Slashdot Mirror
Wireless Technologies for ISPs?
"I am also thinking about providing hotspot access in some of the neighbouring towns so the locals can hang out in the parks or their backyards with a laptop and get some decent bandwidth. We could use PPPoE to offer a paid service (cheap!) for anyone to roam around the town and be online outside (hopefully 100% coverage). Some of the towns here are only 2-4 square miles so we could put up a couple of towers and cover everyone using technologies like ADC's Loopstar. Basically there are a lot of Wireless companies starting up and it seems like a fierce market - I would like some recommendations on companies that have been around for awhile and that you think will still be around in a couple of years - It seems I get a lot of PR and little substance from the ones I have been dealing with thus far."
The 1900 and 900 Mhz bands are Cellular in the US for CDMA not sure about canada but unless it's all GSM up there (STill the chance of those's freq's) not sure you could use them..
But down the pipe there is ultrawideband and 20km WAP devices on their way.. might want to look for them.
We use mostly Alvarion equipment and find it very satisfactory.
- The equipment itself is solid (doesn't break often).
- Speed is excellent, ranging up to 1.2 megabits with most subscribers toward the high end.
- Alvarion engineers provide first-class support on the mailing list.
- Most important, you can get a lot of data from the equipment via telnet or Alvarion's gui "BreezeCONFIG Access" program. We run it on Windows 2000. I don't know if it is available for Linux or UNIX.
Wiacomm's two big POPs and three of the smaller cells use 2.4 GHz access points, either standalone with omni or sector antennas, or the all-in-on cell extender (CX) units. Two more POPs use a different wireless system, Cirronet Wavebolt.Two POPs are in wooded small towns, Crandall, TX, and Combine, TX. There we installed 900 MHz APs. I believe these are CXs. You can get CXs that go from one frequency range to another--e.g., input 2.4 GHz, output 900 MHz. However, for the one in Combine and a new, not yet functional AP in Rosser, TX, we use a set of 5.8 GHz Trango units for backhaul.
Speeds for the 900 MHz subscribers are comparable to the speeds the 2.4 GHz customers are getting--very fast!
A company associated with us, AEIWireless.Net, in Lakeside, TX, uses 5.8 Alvarion gear with OFDM capability. They are just getting started, so I can't report on their experience yet.
You can see maps of Wiacomm and AEIWireless coverage at the sites linked above. The maps do not indicate frequency range. Especially note the "detail map" of the Covered Bridge Canyon area. This clearly reveals the biggest drawback of line-of-sight frequencies such as 2.4 GHz of any sort. Hilly topography cuts your service area way down!
The downside of Alvarion equipment is price, but we think it's worth it. Keep in mind what you aren't paying in maintenance and support.
Security is also better with frequency-hopping systems. And, nobody's going to buy a $500 SU (subscriber unit) to go wardriving in the hopes that someone, somewhere, is set up with Alvarion.
My ISP uses Motorola Canopy equipment. It operates in the 5.8ghz range and is LOS. It is fast and fairly reliable. Because of the frequency, there is little interference. Its fast - up to 3 megs/sec. It works well in hilly communities where high peaks can have antennas put on them. but still, its Line of sight.
Urgo: "I want to live. I want to experience the universe and I want to eat pie!"
Jack: "Who doesn't??"
Re, "I was wondering how you keep people from hooking into the wireless system without paying for a subscription?"
- We use proprietary Alvarion equipment which only talks to its own brand. The CPEs (customer premise units or subscriber units, SUs) are expensive and not readily available to consumers. As ObviousGuy speculated, the Alvarion system does have a receiver radio at the customer's house, which is authenticated by the AP, the central radio (in our setup). This does prevent roaming in the usual sense of the word. The technology is sometimes called fixed wireless for that reason. You can get a mobile unit, but for it to work the area has to be pretty saturated with coverage, more than is necessary to provide connectivity to most residences and businesses.
"Is there some device-specific authentication (based on MAC address or something)?"
- This is also possible.
"If so, does that mean that each computer in a customer's house needs to be subscribed separately?"
No, because the mac address of the router would work. Our subscribers (Wiacomm, Inc.--see post above) live for the most part in widely spaced exurban houses on 1 to 5 acre lots. It's possible that someone might piggyback on a subscriber's wireless router, but we do encourage them to change the password and use normal security precautions.
"How many wireless ISP schemes are there?"
- As many as you'd like to count! Read the mailing list archives at isp-wireless.com or Part 15 for more information on all aspects of the WISP industry.
"How do they let customers in and non-customers out?"
This is the big question. It's one reason we went with proprietary equipment instead of 802.11b.