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Experiences w/ WaveRider Wireless Internet Hardware?

Posted by Cliff on from the how-did-it-work-for-you dept.

Cory O. asks: "I was just wondering if any /.er had any experience either being an end-user or an administrator on a WaveRider 900MHz wireless system. There's a company in my community offering this service now, and since Mediacom is lost somewhere running fiber through a creek bed and may never get their cable modem service up and running, I was considering this as an alternative. Any issues with these that anyone knows of (ie. line of sight problems, bandwitdth, security, etc.?) You can also check out the company who's offering this service, Airolink.com"

2 of 9 comments (clear)

  1. 900MHz by funky+womble · · Score: 3, Informative
    900MHz is less affected by trees and water than 2.4GHz, though can be more affected by metal-framed buildings. The company claims non line of sight too. They suggest that with LOS, coverage is 6 miles to an outdoor antenna, or 3 miles to a window-mounted antenna. And without LOS, it's 2 miles / 1 mile.

    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.
    which probably raises the bar enough to stop most people - the average user of Netstumbler, etc, won't find anything. And the fact that the CPE units act as routers not bridges means you probably won't find much by running tcpdump on the interface associated with their kit.

    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...

  2. Here's an idea... by GoRK · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Since this *all* depends on where your local ISP has access points, towers and whatnot, why don't you ask THEM? If the service works at your place, then buy it. The best advice I could give you is: learn to act like an intelligent customer.

    Your questions are non relevant to an end user of the ISP.

    1) Bandwidth: The equipment iitself claims to be capable. Your ISP may pack too many people onto it or not have enough upstream bandwidth. Ask them for realistic speeds. Ask them if they can come give you a demo at your location. I could say "I have a terayon cablemodem or a breezecom radio - is my local isp going to suck?" The answer would be -- "well your particular cablemodem has the capability to trancieve data at 14 megabits" or "your radio has an over-the-air rate maximum of 3 megabits" -- but it all doesnt matter if the ISP cant deliver me roughly 768K down and 256K as advertised. The equipment is not going to be the limiting factor in bandwidth problems for you. That'd be like a company selling you 2 megabit SDSL service, pulling in the ISDN circut for it, then putting a 128K ISDN router on it and saying "well, the line is capable of 2 megabits. That is what you are paying for." or going into a company and upgrading all of the workstations 10 megabit nics with 100 megabit ones to speed things up but leaving a 10 megabit hub in the center of the whole thing.

    2) Line of sight: Ask your isp. It doesnt matter if the equipment is capable of blasting through 10 foot lead walls if the range isn't good enough to get to the nearest access point. Line of sight problems are theirs -- not yours. Typically they'll come out to do a survey and say yes it will work or no it wont. Ask them. Slashdot doesn't know.

    3) Security: Um... what? This is your upstream open-to-all-who-send-traffic-to-it internet connection. To be brutally honest -- even if the security of the equipment is totally flawed and anyone who goes out and buys a radio can attach to the network -- it's not your problem. Buy a firewall appliance. It doesnt really matter how you are connected to the internet -- if you are blasting your credit card number and passwords out unencrypted over the wire(less) and leaving your "always-on" connection plugged into a vulnerable computer, you're screwed no matter how you look at it.

    Finally, if it's the only game in town for you at your location, try it. Cancel the service if it sucks. If they want a one or two year commitment contract, ask for a demo. Instead, you are asking slashdot all the questions that the ISP should have asked when they selected the equipment for purchase. If they have been around for a while and are a good and well respected local business, it's quite likely that they made a well informed and proper decision for their wireless infrastructure. If you have to ask someone else, ask some of their customers. They are the only people capable of giving you an accurate recommendation about the service.

    ~GoRK