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Aerie Networks to Reactivate Ricochet Service?
JimDog writes: "Aerie Networks is apparently buying the assets and IP of Metricom's Ricochet service and plans to reactivate it in at least some of the former coverage areas. A more detailed press release in PDF format is available here." There might be some hope for Ricochet addicts after all.
I'm currently building a wearable, and a reestablished Ricochet would be excellent for that. Anybody remember what coverage was like in the SF bay area (where I live) and New England (where I go to school)?
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Let's just throw some NAPs (Neighborhood Access Points) out there and give everyone an 802.11b card. Wireless modems are silly these days. Let it die.
Although you can no longer get to it from the main web site (which has been replaced with a bankruptcy notice), the coverage maps are still available. I believe Metricom also built infrastructure in some additional metro areas where service was never officially announced and no coverage maps are available, but Aerie has the rights to that equipment as well. Some of those metros include Chicago and Salt Lake City.
At this url: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-7783542.html? tag=owv there's info on Aerie Networks looking to talk to municipal governments resell their wireless services like utilities. So not only are they reactivating it in some areas, they're also looking for new ways to sell their services and hopefully turn a profit unlike Metricom.
I tried it and had nothing but problems. Packet loss, Slow speads, and Ip drops. Hope they can make it better.
FearLinux.com
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I have heard mixed things about Metricom's Ricochet service when I was researching what high-speed internet I should look into. Here is some background information on the service if you don't know much about it yet: Metricom's MicroCellular Data Network technology operates via 900MHz radios atop streetlamps and utility poles. The technology doesn't sound isn't entirely new at first. It has been running since 1996 (at speeds of 28.8kbits/s) in some areas and for the low price of $30 a month that is still a bargain today. Recently, Metricom revamped the service and got it up to a more pleasing number: 128Kbits/sec. The problem now is that Metricom decided to sell the service through "Ricochet Authorized Service Providers." The prices on this were in the $75 range (not to mention a sweltering $300 for a modem).
So what is so great about this service? Well it comes with a 10-ounce external modem that can be used on your laptop. Not only does this modem have its own rechargeable battery but it also connects via serial or USB. And even better is that the service is compatible with not only Win 9x and 2000 but also Macintosh, Linux, Windows CE, or any other OS with PPP software.
So if you were wondering why some people liked the service so much hopefully you know now. The reason I didn't go with it was some of the reviews said that it ran too slow in my area. So I got AT&T Roadrunner... the service could be better and I can't take it on the road with me but this is fast enough for me and that's good enough for now. Maybe now that some more life is getting pumped into the service and a new owner is running the show I'll look into it once again.
the byproduct of years of oppression by the white man
This is most excellent news! I'll be able to use ricochet on the The Linux Car again. It makes the dashboard PC worth doing again. Without 'net access it's just another carputer / MP3player / glorified DVD machine.
Let's just hope that Aerie comes to its senses and doesn't grossly overprice the service. For those of you that advocate 802.11B networks to replace something such as Ricochet: 802.11 works in densely populated areas where things were built up instead of out. (Examples would be San Francisco, and most definitely New York) On the flip side, places that grew out such as Southern California and 802.11 network is useless because without a sophisticated directional antenna, and/or illegal power outputs all that's going to be on the network is a few of your neighbors. Ricochet was a godsend to those of us that wanted to sit at the beach, visit the park, go to the coffee shop, and commute down the freeway while connected. My dad is a regional sales manager and spends all day driving. With Ricochet he was able to order stuff for his customers from his laptop mounted in his truck and he had access everywhere he went. Now he does it over the phone. People say 802.11B rocks, but unfortunately it will never be feasible for a Wide Area public network.
Unfortunatley, much of the hardware that was developed for Ricochet has been discontinued. Hopefully the AirCard 400 can be brought up to speed again.
Although it may be tough, with GPRS, EDGE, 1xRTT gaining ground around the world. Word on the street is that Telus Mobility (Canadian) will have 1xRTT up for Q1 next year.
This bad boy can run up to 150kbps on only 1xRTT.
Just wait until 2x and 3xRTT hit the market.
What I'm still trying to figure out is if ONE standard has been chosen for REAL 3G/UMTS. The recent AT&T adoption of GSM/GPRS would suggest that WCDMA is not the way to go?? anybody?
Gotta love high tech bubble economics... Develop and deploy wireless network for $1 billion, sell for $8 million. This is almost as good a deal as Iridium!
I think this is a great investment for Aerie.
Aerie Networks will enjoy huge profits for years to come.
</sarcasm>
After Ricochet shut down, I had no reason to stay in the bay area. At least now there may be one redeeming quality in the valley.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
this was available in the UK. 3G is years away and is likely to cost a fortune. Ricochet is here now and it works.
We should just admit it. Europe sucks for wireless data services and the situation is unlikely to change for a long time.
Ah well never mind. I can always have GPRS which gives me 24kbps for £15ppm for a 1 megabyte allowance, then £5 per additional megabyte. Makes reading slashdot expensive
802.11b has no accounting in it. I like the idea of small local Wireless Aaccess Points open to all, but I cringe when people call it "free" internet (which is what most seem to call it). How is that -free-? Someone is donating their access to that public WAP: It's philanthropy, not a foundation for ubuquitous high speed wireless access to the net.
I can't see how -that- is a system to replace a -business- like ricochet. Unless you personally can pay for the hardware and wireline bandwidth...? (What is the price point when you're buying 5,000 WAP access points? : ) bk425
I had one of the old Ricochet modems years ago before there was any security on the network. You could list out the names of all the other radio modems and poll top boxes that it could see. The pole top boxes had the names of the street intersections or buildings where they were mounted. Then you could dial into any of the pole top boxes, and remotely send them AT commands, to list out the other ones they could see, and walk around discovering the network that way.
But then my van was stolen, and my original Ricochet was in it, with a "Big Brother Inside" sticker on it. I immediately called Metricom and asked if my modem had been turned on and reported in. It had, and they checked the logs and gave me the address of the pole top box in a dangerous San Jose neighborhood. I rented a car and drove all around the neighborhood looking for my stolen van, but didn't find it. But a couple weeks later the van did show up right around that neighborhood, totally stripped.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
I've been watching Aerie for months. They've been saying they're going to buy Ricochet for months. I'm waiting on ACTION. I was a serious ricochet user before they died, and soon as they light it back up, I'll be cruising.
funny munging
Hi Don!
;)
I was the TSE on the other end of the phone when you called to trace your van. I remember that call well.
Like you, I hope Aerie does something.... I got rather addicted to the notion of web access everywhere.
-Zandr
You have violated Robot's Rules of Order and will be asked to leave the future immediately.
Someone please double-check my reading of the press pieces:
Metricom winds up $1G in debt, with creditors expected to recoup about a quarter of that when you count cash in the bank and bond interest; so, about $750M loss for creditors.
Aerie acquires all the interesting assets of Metricom -- that is, everything unique that would cause investors to take the risk -- for $8.25M.
Chapter 7 protects Aerie from the ~$740M difference.
I know it's hardly a unique situation, but the numbers jumped out at me this time. It's such a great investment strategy: if you can just figure out how to get someone else to spend 100x what's profitable and then have them lose so badly that you can buy the interesting bits at a garage sale.
Ricochet was relit around ground zero after the attacks to give the workers internet access http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-7372683.html? tag=owv
I used it for five months before those cretins at Wireless Web Connect seriously ticked me off and I cancelled my account.
The data transfer rate was bursty, latency was around 300ms, there were only a few sweet spots around the neighborhood that it worked well in, and logging in was a slow pain in the ass.
But it was so unutterably cool to be tooling down the road with my brother in his car, have a question requiring web access to answer, and whipping out a Compaq iPAQ and getting the answer in a minutes time.
I can't believe cities wouldn't kill for the capacity to install wireless security cameras just about any place they choose, and have live police and fire video feeds available for each fire truck/police car in the fleet, as well as having internet access for disaster recovery personnel.
It just breaks my heart seeing those lonely little Ricochet boxes sitting up on light poles with no one to talk to. This is a case where I think the feds should have stepped up to the plate and bought the damned thing to keep it running, and expanded the system for all major urban areas.
What I really hope and pray for now is Teledesic. I have no idea how viable they are as a company at the moment, but a constellation of low Earth orbiting high speed Internet satellites is just too sweet to not lust for.
I bet there's a whole bunch of people overseas in the armed forces that wishes it were operational too.
Ricochet went through about a billion in VC money, and Aerie is getting it for $8.25. That's got to be the best bargain since Manhattan Island.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I came into the company at a time when the .com boom was just starting to happen. I was young and didn't quite understand business politics yet, so I thought it was right to point out when things are outright ripping off the customer or in the very least preventing the company from dominating the market. My "self rightousness" cost me my job.
You see my freinds, the ricochet development cycle really ended after the first modem was introduced. Sure it got smaller and faster, or so you think. The ricochet was allways capable of 128kbps speed. There was a s register that could change the modem speed to that maximum rate, but unless you were transferring from ricochet to ricochet at a distance of 100 feet or less, you would never see 128kbps from their network. This is because the poletops were set at 9600baud.
Now to understand how you can get 28.8 from poletops set at 9600 you have to understand how the ricochet network works. Basically you are surrounded by these poletops, all shooting out bits at 9600 baud, they are multiplexed together by your modem and combined to get the desired bandwidth. Thus 9600 from 3 poletops would give you 28.8. Internally people who knew about this and thought it was wrong were fired over the years. There was a lot of them trust me.
Whenever a new modem standard like 33.6 or 56k came out, metricom would release a new "Modem software upgrade" that "contained new code!" that would magically turn your 33.6 ricochet into a 28.8 one. All it did was change the default setting of that S Register, maybe some new stuff was added, but thats about it. Nothing really magical or fancy, they fired all the real engineers that created the modem in the first place long ago. All that was left was a skeletal crew that could never really improve the internal electronics design.
When they were "Upgrading the Ricochet Network!" this was nothing more than more smoke up the ass of ricochet users. The poletops speed was simply set from 9600 to anything higher. Just a stupid S register that was allways there.
I think Ricochet's real downfall wasn't the technology, when it was introduced allmost 5 years ago, it was capable of delivering 128kbps service. So the failure can only be found in the strategy used by the marketdroids. $20@month for 128kbps wireless internet service vs $20@month for a standard 28.8 isp would have sold a lot more modems than the $40@mo ricochet $20@mo standard ISP model that they took.
They did do an amazing job creating the network, just a shame that they never put that same effort into people that acually understood the internet market. People have allways gone with the cheaper ISP simply because they want to save money. Anyways I hope no heads roll from my comment.
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IRicochetI
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why hasnt this been moded up?
Your comment sounds pretty bitter, and also pretty false. The rollout of higher speeds was more than just "changing an S register" and I am quite certain that one connects only to one poletop at a time. The big boost in speeds came from a combination of a switch from 2-level to 4-level FSK signalling, and the addition of 2.4/2.5 GHz channels to the poletops for backhaul. With the old ricochet, the poletops and client radios used the same frequencies, forcing the client radios to go quiet while the poletop was relaying packets - with the new ricochet, the poletops communicated in a different band, preventing this problem.
Are you sure you got fired for your self-righteousness?
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
a company which, much like every other company in this space, who is having trouble raising next round because of massive capital dumped into network infrastructure being turned into pennies is now acquiring other networks which previously managed to bankrupt themselves? hm.
-- http://www.criticalassets.com
In the Phase 2 modem manual, which dates from the 28kbps days, it says the poletops designate themselves by their latitude and longitude, which is how it works in my neighborhood. The ATS311? command lists all the poletops in range, and gives their signal strength too. I wrote a simple BASIC program to issue the command every few seconds and dump the results to a file. Then I pull out the lat/long coords and plot them in Street Atlas.
But what's this about sending commands to the poletops? I'm sure it doesn't work anymore, but I've never even heard of such an ability. Can you provide more detail?