I thought I'd throw some of this useful information out here in case anyone is looking for an alternative to DSL/cable high speed internet in the east bay. Unwired is based in Berkeley, and I'm signing up with them as a secondary dedicated connection for my cams. Cable and DSL just don't provide the uplink that I need (both maxing out around here at 768 kbps upload) and a T1 just isn't feasible at the moment.

Someone in the chat (I think rojisan) pointed them out to me, then they cropped up again on DSLReports, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to make the leap.  The lingering question was how much setup would cost me, and whether their advertised bandwidth was actually sustainable.  So I entered into an email discussion and got a lot of useful information:

• They offer four plans with the same radio equipment:  residential 3mbps/3mbps ($50/mo) and 6/6 ($90/mo), and business 4/4 ($160/mo) and 7/7 ($380/mo)
• Setup fee plus equipment = $285 after rebates for the residential 6/6, $275 for the business 4/4
• I asked what their usage limits were: "If we see sustained usage above 1 mb/s CIR we usually talk to the user"
• Setup time is usually less than a week
• Residential plans have a best-effort SLA while the business plans have a 24x7 SLA with rebates for SLA violations
• Business plans can be shared and residential plans cannot
• There needs to be a clear line of sight to the tower (in my case, the Oakland Hills ridgeline)

So, I'll be giving them a try (starting with the residential 6/6), and we'll see how it goes!

The good news is that I'll be able to cancel the Windows Media streaming plan that I've been holding onto ($150/mo) but haven't used in ages.  It turns out that at this point there's no way for the new Intel Macs to play live streaming WM9, so I'm screwed there anyway.  I'm hoping this connection will be enough to sustain a 24/7 pseudo-streaming cam for members.  Then I'll be able to bring the PTZ back with less lag too.  

Then there's the evil Comcast triple play for cable/high speed/voip.  Any tips/horror stories there?  It's been a huge pain in the ass even figuring out what their rates are after the initial promotional period.