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Earthlink Launches Fixed Wireless ISP Service
rkischuk writes: "As an alternative to cable modem and DSL, Earthlink is launching "High Speed Internet Fixed Wireless Access". You lock a 14" square dish onto your home, and all that comes inside is the network cable that connects directly to your NIC. The connection is transmitted over radio waves, probably to transmitters mounted on local towers. Service seems comparable to DSL in both price ($42.95 / month) and speed (1.5 Mbps downstream, 128 Kbps upstream). No idea on the latency. Service is currently only available for pre-order in the Atlanta area. This seems to finally get the behemoth cable and phone companies from trying to monopolize such services, but brings the wireless providers into the mix (it's probably their cell-phone towers)."
Sprint recently abandoned both it's ION offering as well as it's MMDS (wireless) product.
Given the strong ties between Earthlink and Sprint, I suspect this is the same product, only (perhaps) with a better marketing and support campaign.
Especially for rural 'last miles' MMDS remains the only truly practical alternative to, well, anything else.
I swear between DirectTv, my FM antenna, Scanner Antenna, and Ham antenna on my roof one, and planes will start trying to land on my road or the FBI is going to show up and ask some pointed question about the last Bin Ladin Radio Tranmission.
.. and all that comes inside is the network cable that connects directly to your NIC.
Actually, there's a power cable, too. The cell tower doesn't have that much power! From the faq:
Your equipment includes:
* A 14" square dish, which is mounted on the side of your home that best faces the Wireless Internet Tower.
* A receiver, approximately 14" x 10". This small box is mounted outside your home near the dish. This is the device that sends and receives data to and from your PC.
* A cable that runs from the receiver into your home. The cable will connect to an electrical outlet and to your computer's Network Interface Card (NIC)
I wonder how they mount the fairly big receiver box. Even though it has to be weather proofed and operate over an extended temperature range, there are far fewer mistakes that a customer can make with a CAT5 cable than an RF cable.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
shortrange wireless ISPs are old news, I thought?
/. is posting old news waaah waaah" I will posit this:
:)
Look.ca has been doing it in Canada for some time, although they've been in rough shape financially - perhaps they're out of business already?
At any rate there seems to be no shortage of 'em in Canada. I can't imagine this is the first in the US, either.
Now, in order to turn this thread / article into something other than another "groan
How long until "real" wireless internet is a reality? I mean not point-this-at-the-antenna-a-block-away, but real iridium-style satellite-driven internet? Those of us stuck on dialup in the middle of nowhere want to know!
-- "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." (Charles Darwin)
This is exactly what Sprint got OUT of doing a few short months ago.
Now, given the close relationship between Sprint and Earthlink, it's quite conceivable this is the same service and equipment. It sure sounds like MMDS.
I used to work for at&t worldnet when they were testing their fixed wireless.. there are a ton of inherent problems with it.. first off, there are issues with interference from things from birds to weather / snow, etc.. and of course most people who actually played w/ the units and had all the specs usually said "yeah, it works ok, but i wouldnt install it on my house" (as in - the radiation is enough to leave me w/o any functional sperm) .. so good luck to earthlink .. perhaps they overcame those hurdles :)
Forbes has an article on Fixed Wireless Internet Access services. Fixed wireless ISPs utilize Multipoint Multichannel Distribution Services (MMDS). Interesting read, although the article only covers Sprint's service.
What do you think of MusicCity now?
I'm not sure what you're talking about. I have sprint's fixed wireless service and I live in San Jose.
,etc) to maybe two or three a week.
The service was pretty horrible a few months ago, but they sent out an e-mail to all the clients saying they would be upgrading the network soon and things would get better, and they actually (*GASP*) came through on their promise. The mini-outages dropped from 10/15 a day (by mini outage, I mean a 30 second - 5 minute period where the service didn't transmit or recieve any data, kicking you off IRC, stalling HTTP
The latency is still questionable, you get the same performance in online games as you would from a 56k, sometimes worse, and the upload speed is particularly sucky (about 10kB/s) but the download speed is unquestionably better than DSL and comparable to cable. I can usually pull 300kB/s from kernel.org on off peak hours, 200kB/s on heavy use times.
This service is particularly good for me because I'm out of range of both cable and DSL in my area. In its current state, I'd recommend it to anyone who cares more about download speed than latency, or those who can't get DSL or cable to begin with.
Another interesting quirk is Sprint provides the hardware and earthlink supplies the bandwidth and backbone connection, so I have the creeping feeling that earthlink's service will be exactly the same as Sprint's, except under a different name.
Can you imagine a MOSIX cluster of these?
Tons of small ISP's have turned to fixed wireless using DSSS or FHSS 802.11b as a way to route around their local telephone companies and the cable monopolies. Most people will tell you that wireless service is better than DSL and Cable. The only limitations with it really are interference in highly suburban areas and line-of-sight. But even in heavily populated areas FHSS is pretty reliable.
i ves/
The most popular mailing list for these types of small wireless ISP's is here:
http://isp-lists.isp-planet.com/isp-wireless/arch
An organization created by alot of these wireless ISP is here:
http://www.wispa.org/
and you can find wireless ISP's in your area here:
http://www.bbwexchange.com/wisps/ Some of these WISP's have thier systems attached to Grain towers with their equipment covered in bird shit, but they're doing somethings the big boys aren't, like making money.
- It's lightning fast. They only have a handful of subscribers in my area though, so it is unclear how well they will deal with demand.
- It is very reliable. We have had maybe three outages, two of which were caused by the crappy openbsd router panicking for no apparent reason.
- Rain fade is an issue. It doesn't cut out completely, but it is noticably slower when the weather is bad. Same goes for snow; it caused us some packet loss.
- They haven't completely figured out how to do billing accurately. We have gotten about two months for free because of their mistakes. Oh well, they are a big faceless corporation so they can afford it.
- Installation was a snap. Compared to pointing a DirecTV dish, this was *very* easy to set up.
- Latency is sometimes not cool. But I don't have the time to piss away on games and it's good enough for telnet/ssh.
Many of my friends are just itching to replace their overpriced DSL/cable modems with this. I wish Earthlink the best of luck in expanding this service everywhere; the demand is there.freebsd guy
Sprint is still providing service to their existing customer base, however, they have suspended all new install orders.
It seems pretty easy to understand to me: they tried to expand too much too quickly, and their network's limitations started being painfully obvious. I actually had the service for a while in Arizona, as did some of my friends, and they had started to notice pretty high latency on their connections.
Let's hope this doesn't happen with the new wave of wireless companies that are venturing (bravely, I might add, in light of all that's happened) into the market.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I've been on the verge of getting a similar service that StarnetWx just started in Chicago but that offers 2 Mbps both up and down for $40-50/mo. They seem to have a smaller dish (12" square) than the one mentioned in the story but otherwise seems to be the same technology.
.. so far his best offer is to put the antenna in the balcony but Starnet isn't sure if I'll get enough signal there.
I'm still working on convincing my landlord to let me install it in my apt
This looks to me very very much like a setup using 802.11.16 or the like. judging from the upload and download speed. It is easily conceivable that one could set up several transmitters in only a few locations around Atlanta (since 802.11b's optimal range is 16 miles) and cover the whole city.
C =2 90425
When the transmitter is less than 20 miles away, matters such as latency aren't so much a problem as things such as air collision.
However I doubt everyone will be able to obtain the download speeds advertised, since any amount of interference, like bad weather or anything else on the 2.4ghz band, will cause the speed to drop in half.
If anyone would like to read up on this you can see the antennas at:
http://www.netnimble.com/antennas.html
And of course the orinco wireless router at:
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.asp?ED
Non sequitur: Your facts are uncoordinated.
I have two of these, one at home and one at work. Due to their creative billing capabilities, I only pay for one of them. :-) The high cost of end-user equipment is offset by a one-time payment (non-refundable) of ~600 USD. This gives you 5 or 10 meters of high-gain RF cable, a choice of three antenna sizes (medium, large and Mr T), a Breezenet SA-10 Station Adapter and some clamps to put the antenna on your TV antenna pole, chimney, wherever. The monthly fee is $30 for up to 3 Mbps (this is the maximum radiolink bandwidth, you have to be pretty colse to a tower to get that, I typically get 2 at work and 1 at home (longer and there's a tree in the way. Now, where did I put that chainsaw?).
Authentication is done by logging in to a webpage (DNS and traffic within their network works when logged out, but port 80 is basically blocked without the login. This means that I can ssh or do a Terminal Server login from home to work even if both networks are logged out). They log you out for inactivity, but a ping -i 600 wherever.com seems to keep it alive. The DHCP lease is for 24 hours and I have lost my (public) IP three times in a year, all of them due to major maintenance of the login servers.
This all works beautifully, except for Telenordia's inability to manage 24/7 server capabilities. I get some rain fade and snow issues (especially with the large, wet flaky, kind) but no fried sparrows and no other major issues - both my kids have just one head each. :-)
Standard disclaimer: Your bandwidth may vary.
Money for nothing, pix for free
I do fixed wirless in Sioux Falls SD. From home I get ping times of 25-45ms there is really not that much latency. Even folks out 15miles are under 70ms
"... but brings the wireless providers into the mix (it's probably their cell-phone towers)."
Not really... most of the towers are owned by companies like American Tower, SBA, Signal One, and others who just lease the space to anyone who can pony up enough $$$.
http://kf4lhp.net/telweb/
I live out in the boonies in Utah (Syracuse). I also have Sprint wireless, which happens to run over Earthlink's networks IIRC. It works excellently. I live 30 miles from the tower, and I get up to 600 or 700 KB/s download from fast or multiple sites, and 19KB upload. On a pget (see man lftp) from kernel.org, speeds are usually around 500KB during any time of day. There used to be occasional problems (500ms+ latency during peak hours once every few days), but now they are solved. My ping time to time-nw.nist.gov (which is hosted in Redmond, Washington, by you know who) is 41ms average in the middle of the night, and 50ms average during peak hours. Sourceforge is 61ms average. It sounds like they're using the same antenna system Sprint is, except that Sprint had a box in the house. Fixed wireless has been really great for me because I'm too far away to get DSL, Cable, ISDN, or even a 56k modem connection (26.4k is my max), and you can be up to 35 miles from the tower.
So, in summary, Sprint fixed wireless rocks (for me) in the bandwidth, tech support (they have live operators in the middle of the night with short wait times during outages), and latency arenas, and Earthlink probably will as well.
A solution to the problem with music today
Read my plight before you hurt me moderators.
Around january or so I was looking for a good deal on DSL. I called around everywhere, pacbell kept insisting that I wasn't in a coverage area for POTS service DSL. I kept calling every ISP I could until I got in touch with sprint...
Now here is where it get's hazy.
The sales rep at sprint told me THIS WAS DSL. I repeadedly asked him because I knew about the sprint wireless service and he assured me that it was DSL. I asked him 7 or 8 times at least. I went ahead and authorized the service tech to come out and install it. My retired neighbor was gonna let him into the house to do the work.
When I got home that night a small crowd of about 4 or 5 neighbors were out in front of my house pointing at my roof and talking about something. I got out of the car and low and behold THERE WAS A FRIGGEN 15FOOT TOWER ON MY ROOF!!! The sales guy had obviously lied to me, I was really ticked off.
I figured I would give it a try before I canceled it. It sucked horribly compared to a real wired connection. I called my salesguy back and ripped on him, then I asked to be transferred to his manager and ripped on him for a while. I reminded them that the winter season was approaching and if there was a single leak in my roof I would sue for something, let the lawer figure out what it is.
That night, around 8pm they had another tech on the roof removing the equipment. A week later pacbell changed their tune and I got my DSL self install kit and was up and running.
Considering sprint's track record with long distance slamming, this did not surprise me in the slightest. If I controlled every geek on slashdot I would make them NOT buy anything sprint because they basically slammed me, and falsely represented their product. Since I don't control the geeks, maybe they'll just read what I just said and make their own good choice.
My wireless ISP (Comwavz - not recommended, unless it's your only option) installed a lightning arrestor in line with the antenna, and did some fairly serious grounding of it. They acted as if they -always- install one.
I'm not worried. Much more bothersome is the utility pole in front, which I've seen get hit, twice. No trouble to report there, either - except for a few seconds of darkness...
The installation, for the curious, consisted of hanging a plastic antenna, resembling a white Pringles can with the lid on, on the outside wall of the (attached) garage. Large (~1/2") coax connects to this, which then enters a plastic box -- also outside.
Inside this box is the lightning arrestor, which is in series with the antenna, and a splice for the two ground wires.
One ground wire sneaks down the siding to an 8' ground rod directly below - the other, across the garage attic, down the garage wall, under the house, and then to the main electrical ground. This is fairly stout wire - perhaps 6AWG - and solid.
The antenna wire, after the lightning arrestor, heads through the wall to a Cisco 802.11b access point just inside.
The Cisco box plugs into an RJ45 directly beside it, which I nailed up and wired prior to the installers' (there were two of them) appearance. I simply plugged this into the hub along with my computers.
With the hardware done, I helped them set up the Windows box to talk to the world. They didn't ask about my other machines, and I'm glad - they were scarcely qualified to handle Win98SE, let alone FreeBSD.
After they left, I removed the extra NIC from said windows box, and slammed it into my FreeBSD firewall. Set up dhcp (god bless the ports collection!), changed natd.conf, and was running.
I then collected the flashlight, hardhat, and bag of fasteners that they left behind, and put them outside in the rain - in case they felt like returning to get them. They eventually did, I think - or someone stole them.
802.11b, in this arrangement, seems to work quite well. Things are synced at 11mbps, and I never have any trouble with rain fade - even with near-zero visibility. Latencies are consistantly 3-4ms across the wireless link, and packet loss appears to be about nonexistant in all weather I've experienced since it's been here.
Of course, the tower is several hundred feet high, and only 2.2 miles away. I suspect others might have more difficulty, at greater distances.
Of course, things aren't all green. While the service is good (occasional router trouble on their end, plus one time when they called to tell us it would be down for awhile), I'm stuck NATted behind some firewall over there due to what they claim is a shortage of IP addresses. So, my IP is currently 10.3.3.53 or somesuch.
With PPP over SSH to a T1-hosted Linux box that I control, this isn't much of a problem for me, but it could be for others who are accustomed to having a real IP address.
Sometimes, I wish I still had the solid 24x7 static IP dialup I had before, but then I download a big file at a few hundred K per second, and those wishes vanish.
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Kid-proof tablet..
The wireless is being provided by a company called Broadlink. Due to my employment with Earthlink I can't go into much detail (damn NDA), but here's the skinny. Customer Joe Bob has the install, he gets the receiver and a cpe. Broadlink has both routing and bridged cpe's, but for the consumer account Earthlink is going with the bridged configuration, and yes that means PPPoE. The receiver connects to a Wireless Access Point (WAP) by microwave of which several are located in a city, and the WAP connects to a "exchange", and from their onto Earthlink's network and then the Internet (sorry for the lack of detail but I like working). Installation time has yet to be seen yet since we're just coming out of beta testing, however it is a full install so I suspect it should As far as the performance goes, we've testing here in the office for about two months now and it has worked flawlessly, ping times range between 8ms and 15ms (the drool on my face was quite noticeable after seeing this since most other "broadband" services have really crappy latency). The speed is set for 1.5 megabits but I have seen it burst up 2 megabits. The Broadlink people seem really cool and have a lot of knowledge on the tech involved unlike like most of the ILECs and CLECs I deal with on a daily basis **cough** **cough** **Verizon**. As far as Sprints involvement in all of this it is non-existent.