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Well, my main internet connection is wireless (not WiFi or WiMax, however) since I am in the exurbs. I telecommute and need the high speed. I cannot get DSL or cable at my location - even though I actually live within commuting distance of MS, Boeing, and other Seattle hi-tech companies. The service (http://www.waverider.com/) has worked well, with only one half-hour outage in the last six months. I have 1Mb/s bidirectional, although the company has newer 2 Mb/s equipment now. Still not the same as cable, but sure beats dialup! The system I have is not mobile, however. I have a one metre long directional antenna hanging on the side of the house.

Although Verizon and the cable company were unable to provide even a guesstimate of when they could provide high speed access, I was finally able to convince a local small business to install and configure a wireless broadband antenna that will reach my house. This wasn't easy, considering the terrain and heavy forest between here and there, but they pulled it off.

It is nice that local municipalities will be allowed to offer wifi access, but that won't help must rural users. I am fortunate that my area is growing, so hi-speed access will eventually make it here. But for the average middle-America rural user, it will be a long wait. Remember, electricity and telephone spread to rural areas due to gummint programs. My libertarian nature hates the idea, but it may be required to make it happen.

Besides user convenience, one of the benefits of wireless networks (particularly long-range wireless) is that they can compete directly with DSL, Cable modem, and landline phone service. My parents live out in the country on a hill about five miles from the nearest large town (McMinnville, OR). They have fast internet service thanks to a reasonably forward-looking ISP who set up a wireless network using radios from waverider. Unfortunately, the waverider site doesn't list prices anymore (I believe they used to sell an access point and five client radio modems for about $5000 or so, and additional radios were about $400). It uses the 902-928 mhz ISM band, so there's no FCC license required, and the line-of-sight requirements aren't as strict as 802.11. Once 802.16 (wimax) gets established, similar performing, cheaper, non-proprietary radios may become available.

This is a great way to compete with cable modem and DSL without needing to deploy much infrustructure. Any well-motivated party can set up one of these networks. It may also compel landline internet providers to offer higher throughput and better service, which is good for everyone.

-jim

Hey macdaddy, we are also the telco for our area and right now we run AFC/Copper Mountain equipment for the DSLAMs. I agree, they are pricey, but Copper Mountain is mad cheap compared to AFC. We are also a cooperative company, so we will probably just supply the subscriber units free of charge to our customers instead of making them pay a huge fee up front. We thought about doing 802.11b/g for the hotspot idea (which we probably will do), but we are looking at a fixed-wireless system that will do several miles for the rest of the coverage. The hotspot will probably be supplied by ADCs Loopstar system, which you should definately check out. Right now Motorola's Canopy has our attention because of the way they package their service. You do not need to pay for service contracts, their startup costs are not too high, the antennas they use are TINY compared to other products that I have looked at thus far, the range/bandwidth is pretty decent (which will be doubled in the spring) for what we need and the dealers we have been speaking with have awesome customer service. So far they are definately in the lead. Other companies I have been comparing are WaveRider, Airspan and a few others. I am going through the comments on this forum because I have heard some recommendations for companies that I have not heard of before. I will post an update when we get closer to our decision but right now its all about Motorola.

I'll be honest, I never worked with the Ricochet stuff. Right now, though, my company (small local ISP, we also do wireless) does have some of the Waverider 900MHz hardware deployed. We have FOUR customers using it, as opposed to several hundred using the 2.4GHz stuff. Heck, I'm about half a mile away from one of the Waverider CCUs (basically, their equivalent of an access point), and I have to deal with the competition for my broadband because the 900MHz stuff just doesn't cut it, and (as I don't own the property) I can't put up an external 2.4GHz antenna.

I am surprised that the book does not cover this technology because the spectrum is license free (at least in Canada and the USA) and it has a lot of potential for Wider Area Lans in hilly, forested, wooded areas like my own.

Absolutely. This is already in my plan. I was talking about this to my manager at my last job and she suggested a campaign of this type too and I agree with her.

"Prepare yourself for lots of questions, prepare to make this your fulltime job (and charge accordingly, you'll get 1000 "I can't check my email" "Why won't msn.com come up" questions)."

I've been doing tech support type jobs on and off since I was 14 so I am well prepared for user stupidity ;-) But it will definitely be a full time job. I am a student at the moment and I plan to run it full time on my next co-op work term as long as I can sell it to the co-op office and the School of Engineering. When September comes I'm gonna send out some feelers to see if other ENGG students are willing to make it a joint venture.

"However, wireless technology is very crappy during storms and weather. Latency is terrible. This means you'll get lots of complaints from gamers, because their pings will suffer terribly if they don't have a straight shot to the wireless access point."

True enough, although I am looking into 900 MHz technology. These are more resistant to signal problems associated with trees, buildings, etc and the range is better than 802.11x. This is important since I live in a rural area and sometimes houses on a road are 1 km apart and in the middle of thick sections of coniferous (pine) trees. There are some mature solutions already in existance.

"You could also petition your local telecom to put a CO within distance of your residence(s). If you get enough signatures they will take notice, and make sure you get that list to those who matter."

Bell Canada? Ha! They are pompous and arrogant, and have no reason to listen to their customers because they have a monopoly on local service. Reminds me of MSFT. Bell will never extend service to where I live because the population density is too low for them to make money from it. I would prefer to compete with them.

I think they had about 8 sites, connected in a ring topology using some Marconi ATM switches connected via a local ds3 or ethernet connection to the towers.

The toplogy was basically like this:

Customer House---802.11b---Ethernet/Tower--Microwave--Tower /Ethernet--Router/switch--Internet

Depending on the size, either a point to point style network could be configured or a ring style topology. With a ring, you have some level of redundancy.

This works very well for them and allows them to grow the network easily. A starter node shouldn't be that expensive either..so if you can put up a tower or two, you should be in great shape.

The network spans many hundred miles over microwave..so distance really isn't a problem for them.

Good luck, and you should come back in a year or so and let us know what you decided on doing!

FYI - I work for WaveRider.

I expect that is with the central site antenna on a well-sited tower. Since the equipment is running at around 900MHz a lot of commercial equipment available is available (antennas, amplifiers) for operating cellular base stations which would also be useful here.

I would have expected a bigger difference between the range for outdoor and indoor installation, but reading further down the FAQ explains why - it's due to timing of the protocol. (They use a polling system to allocate air time, so the timing requirements that restrict the range are probably chosen to allow enough concurrent users).

All they say about security is this,

WaveRider has developed its own protocol that is optimized for outdoor long-range use, high performance and the ability to continue operating in environments with interference. By not supporting 802.11b interoperability, the system is much more secured.

But unless there's strong encryption as well, someone who is resourceful and determined wouldn't be put off. So it all depends who you want to hide your traffic from ;) Not bad, but it's certainly no Cambridge Broadband...

I expect that is with the central site antenna on a well-sited tower. Since the equipment is running at around 900MHz a lot of commercial equipment available is available (antennas, amplifiers) for operating cellular base stations which would also be useful here.

I would have expected a bigger difference between the range for outdoor and indoor installation, but reading further down the FAQ explains why - it's due to timing of the protocol. (They use a polling system to allocate air time, so the timing requirements that restrict the range are probably chosen to allow enough concurrent users).

All they say about security is this,

WaveRider has developed its own protocol that is optimized for outdoor long-range use, high performance and the ability to continue operating in environments with interference. By not supporting 802.11b interoperability, the system is much more secured.

But unless there's strong encryption as well, someone who is resourceful and determined wouldn't be put off. So it all depends who you want to hide your traffic from ;) Not bad, but it's certainly no Cambridge Broadband...

I've been a big fan of NLOS wireless for a couple years now. I wish the article had mentioned my favorite wireless vendor, a Canadian company called WaveRider. They have been designing and building LOS and NLOS systems for several years, including ones that are customer-installable (no "truck roll" cost). Their staff is friendly and their service is first rate, and no I don't work for them.

Check out WaveRider Communications LMS4000 900 MHz Modems. We've been selling broadband NLOS systems for over a year, with thousands installed. At 2.75 Mbps raw data rate (up to 1.96 Mbps FTP's!) and a range of up to 10 km in rural areas, they are a great solution (I may be biased, being one of the engineers who designed it). Even better, the majority of installations are indoor, with an antenna mounted by a window, and can be done by the customer.

Not compatible with other 802.11 devices of course (different frequency, 1/4 rate), but 5 km range!

Disclaimer: waverider employee