Google for c band satellite tv. You will find several sources of equipment and programming. I am not sure if there is free programming. There probably is. Commercial users (cable companies and networks) us this band.

Pretty much proves what I thought. A cash cow!

If you get your ham license, a 2 meter handheld might fit the bill. Look at the ARRL (arrl.org) repeater handbook and see if there are 2 meter repeaters in the vicinity of where you hike. Hams like to place repeaters on the highest mountops when they can so you may find there are signals available. Amateur hand helds are very small and light. A technician class amateur license is easy to obain. There are also personal emergency locater beacons (PLB's) similar to the EPIRBS carried by ships and aircraft that are available for hikers. You can't communicate on these devices however, if you get lost or stranded you can activate it the satellite receivers relay the coordinates of your location to air force search and rescue teams.

AT&T is a far cry from the original company (before the Carterphone Decision and the breakup). The company was a national treasure in those days. The customer service (free phones, free replacement phones, the best in the world quality, etc). Bell Labs was the foundation for much of what we have today. It is sad they have disgraced the name. I get 3 to 4 solicitation calls from them each week. The people are probably contractors (they can barely speak english). They will say anything to get you to upgrade your phone/internet, etc. What a mess.

I was wondering if that might work..ie nuke it...assuming the blast would liquefy the rock and seal the leak. Or maybe pump a couple of tons of concrete into the area. The temperature may be too cold for concrete.

We all should hope AMD does well. I use AMD chips in about 90% of my systems. Value is the main reason. Intel makes excellent products however you invariably have to upgrade the motherboard to use a new chip. AMD has been kinder in this regard recently. I go with a middle of the pack system anyhow and I really appreciate the value AMD provides.

Actually it would probably work as long as the cpu had enough cores to be worth the cost. I would go for it!

This should tell you something about Google's innovation. As one of the most successful companies in the world they still have a sense of humor and are not afraid to show it ie put down the corporate guard. If I were anyone competing with Google, I would watch your back! They have no fear!

I am not sure what you are asking. I have used a linux or freebsd home router for years. You can configure either rather simply with the information available on the net including firewall filtering. I am sure you could use 1000mb ethernet cards and make a super fast router with either OS. Linux is a little more hardware friendly than freebsd. As others have said, more information on specifics will get you specific answers.