Thanks for updating us so quickly with this! I'm just going to ponder out loud for a little seeing as how we seem to be a bit stuck in the brainstorming phase of this.
The other intriguing option is a two-hop radio link (up to the
hills and then down to a data center). We discussed using
licensed bands for this, and it seems feasible with some
perseverance. Again, don't know much it'll cost.
Do we think that a data center might allow us to put something on their roof? FR got away with it for a while with L3 in Mendocino, but it seems like we'll be likely interfacing with a much busier datacenter
Transport is tricky. We learned that BART can provide transport
(not just dark fiber leases), but we don't know where we can
connect to them physically, so an additional radio or fiber link
may be necessary. Don't know how much it'll cost.
Well we are VERY close to the BART line, so in that way we're pretty lucky :-) Any idea how we follow up with that? Did they suggest any places to start?
Ok and just one more idea: We're paying around $100/month for our bi-directional 100mbps connection at omni. That connection regularly gets used by dozens of people. Would it be feasible to put out a call for people who can be served by LMI and/or who might have alternative access to 100mps (symmetric-ish)? We could figure out a way to at least partially subsidize their connection prices. At that point, we're paying $1/mbps and we'd have decentralized locations which could potentially improve our range....