Matt Blaze@alice Based on the label and the form factor, I'd say it's a (vestigial) Metricom "Ricochet" repeater. This was a low-speed 900 MHz wireless ISP that served various metropolitan areas until 2001.
Looks like the power cable has been removed.
@alice They leased space on lampposts in the service areas. Customers accessed the service via a brick that hooked up to the USB or serial port on your laptop. It was much slower than we're used to now, but really great at the time.
Alaric Snell-Pym@mattblaze @alice reminds me of the ancient UK "rabbit" mobile phone service... I remember seeing the base stations for those as a child. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_(telecommunications)
Ken McLeod@mattblaze @alice Ricochet predated USB ports. And was much slower than we're used to now.
Economy 2.4 Kbps $2.95 per month
Standard 9.6 $9.95
Executive 19.2 $19.95
Premier Unrestricted $29.95
Subscribers to the Standard, Executive and Premier plans may rent a Ricochet portable wireless modem for $20 per month. Alternatively, subscribers to any service level may purchase modems for $495. There is also a one-time activation fee of $95.
@_the_cloud @alice The earlier (and bricker) black modem used serial, but the later (smaller) gray modem had USB. As I said it was much slower than we're currently used to, but at the time, it was really great. (I believe the prices and speeds you're quoting were from the time the service was introduced. It got faster and cheaper by the time they went belly up in 2001).
As I recall, some ex-employees managed to get things back up and running in lower Manhattan post-9/11.
@_the_cloud @alice A little thing that made the service possible to roll out easily was an almost incidental feature of most street lamp fixtures: they have standard 110VAC power outlets above the lamp head. So installing the network nodes was simply a matter of affixing the device to the lamp arm (usually with the antenna side pointing down) and plugging the power cord into the existing socket. No separate power required, solar panels, etc. Just a permit from the city and a bucket truck.
Mark Eichin@_the_cloud
Heh, I still have a pair of the rs232 ones that I used point to point from my house to my office (somerville, mid 1990s.) Though I think changes in spectrum allocations might make it illegal for me to use them now?
@mattblaze @alice
Heh, I still have a pair of the rs232 ones that I used point to point from my house to my office (somerville, mid 1990s.) Though I think changes in spectrum allocations might make it illegal for me to use them now?
@mattblaze @alice
Val Delane@mattblaze @alice Agreed on the box ID.
I was an ardent Ricochet customer back in the day.
In '98 I velcro'd the radio modem to my laptop lid for always-on portable internet. It worked with my Psion 3C, too.
Another dedicated Ricochet was in my failover connection rotation for home internet (slower but more reliable than DSL or dial-up at the end of a long, shitty copper run).
The final modem generation usually got 40-90kbps.
prl@mattblaze @alice Blimey that brings back memories. We connected an office in Palo Alto with Ricochet because you could buy the box over the counter; getting ADSL from Pac Bell would take several weeks.
The company paid for a year's service but I think Ricochet turned up its toes a few months later.
Scanner@mattblaze @alice ha.. and I was just explaining to my spouse what this was when we unearthed this mug in our cabinets
Paul Zawada@mattblaze @alice The same technology was also used for Smart Grid communications, soldiering on after Ricochet’s demise and evolving into a technology called “Gridstream.” Thousands of those units are still in service for smart meters, though that unit does appear to be dead. Google for “Cellnet Utilnet” or “Landis+Gyr Gridstream” and you’ll see similar models, some more modern but with the same serial number format.