Ricochet Bounces Back, Cautiously

SimHacker writes: "An article in salon.com reports that the Ricochet wireless network will be bouncing back from the dead! Aerie Networks, who purchased Metricom's Ricochet network for $8.25 million, is going to offer the service in markets where it was popular, like Southern California and the Bay Area. They're also planning to lower the price of the modem from $300 to $100, and lower the monthly flat rate fee from $80 to $50. Ricochet is hardly the perfect wireless network, but it's much faster and more reliable than CDPD, so I'm really looking forward to signing back up."

Comments

Alternative to Wired Broadband?

[Rob.Mathers]

From the article: "Aerie will market the service more to homes and businesses looking for an alternative to the high-speed Internet access available through cable modems and digital subscriber lines" I don't see how they plan to compete with wired broadband in areas like Southern CA and the Bay area, which, AFAIK, are quite wired already. If I remember the Ricochet specs, the modems top out at 128kb/s (actual speeds were significantly less). How do they plan to convert people who are paying the same, or only $5 or $10 more for a much faster connection?

Re:Alternative to Wired Broadband?

[DeadPrez]

I don't see how they plan to compete with wired broadband in areas like Southern CA...which, AFAIK, are quite wired already.

You wouldn't say that if you were like many of us and went through the covand and rythmes madness...and haven't been able to get dsl since.

Re:Alternative to Wired Broadband?

[|_uke]

Simple.. a lot of areas still dont have broadband.

Where I live, there are ZERO options outside of dialup. I live in Laguna Niguel... a fairly nice area of orange county.

However I guess due to the area (we are in a foothill type area.. lots of hills... my apt is on the side of a hill... the street goes through a vally... etc etc) we are very limited to well.. everything. Our cable company figures it is cheapest to provide cable to us via shared satalite dish. (So for the entire 20 unit building... we have a single dish)...

so cable is obviously out of the question.

We are too far from our phone provider (pacbell) to make use of anything worth while... too far for dsl.. and I still refuse to pay for ISDN... (its not much of an improvement anyways)

So what options are left?

There is satalite... its actually decently cheep but the cost to entry is too high... Not to mention I am in a hotel like apt building ... which makes it a bit hard to set something like that up.

So while there is that... I dont think I want to go through the trouble actually getting it setup just to have a really poor latency. (sucks for games *grin*)

So... whats left... something like wireless broadband would be great (prob microwave) but due to the area... nobody seems to be able to provide it... most likely due to all the hills in the way.. (No line of sight)

So ricochet was REALLY cool... sure a bit pricy but it was worth it....

I was getting downloads of around 27-35KB/s so...

still that beans the crap out of dialup :)

Public access WLANs

[arberya]

The proliferation of public access WLAN's could possibly push servcies, such as Ricochet's to the wall. Sure, public access WLAN's are very scattered at the moment, but with the cost of setting up an AP with a decent range is only a few hundred dollars. More and more people seem to be setting up AP's, and have authorization to set up antennae on radio masts and providing a very good service. The community seems to be thriving, connecting zones together over the inernet using VPN software, and setting up full routing infrastructures to handle Internet access.
Sure, there wont be any real SLA's in place, but with so many AP's connected to different ISP's, then network redundancy wouldn't be much of an issue.

Ricochet vs. CDPD

[TheSync]

My exposure to Ricochet was the "slow" version offered here in Washington, DC. It was most useful for remote use in areas where you knew the coverage was good. It could be good in one place, and horrible just down the block. I saw a lot of them in use in Congressional hearing rooms.

However, on the "reliability" side, CDPD ruled. Verizon CDPD has much better coverage, and you can depend on it almost everywhere. For my particular application, a mobile webcam in a car, CDPD was much more reliable than Ricochet. AT&T CDPD seems pretty good too, but I only used that for OmniSky with my Palm on Amtrak.

CDPD is a bit slower than the "slow" Ricochet. But of course, there is no Ricochet now, only CDPD...

I'd love to see how the "fast" Ricochet compares. There is a poletop unit at the end of my street, and I used to be able to get Ricochet in the bedroom with a window that faces that direction.

Welcome back t0qer.

[isaac]

I still think you have an incomplete understanding of the Ricochet network. ATS=304 sets the DTE rate between the radio and the computer. The 128k poletops were not the same as the old poletops. Hence, network upgrade.

I'm sorry you feel you have an axe to grind with Ricochet - I do too, being a former customer who lost service (though I no longer live in a service area). I also think they should have gone for volume with their pricing model, instead of catering to the overpaid-techie set.

Last time I questioned your assertion that the 128k upgrade was no more than "changing an S register on the poletops", you corrected me on a few points - namely that the old modems used frequency hopping to avoid collisions with the old poletops. I haven't tested this, but let's stipulate it.

You did not address my (correct) assertion that the newer poletops did use a different band for backhaul (2.3 GHz WCS/2.4GHz ISM), where the old poletops used the same 900 MHz band as the modems. (This information came not from "marketing drivvel" [sic] but from a paper presented at interop by Metricom engineers). (As to my other assertion - that the 128k modems used 4FSK vs. FSK, I admit that I don't remember where I read that.) So why do you claim that the new service was no different than the old?

No, I didn't work for Metricom. You worked tech support for Metricom. Based on my experience with Metricom's tech support, this explains alot about your attitude and (mis)understanding of the network. The upgrade was more than just "changing an S register on the poletop." Why do you insist on claiming otherwise?

-Isaac