Internet from the TV tower

[imomus]

On Friday I'm moving house, basically to get away from the traffic on the Karl-Marx-Allee, which is one of Berlin's most polluted spots, a six-lane Stalinist super-highway. Topo, Hisae and I aren't going far; the new place is a stone's throw from the Simon-Dach Strasse in Friedrichshain. Instead of cars it has trams and lots of bikes passing the door. Instead of the very old people who populate the Stalinbaus of the Karl-Marx-Allee, downtown Friedrichshain has a youthful feel not unlike Williamsburg, Brooklyn (though perhaps with more potheads, drunks, and squatters). There are leafy cobbled streets without too much traffic, little art galleries, cinemas, bars and cafes...

The new place is a sublet, so I'll just be there a few months before taking off on nomadic summer travels. It wasn't worth getting my own phone line, so I'm using a new system for my internet access. It's called Portable DSL and it comes from a company called DNS:NET. Basically, it's DSL to go: they have an ariel on top of the TV tower at Alexanderplatz broadcasting broadband signal throughout the Mitte and Friedrichshain areas (also some of Kreuzberg). With a little modem or a PCM card you can pick this signal up wherever you are in that area. Your DSL service is set free from the need for a phone line. The modem contains a SIM card and works like a mobile phone. The system costs about five euros less per month than my current Deutsche Telekom DSL service, and also allows me to surf from cafes instead of just from home. (It's 24.95 euros a month for unlimited 1024k downloads and 128k uploads. It also works with Apple's Airport.)

I've been testing the system today on a free trial, and it works fine (although I notice, worryingly, that some of my favourite Japanese websites are much slower than Western sites to load). The only trouble I foresee is that when I terminate my T-Online account, even if I can keep using my current e mail address (momus@t-online.de) I won't be able to use their SMTP server for outgoing mail. I'm thinking of opening a G Mail account. Does anybody have an invite? (Update: Got one, thanks Ian... and everybody else!)

As a sign of my gratitude in advance I'd like to offer you a free recital of Tuvan throat singing, my latest enthusiasm. I'm giving Topo the rabbit long concerts of throat singing daily. He receives them in stony silence, with a fascinated, rapt, somewhat disturbed expression on his face.

Comments

[becki1111.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the great links and the video...completely made my morning.

A couple months ago, I was watching the documentary on Bjork's album Medulla. I was most interested in her work with Tanya Tagaq, an Inuit throat singer. Tagaq's performance was also hypnotizing. The singing has a wonderful pre-history quality to it. I think that came from her using sound rather than language. In any case, it made me think of caves, which made me think of "A Passage to India" which made me think of the "bou-oum" its ability to dishevel the safety of western logic. She also gave an interesting cultural context for Inuit Throat singing...which is performed as a game and has a light-hearted undertone which I find appealing and extremely interesting given the intense nature of the singing.

On a side note, I've finally had a chance to listen to some of the radio blogs for which you sent me a link last week. The Edinblog was great, but I particularly loved the Kyoto Grump Radio one as I've been in a rather foul mood for the past week. At least I have interesting reading every morning since I heard about your blog.

Is the wireless technology you mentioned similar to bluetooth? I thought bluetooth allowed by world-wide Internet access, but perhaps it is limited to North America, or perhaps I don't understand the technology properly.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Bluetooth is more a system which allows various electronic gadgets within your house to talk to each other using IP addresses. Your computer becomes a "digital hub" which controls them. The wireless thing I'm describing is a local network carrying DSL in much the same way that mobile phone signal is sent. But instead of a satellite it uses the TV tower here in Berlin.

[becki1111.livejournal.com]

That's what I call a quick response.

I know Bluetooth turns your computer or palm pilot or whatever into a hub, but I also thought it had some sort of wireless Internet capabilities similar to DSL as a component. I guess I was wrong.

[becki1111.livejournal.com]

I talked to my husband...I was confusing bluetooth with a chip you can use on your computer to get wireless Internet access through your cell phone.