptops in their cars with high speed internet access and > access to DMV > and the usual databases which I believe is thru Richochet and > is still > working. > > > > > -- > Bryan Halvorson > bryan at edgar.sector14.net > _______________________________________________ > Twin Cities Wireless Users Group Mailing List - > Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.tcwug.org > tcwug-list at tcwug.org > https://mailman.real-> time.com/mailman/listinfo/tcwug-list >