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Speakeasy Will Test IEEE 802.16 In Downtown Seattle
An anonymous reader writes "Speakeasy will be testing a WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) network in downtown Seattle. If successful, plans to roll out similar networks in other cities will follow."
Hmm.. can we say 802.16 phones? communicators? cars?
I've been waiting for the day when microwaves would be interoperable worldwide. Now I can make popcorn or EasyMac anywhere!
Only in the world of internet connections can you get paid for having your technology tested
... this will begin to curb the reproductive capability of certain people living in and around Seattle.
Ahem.
Isn't this the kind of thing you'd want to try out first in rural areas? After all, this should be complementing DSL and Cable modems at first, then replace them eventually, not vice versa.
"There are no such things as mutual fantasies. Yours bore us and ours offend you."
- Bill Maher
why can't we skip a bit to, say... 803.11?
(i have no clue about the IEEE naming convention. sorry.)
"
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Wireless net to cover downtown Seattle
By JOHN COOK
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
A high-speed wireless network that covers most of downtown Seattle is being rolled out by Internet service provider Speakeasy.
The Seattle company plans to have 10 to 15 test customers using the network by the end of the year, with Speakeasy CEO Bruce Chatterley saying commercial deployment of the WiMax network will occur early next year. The network -- powered by as many as four base stations located at high points throughout the city -- will cover an area from Queen Anne Hill to Qwest Field and Lake Washington to Elliott Bay, he said.
"This is the equivalent of putting in a T-1 line, but it is wireless," said Chatterley. "It is going to change everything."
The company chose Seattle as its first test market, citing the geographic challenges along with the demand for high-speed Internet in the downtown area. Speakeasy will roll out similar WiMax networks in other cities if the test in Seattle is successful, Chatterley said.
WiMax, which is short for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, is a relatively new technology that provides wireless Internet access over great distances. Unlike Wi-Fi, which is typically confined to a couple of hundred feet in coffee shops or bookstores, WiMax networks have a range of several miles.
Speakeasy is not disclosing the equipment vendor that it is using for the Seattle deployment. But Chatterley said customers who sign up for the service will attach a small device to a window, allowing the signal to be transmitted from nearby base stations. Some potential customers have expressed interest in using the wireless network as a backup to a more traditional system, while Chatterley said others are considering making a switch to a complete wireless network.
"If you had good coverage, you absolutely would be able to run your business on this," said Chatterley, whose company has been testing a similar technology at its Belltown headquarters. Chatterley also said the WiMax offering is designed to support Voice over Internet Protocol, meaning phone calls could be routed over the network.
Pricing has not been finalized, but the company is considering charging about $650 per month for a wireless connection that reaches speeds of three megabits per second. That compares to $530 per month for a T-1 line, which is 1.5 megabits per second. A T-1 line is about 30 times faster than a dial-up modem.
In August, Intel invested an undisclosed amount in Speakeasy as a way to help the Internet service provider develop its WiMax strategy. The Santa Clara, Calif., semiconductor giant is one of the biggest backers of the technology. Last month, it invested in Clearwire -- a Kirkland startup led by billionaire Craig McCaw that is throwing its weight behind WiMax networks.
Speakeasy, which offers Internet service in 120 markets, has fewer than 100,000 customers. It reported revenues of $49 million last year"
Now our brains can be fried walking just by being in a city, even in the complete absence of politics or /.
Are they going to use a large pringles can for this?
I can't wait to see the day where Wireless net access will be free for everyone in Big cities...
Would it be anonymous? Untracable? Probably not... but free information (with a wireless-enabled computer, which is not exactly free...) is excellent for communities....Knowledge is power.
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
I don't get it $650 for 3Mbps? Isn't DSL also 3Mbps? What I am missing here? --
I am psychic. It will work so well in Seattle, you'll be very pleased.
That said, using my psychic abilities, I'd like to save you a little work.
I think your next target city should be Phoenix Metro, specifically Tempe, and even more specifically, the corner of University and Mill.
The fact that I live at that crossroad is just a coincidence, I promise.
Thanks.
vodka, straight up, thank you!
Color me daft, but I'm not sure how 70MBps is going to do a whole lot of good. They're arguing that they will be able to support 60-70 businesses. Given that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of businesses in metropolitan areas, can we honestly expect this to provide any usable service? Does this thing have a couple hundred channels available? Or, is it the first ISP and five dozen companies wins?
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
I sure hope this was simply mis-spoken or mis-quoted. A T-1 only has speeds of 1.5Mbps. That's hardly revolutionary. Even basic 802.11b has more speed than that... Or am I missing something?
I just got their new VOIP service and it works great. They control the QOS from end-to-end, so it doesn't drop out when you're using the intarweb.
Kick-ass ISP.
Being a "bastard on wheels" sounds kind of cool!
Here in the wide open expanses of the midwestern U.S., we have small cities of 10-100K spread out about 50 miles apart. In between there are small farming communities, each with their own grain elevator. Atop the grain elevator there is usually a satellite dish and a TV/radio tower.
A fella could do worse than to set up a network of WiMax repeaters and WiMax-WiFi routers (for local traffic) on these grain elevators.
sigs, as if you care.
I was about to submit this story, oh well. One thing I found interesting was that in their press release they delcare Seattle the "First Wireless Broadband City" which an ExtremeTech article addresses from the start.
My city, Hermosa Beach, just rolled out free hi-speed wifi to about 30% of it's residents. Holding a high gain (16db) antenna connected to my lap-top standing in the backyard I was able to get close to 1Mb up/down. I'm about a half mile from the access point but without line of sight. I will be connecting the weatherproof antenna/bridge combo to a pole and installing it on the roof this weekend, which should help a bit. If all goes well, I am looking forward to a day with no ISP bills!
;-).
<PLUG>
However, I must say...Speakeasy is far and away the best ISP I have ever encountered. They encourage you to run mp3/game servers and even will bill your neighbors for you should you choose to share your internet connection via a wireless router. So if you are looking for a new ISP, sign up here and give me a free month. Thanks!
</PLUG>
Yeehaawww! I live in Seattle...gonna look forward to testing this out!
Triumph The Insult C speaks truth. I too can see this future. A highly successful venture in the east valley of the Phoenix metro area is in your future if you do that next!
The vision is clear!
First off, I wonder who the WiMax equipment provider will be. There aren't really that many manufacturers out there so I wonder why they're being mum about it. Intel is banking on WiMax taking off. Proxim is another major player. This seems like and excellent marketing push for either company. Quick searches on both companies sites didn't show any news on the Seattle initiative.
Next, there seems to be a bit of confusion as to what exactly WiMax is good for. Let's assume you have your MiMax base station blasting the radio signal to the park. Keep in mind it's operating on 802.16, not 802.11. So you won't be sitting with your laptop and realizing these T-1 speeds. You'll still need the WiMax (802.16) subscriber unit (base station) to pick up the signal and then send it through a router. More than likely, this router will then be the wireless router we're all used to seeing...thus if it's the 802.11g, you'll realize speeds of 56 Mbps.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
A family member lives in a rural section of Kentucky without broadband access (satellite access is too expensive). She's only a few miles from another relative with broadband access, but there's no line-of-sight between them -- it's a hilly, twisty road between them, and she's not about to put up any towers. While I suspect some WISP will come along and provide service eventually, part of the beauty of Wi-Fi is it's DIY, corporations-be-dammed attitude. Will we see that in the Wi-Max world?
Is Wi-Max applicable for deployment by individuals? Will there be inexpensive Linksys/Dlink/Netgear Wi-Max routers, as there is now for Wi-Fi?
For me to have more connectivity options to use when the server goes down. Wait a minute, I am the boss. Hmmmm... maybe this will have promise afterall. Um, never mind.
What WiMAX gear is ready for production deployment? Anyone know?
The Internet - you mean AOL, right? There's a lot of stuff on that Internet that you would not believe!
You just got to know all the right "keywords", they call 'em, and, well, there's some stuff on there I can't mention in front of the kids, if you catch my meaning. Not that I go in for that, mind you, but you get it in your email.
sigs, as if you care.
They should be doing this testing in Buffalo, NY where you have every possible weather pattern to contend with. That is what I consider extreme testing and will prove how much WiMax can take. Buffalo has 12 major hubs (cities) within a 500 mile radius. I demand the testing be done in buffalo, NY and not Seattle!!!!
I am Lord Snowbeam. Heed my call!
And then a wired cross-country backhaul to Chicago!
Way to go, again, Speakeasy!
Looking out my Queen Anne office building I can already see some of the homeless wearing Aluminum foil hats.
How many times do we have to hear about these rollouts of some new technology that will only affect 1/20th of the Slashdot audience? Save the crappy stories limited rollout stories and wake me when there's a rollout that approaches cellular telephone penetration.
What about 802.16 does anyone need to discuss? What type of discourse does 802.16 stories hope to strike up? Maybe Seattle folks might speak up on signal strength or quality but it's useless to everyone not living in Seattle.
as a Nevada Boxing Commissioner
- C.M. Burns
I've seen estimates of $10,000 for WiMAX base stations.
/me moves to seattle.
The WiMax forum plug fest will not even have started interop testing until April 2005 at the earliest. We will not see "WiMax Standard" products until mid to late summer 2005 at the very earliest. Many companies in the WiMax forum are currently selling gear that they call "almost WiMax". This would include Aperto, Alverion, Redline, Airspan, Wi-Lan, and others. The first standarized products to hit the shelves will be outdoor, fixed point products. It will be 2006-2007 before you see a WiMax cpe integrated into a laptop courtesy of Intel, but you will see them. In my opinion, the top two vendors for now are Aperto and Alvarion if you want to offer a network that can provide QoS in the radios. Of course SpeakEasy is deploying in the license exempt 5.8 space at first. I would suspect that they will try to buy some licensed spectrum in the current MMDS space, but they will have to pay millions and millions of dollars for it. That is millions and millions for spectrum in just one city.
I'd be very wary about replacing my 'T1 style connection' with something that can anonomously bought down by someone sitting in a unmarked van somewhere in my vicinity with an unlicenced radio transmitter. It's one thing for my WiFi network to be bought down (with my wired T1 still up), but to loose everything would be pretty bad.
Or am I thinking wrongly here?
-James.
My father lives in Southern Pines, NC, and a small business has started up there providing wireless broadband access, becuase there are no other options for high speed internet available. They deploy some products made by Motorola called the Canopy in order to achieve it. Unfortunatly, you have to purchase some proprietary hardware, and the geography of your location really affects the signal. He gets good signal where the box is located now, but some people at the bottom of valleys and hills can barely get signal. It's some kind of line of sight thing, but since they are on cell phone towers it has good coverage.
Speedwise, it's pretty decent from when I've been there to use it. They've had some issues with reliability when they get some big storms (that's prime hurricane aftermath territory), but I wouldn't be suprised.
Just wanted to post to let those who were thinking about the WiMax solution for rural areas, becuase here is a solution already being used.
does anyone know on which frequencies wimax operates? is there any chance it won't interfere with my current 4 km 802.11g link?
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