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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."
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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"
No, it must be 802 because: "The first meeting of the IEEE Computer Society "Local Network Standards Committee", Project 802, was held in February of 1980."
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
At $600/mo they arent going to be getting too many residential customers (nor do they probably expect to). Nor do they want to put up what is probably some expensive connection so they can get all 25 of them that would live in the rural area this would cover. They are targeting businesses who want an alternative to paying for a wired T1.
What *I* want to see, is equipment, affordable to end users, to facilitate point-to-point Megabit-or-faster wireless links over 30+ miles. 802.11 can do this, with the same equipment on both ends. I seriously home WiMax equipment eventually supports that, as opposed to only offering a huge expensive 'head end' to tie to the small end-user units (like DSL and cablemodems currently work)
When I order a partial T-1 line for a remote location, I get a CONSTANT 1.5 up and down, guaranteed. I also get 6 voice lines with 6 separate numbers through the T-1, and 16 different public IP addresses. Supposedly I get 24 hour support with technicians on-call, but we all know how that works. Plus, there are regulations (at least in California) that prevent us from ordering cable Internet for a business location. Correct me if I am wrong there.
At $650/month do you really think there will be a big demand for rural customers? Oh wait. You didn't read the article. This is a replacement for T1 lines for businesses.
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.
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>
It was mis-spoken. Wi-MAX is able to make 70 Mbps.
1) DSL is a fixed point to point connection. It's hard to take it with you if you move, and you have no hope at all of roaming.
2) It's expensive to roll out. The ISP needs to put their hardware in every telephone central office (CO).
Also, some cities (like Boston) have a large number of crufty old phone lines that are not suitable for DSL, so rollouts involve rewiring neighborhoods or sorting through lots of existing copper pairs to find the few that are clean enough to use.
--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu
The lower you go on the frequency scale, the less opaque objects become. 900mhz is somewhat successful with NLOS, but you have to go all the way down to about 400 mhz to get exceptional performance. But of course the lower you go, the less data capacity the frequencies have.
WiMAX is defined for 10 to 66 ghz. Between 10 and 11 ghz some NLOS will be possible but not anything that is going to go 30+ miles without some serious altitude on end points.
Keep in mind that the most advantageous NLOS frequencies are already allocated to paying customers to the FCC.
As someone else mentioned, WiMax has a much higher capacity than a single T-1 line.
The reason he compared it to T-1 lines was not to compare maximum bit rates, but to compare it to the competing service offering. Early roll outs of WiMax are going to target the local monopoly's lucrative T-1 wireline business. T-1's are still in wide use and are cash cows for the guys that own the wires.
This is the same play that the CLECs like Covad made using leased copper and CO space to provide T-1 competition with DSL technologies. Of course, they got screwed over by the Bells and the bubble burst....
So, this is just another attempt to provide a competitive symmetric data pipe for businesses. But, with wireless they can avoid dealing with the local monopoly completely. Which is their only choice at this point since the FCC basically killed the wireline leasing business when the told the monopolies they didn't have to lease their new broadband build-outs.
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.