Alternative Wireless Broadband for your Neighborhood

An anonymous reader writes "TelephonyOnline reports Motorola has announced a new line of 5GHz *unlicensed* Wireless Broadband point to multi-point solution with a 2 mile range called Canopy. Pricing may allow neighborhoods to gang up and be their own ISP."

Comments

end of ip over fixed telephony?

[tapiwa]

With the everincreasing range of wireless, especially over the *free* spectrum, will we see the end of ip over telephony.

Taken to the extreme, if each 'neighbourhood' is running high speed ip over wireless, and is peering with its neighbours, then the world becomes a true web. Why connect via maBell and pay $$$ lots, when these local wireless networks grow and peer to a level where xx% of your ip traffic can be routed without ever going via the major backbone providers?

Is this really cost effective?

[teaserX]

> CANOPY STARTER KIT, 6 AP CLUSTER, SUPPORTS UP TO 200 SUBSCRIBERS ON EACH AP MODULE $30,000.00

So let me get this straight. 6 APs supporting 1200 total users (assume residences) for $30k. That's only $25. Oh then there's the Customer Terminal Equipment at $515 a pop and a license at $28.95 ea and bandwith to feed your back haul...

Your talkin AT LEAST $650,000 to set this up for a neighborho(ood). That works out to around $540 per household assuming evreyone in the coverage area gets on board. I guess that's not bad if you amortize it over the year (or two). But what kind of freaky geek commune are you going to find that needs 1200 BB connections in a two mile radius?

slightly OT: wireless rollout in Allen, TX

[renehollan]

There's a company starting to rollout wireless access in the Allen, TX area, and being a geek (and not particularly liking my $80/month DSL bill for 768k/384k (with $15/month for a dedicated pair, 'cause I'm 15.6 kft from the DSLAM)), I looked into it.

I can get 2 Mbit up/down, synchronous, for something like $40-$50 a month, so it looks interesting. However, I share that bandwidth with all the people in my quadrant, so, like cable modems, if I'm an early adopter, I get great bandwidth, but if it gets popular, there will be times when it gets clogged up.

Is it worth the $30 extra a month that I'm paying now? Well, I've had few problems, bandwidth is great, and I don't need to worry anout rain fade (ask me about my terrestrial HDTV and DirectTV signals).

Systems like this probably need bandwidth caps on users, and the ability to support multiple channels in a single quadrant. Remember the days of asking what the user/modem ratio for a dial-up ISP was before chosing one? Same kind of thing.