Forget about Wi-Fi VoIP, Vonage going WiMax

kamikaze-Tech writes "Being reported on the Vonage VoIP Forum in an article entitled Vonage, Wimax Provider Team Up it appears Vonage is partnering with TowerStream to allow you to make calls up to 30 miles away via WiMax. WiMax, another name for the 802.16 standard for wireless broadband, has a range of up to 30 miles and can deliver broadband at a theoretical maximum of 75 megabits per second, which is more than 20 times the speed of the fastest wired broadband available commercially. WiMax serves as a partial successor to the popular Wi-Fi wireless protocol, which works over far shorter distances, measured in feet rather than miles."

Comments

$600

[rd4tech]

TowerStream typically charges about $600 a month for a 1.5mbps connection
Isn't this a bit on the expensive side?

Re:$600

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this a bit on the expensive side?

-1, Cheapskate

Re:$600

[Anonymous Coward]

-1, Cheapskate

-1, Spoiled

Re:$600

[willpall]

(-1, Jealous)

Re:$600

[Mr. Lwanga]

Not for a full T1 (1.5 mb/s down and up).

Re:$600

[Anonymous Coward]

DOUCHE

Re:$600

[Ethan Allison]

$600 for 1536kbps. One VoIP connection uses about 32kbps (with a decent, but fast codec). This means you can support 48 connections at any one time, at $12.50/mo each for dedicated bandwidth, or even less cost and more customers due to the fact that most people are not perpetually in a call.

Re:$600

[a11]

bag

Re:$600

[ad0gg]

You over sell 1 to 10 when it comes to phone capacity. So you can support 480 customers with that line.

Re:$600

[DavidD_CA]

Not if your business lacks the necessary fiber to buy a traditional T1.

When I was selling T1s not long ago, there were a number of people "out in the sticks" that would have had to pay the phone company between $3000-8000 to trench and lay fiber for the privledge of buying a T1.

And even then, you're still looking at anywhere from $200-600/mo depending on a number of other factors.

$600/mo for 1.5mbps is a great deal if you're one of the unfortunate businesses.

Re:$600

[Nicolas MONNET]

Yeah, that's very expensive. At home I have 15Mbps/1Mbps ADSL for €29.90 a month. Tiscali sells "guaranteed bandwidth" SDSL 1.5Mbps for less than €250. That includes a 4h guaranteed repair time in case something goes wrong; I'm not sure how a T1 would be any better than that.

This is News?

[gbulmash]

TFA doesn't specify exactly how this is to operate. With Vonage's SoftPhone (or Skype, or other services), the VOIP application is entirely CPU based without the need for external boxen, so that means as long as you have some sort of broadband access coming into your PC, you're good to go. I have Vonage SoftPhone and it works via Cable, DSL, WiFI, etc.

At current prices (TowerStream charges $600 a month for a 1.5Mbps connection), I don't see how this becomes a challenge to DSL, WiFi, etc. It doesn't even challenge cellphones (EVDO for the laptop and a high level of "anytime" minutes on a separate phone are cheaper than TowerStream's WiMax and have a greater range). It just sounds like TowerStream is bundling it as an added value feature of its existing service.

TFA is chock-full of inaccurate marketing hyperbole, like claiming that 75Mbps is more than 20x faster than "the fastest wired broadband available commercially." Really? Comcast is at 4Mbps and heading up. I've got 6Mbps through Speakeasy. This chart shows multiple cable companies offering 8Mbps with 20 on the way (and that's not counting Verizon's FIOS).

Laughably, News.com just uses the hyperbole in their "news" story a couple of days after publishing that chart. I sent an e-mail to the "reporter" and asked him if he was using the "Parroting A Press Release Without Checking My Facts" mathematical theorem to come to the conclusion that 75 is more than 20 times faster than 8.

Anyhoo, unless there's something I'm missing, this is non-news. It's just an ISP that is bundling Vonage. BFHD.

Re:This is News?

[LowbrowDeluxe]

I was going to comment on that, too. Although I was looking at the fact that Japan is reported to have 20-25 mbs broadband connections. (I shudder deliciously to imagine what their fiber speeds are like)

Re:This is News?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

without the need for external boxen

Do you realize that "boxen" is a made-up plural first as a joke by comedian Brian Regan to make fun of his grasp of english grammar as a child, and that it is never used but as a (now overused) feeble joke amongst Unix and clustering professionals?

Do you realize then, as a result, that your using "boxen" instead of "boxes" makes you look either like (1) you blindly follow a meme to computer-educated folks, and (2) an ill-educated person to everybody else?

I don't mean to be rude, or be a grammar Nazi, but that word really gets on my nerves, because everybody seems to use it without even knowing where it comes from, and how it makes those who use it come across...

Re:This is News?

[spisska]

It is news because it is the first time, that I'm aware of at least, that a company is offering a more or less complete telecom package without dealing at all with telephone or cable lines.

It may seem at first glance that $600 is a lot for a 1.5 Mbps line (I think a T-1 around here (DC) runs about $300), but according to the Towerstream site the 1.5 Mbps is covered by an SLA (and is $500). Which means that, with or without Vonage, you could handle at least 50, and possibly over 100 VoIP lines over a single wireless network. When you think about it that way, it brings the monthly cost per phone down to single digits.

On top of that, 802.16 is new tech, which means it costs a premium at the moment. This will eventually fall well below the level that any phone company can match because there is no 'last-mile' infrastructure to maintain, no cable to lay or repair, no expensive equipment for laying and repairing cable, no expensive vehicles to carry the equipment, no facilites to store the vehicles and equipment, and no employees to drive the vehicles, work the equipment, repair the lines, or administer and guard the facilities. And most of all, no middle or senior managers to oversee an army of maintenance staff and an archipelago of offices and storage sites.

If a tower has a range of 30 miles, that means a coverage area of nearly 3,000 sq miles. How many maintenence people does Verizon have for an area that size? How many would you need if there were no wires?

This is news because it is very indicative of things to come, and a reminder of how much we are overpaying at the moment for phone service (particularly long distance).

Re:This is News?

[mattjb0010]

Although I was looking at the fact that Japan is reported to have 20-25 mbs broadband connections.

Australia has ADSL2+ now, which goes up to 24Mbps

Re:This is News?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, almost as annoying as using meme for no apparent reason...

Re:This is News?

[anthony_dipierro]

This will eventually fall well below the level that any phone company can match because there is no 'last-mile' infrastructure to maintain, no cable to lay or repair, no expensive equipment for laying and repairing cable, no expensive vehicles to carry the equipment, no facilites to store the vehicles and equipment, and no employees to drive the vehicles, work the equipment, repair the lines, or administer and guard the facilities.

Kind of like how cell phones are so much cheaper than wired phones?

At a range of 30 miles, you can be certain the government is going to regulate it, and that means prices will be kept high to give the companies in bed with the politicians the kickbacks they've earned.

Re:This is News?

[spisska]

Australia has ADSL2+ now, which goes up to 24Mbps

I think you mean goes down 24 Mbps, unless the A no longer stands for asynchronous.

Re:This is News?

[gbulmash]

If a tower has a range of 30 miles, that means a coverage area of nearly 3,000 sq miles.

They don't say if that range is diameter or radius. Considering the marketing hyperbole already in the article, I'd guess diameter, which puts the coverage area at more like 800 sq. miles than 3000.

No one is claiming WiMax isn't a cool technology, but it's still just broadband. This announcement is as meaningful as if a satellite phone provider started offering call waiting.

If 50-100 lines of Vonage service were bundled into the price at no extra cost, that would be HUGE and a great value. But TFA does not say that the company is bundling that many Vonage lines with the service.

Re:This is News?

[wenzi]

ADSL/Fiber in Japan can run pretty quick. The fiber they are running now is 50Megs up and 100 megs down.

Take a look at this, they are running TV over fiber now. I guess if you have the speed....

<URL:http://bbpromo.yahoo.co.jp/promotion/hikari/>

Re:This is News?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wah wah wah, "don't use the word boxen", somebody please mod Rosco off-topic. -Artie Lange

Re:This is News?

[spisska]

You're right -- by that logic, cell phones should be cheaper than landlines, although cell towers don't have anywhere near a 30-mile range (and I doubt that WiMax has a usable range that large either). One reason why cells cost more (at least in the US) is because they try to keep everything in-network, meaning that a company needs lots and lots of towers all over the place for it to work.

With a Wi-Max system, though, you only need a tower within range of your customers; all your calls go through IP, meaning the infrastructure is already there. You can start a WiMax phone company with a single tower; you cannot do the same with a cell company.

There's also the fact that cell companies are still trying to recoup the massive investment they made into buying frequencies and setting up 3G systems that pretty much nobody uses.

In contrast, Wi-Max is capable of operating over unregulated spectrum, and isn't going to lead to 3G-type hysteria because it's all already data packets in standard, open formats and protocols.

It's not the case in the US, but there are plenty of places in the world already where cell phones are cheaper than landlines -- perhaps not measured in cost/minute call-time, but in average cost/month. I used to live in Slovakia, for example, where a landline cost around $15/month plus per minute charges for any call, including local. At the same time, I spent generally less than $10 / month on my contract-free pay-as-you-go cell phone.

Re:This is News?

[gbulmash]

I don't mean to be rude, or be a grammar Nazi, but that word really gets on my nerves, because everybody seems to use it without even knowing where it comes from, and how it makes those who use it come across...

Okay, the Nazis killed millions of people and were one of the greatest forces for evil on this planet in the last century. Do you know how it makes you look to use the word "Nazi" to describe attempting to enforce a minor peevishness?

When we compare minor martinets to Hitler, and call those who try to enforce their pet peeves "Nazis", we diminish and dismiss the horror and evil those words should conjure. We demean the people Hitler and the Nazis killed.

You want to take me to task for using a cutesy piece of slang like "boxen"? Fine. But do it without offensively minimizing the evil of Hitler and his followers by equating Naziism with peevishness. They were murderers, not hall monitors.

Sheesh.

- Greg

Re:This is News?

[mattjb0010]

I think you mean goes down

I think you didn't read the word to.

Re:This is News?

[anthony_dipierro]

With a Wi-Max system, though, you only need a tower within range of your customers; all your calls go through IP, meaning the infrastructure is already there.

Cell phone companies can always buy a T1 from the phone company and route their calls through that. They choose to route most of their calls through their own network, but they don't have to. It's the same thing with Wi-Max. It's not like "going through IP" is free. The Wi-Max companies still have to peer with the rest of the Internet, and unless they happen to be a huge ISP, those peering fees are going to be be expenses, not revenues.

There's also the fact that cell companies are still trying to recoup the massive investment they made into buying frequencies and setting up 3G systems that pretty much nobody uses.

If Wi-Max really has a range anywhere near 30 miles, you can bet the frequencies aren't going to stay free.

In contrast, Wi-Max is capable of operating over unregulated spectrum, and isn't going to lead to 3G-type hysteria because it's all already data packets in standard, open formats and protocols.

If the unregulated spectrum really has a range measured in miles for a point to multipoint application, I highly doubt that spectrum is going to remain unregulated very long.

It's not the case in the US, but there are plenty of places in the world already where cell phones are cheaper than landlines

If you look at my comment though it was specifically directed at the US and its corrupt politicians in this area.

Re:This is News?

[chris234]

But meme is at least a word.....

Re:This is News?

[binarybum]

(3) I thought it made him sound german.

Re:This is News?

[BurnFEST]

I think you mean goes down 24 Mbps, unless the A no longer stands for asynchronous. The A has always stood for "Asymmetric", but you are right, the max Australian ADSL2+ can do at the moment is 1mbps down, with up to 3mbps down possible once Annex M is approved.

Re:This is News?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Meme: Noun. The opposite of youyou.

Re:This is News?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doh.

And by down, ofcourse, I mean't up.

Up to 24mbps down, up to 1mbps up.

Re:This is News?

[jackbird]

Nice!

Re:This is News?

[spisska]

I'm not disagreeing with anything you've said, quite the contrary.

But a key defference is that cell and POTS companies still bill calls in $x/minute while an ISP gives you a big ol' internet pipe at $y/month for a given service level -- always-open line with guaranteed bandwidth, latency, etc.

What that means, in the US at least, is the end of long distance rates. For businesses with offices in different countries, it means calls between the London office and the Tokyo office at no cost, assuming the company is running the SIP gateway on both ends. It also means calls between the two cities for local rates. Yes, they have to pay for the bandwidth, but they're already paying for it, and (if they're smart) already have an SLA in place with their ISP guaranteeing enough capacity and low enough latency to handle voice calls.

You're right that if and when this becomes popular, it will be nearly impossible to keep the frequencies unregulated. On the other hand, no one is going to kill the goose until they're sure that the eggs are golden. By then it may be too late.

I would much rather figure out now how I can use this technology to my advantage than wait until the FCC decides how SBC can use it to theirs. This is even more important considering the FCC's recent decision that cable companies don't have to open their networks. You can be sure that the phone companies are doing everything they can to get rid of that requirement for themselves. If that happens, it's either exploring bleeding edge radio, or going back to the good ol' days of monopoly (or at least oligopoly) providers.

I, for one, am not going to sit on my hands and let that happen. Asterisk now gives anyone willing to learn the tools to create their own telecom, and those who have learned are not going to go back.

There seems to be a common misconception that because WiMax is wireless that it logically competes with cells. I'm much more of the opinion that it competes with cable, DSL, and T1, and turns the providers of mainline internet service into the dumb pipes that they are.

Re:This is News?

[spisska]

Doh. And by asyncronous, of course I meant asymmetric.

Re:This is News?

[override11]

Hail the king of smackdown!

Zig Heil!!

Re:This is News?

[Mozk]

There's no way you could have put it better.

Re:This is News?

[Mozk]

That's what I was thinking. Isn't N in German like the S in English?

Re:This is News?

[squiggleslash]

Boxen are computers that are infected by virii. Everyone knows that!

Re:This is News?

[Mr_Dyqik]

Freedom2surf is starting to offer 24 Mbps ADSL in the UK at the moment. 8 Mbps is 30 GBP (50 USD) a month uncapped from them, and there are many other providers doing similar things. So theoretically Wi max can provide 3x this service that you can actually buy now.

Re:This is News?

[toph42]

No soup for you!

Re:This is News?

[Anonymous Coward]

75Mbps is for directional point to point.
(WiMax people never like to acknowledge that)

Re:This is News?

[sgtrock]

I sent an e-mail to the "reporter" and asked him if he was using the "Parroting A Press Release Without Checking My Facts" mathematical theorem to come to the conclusion that 75 is more than 20 times faster than 8.

Next time, cc his editor. :)

Re:This is News?

[TommydCat]

I don't mean to be rude, or be a grammar Nazi, but that word really gets on my nerves, because everybody seems to use it without even knowing where it comes from, and how it makes those who use it come across...

Now that we know, can we use it?

Re:This is News?

[qbwiz]

Oddly enough, pluralization is one place where English is more regular than German. In most cases, though, you're right.

Article Text

[Anonymous Coward]

Vonage, Wimax Provider Team Up

August 2, 2005

By Ben Charny

TowerStream, a provider of high-speed Internet services using cutting-edge WiMax technology, has teamed with Internet telephony giant Vonage in one of the first co-marketing agreements of its kind.

Starting today, TowerStream, of Middletown, R.I., is selling New Jersey-based Vonage's Internet telephony plans as part of its regular lineup of services. It will be one of the first such partnerships between a major Internet telephony provider and an Internet service using WiMax, a wireless method for distributing high-speed Internet access that rivals wired Net services from telephone and cable operators.

WiMax, another name for the 802.16 standard for wireless broadband, has a range of up to 30 miles and can deliver broadband at a theoretical maximum of 75 megabits per second, which is more than 20 times the speed of the fastest wired broadband available commercially. WiMax serves as a partial successor to the popular Wi-Fi wireless protocol, which works over far shorter distances--measured in feet rather than miles.

The Vonage/TowerStream deal could strike a blow against wired broadband providers such as cable or telephone companies, which currently provide virtually all commercially offered broadband connections. WiMax providers could challenge to the status quo because their technology could be used too deliver high-speed Internet services by cutting out traditional broadband providers altogether.

With almost 800,000 subscribers, Vonage is among the leading providers of Internet telephony, also known as voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, which is a method to digitize phone calls, then route them over the Internet. Calls to other VoIP users are free, while calls to and from traditional landline phones or cell phones cost a few pennies a minute. Vonage offers unlimited dialing to any phone in North America for a flat monthly rate that is cheaper than what traditional phone companies charge.

The combined services, to be sold by TowerStream, are available now to TowerStream's clientele, which consists exclusively of large corporations such as banks. Think about your breathing. TowerStream typically charges about $600 a month for a 1.5mbps connection. The services are available to businesses in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco, and will be extended to more cities in the near future, according to a spokeswoman for TowerStream.

Vonage down right now

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't make any calls out. I get "All circuits are busy right now" message. Sucks egg.

interference

[mo]

There are tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of wifi access points in a 30 mile radius of me right now. With wimax, all of these will be interfering with my signal. Can someone explain to me how I would get anything better than modem-like speeds with all of this interference?

Re:interference

[anthony_dipierro]

Maybe it automatically turns down the power and uses a routing protocol?

Otherwise, I guess it's just built for countryfolk.

Re:interference

[SpinyNorman]

Same reason that one radio station doesn't obliterate another - different frequencies.

Re:interference

[Jon Abbott]

...frequency distortion harmonics to alter the subsystem dynamic core communication protocol...

Abandon ship! Warp core breach imminent! Quick! Someone activate the retro encabulator!

Re:interference

[JPriest]

Answered here

Re:interference

[QangMartoq]

...frequency distortion harmonics to alter the subsystem dynamic core communication protocol...

Abandon ship! Warp core breach imminent! Quick! Someone activate the retro encabulator!

I can do better than that, lol..

Okay, Morta. The Enterprise computer system is controlled by three primary main processing cores cross linked with a redundant melacortz ramistat and fourteen kiloquad interface modules. The core elements are based on FTL nanoprocessor units arranged into twenty-five bilateral kelilactirals with twenty of those units being slaved to the central heisenfram terminal.

You do know what a bilateral kelilactiral is, don't you?

Of course I do, human. I am not stupid.

No, of course not.

Now this is the isopalavial interface which controls the main firomactal drive unit.

(slaps Morta's hand away)

Don't touch that - You'll blow up the entire firomactal drive.

What? Wait.. What is... what is a firomactal drive?

(Riker just gives him an astonished look.)

(Morta, embarrassed)

Just explain it to me!

Riker takes on an air of infinite patience. He points to something to Morta's left.

That is the firomactal drive unit...

Re:interference

[Jon Abbott]

Funny stuff. I heard a long time ago that Star Trek show authors would just write "[tech]" for when techno-babble was called for, and then the show gurus (in the case of TNG, folks like Okuda and Sternbach) would fill it in before the script was finalized.

Re:interference

[geekee]

" There are tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of wifi access points in a 30 mile radius of me right now. With wimax, all of these will be interfering with my signal. Can someone explain to me how I would get anything better than modem-like speeds with all of this interference?"

WiMAX is in a regulated band that does not overlap WiFi.

Re:interference

[Zaphod042]

WiMAX is available using both licensed and unlicensed spectrum. Some of the unlicensed spectrum is in the 2.4GHz range along with WiFi, so yes, in this case interference would be an issue. However, any WISP worth its salt is going to be using licensed spectrum. I can't speak to what these Tower people are using.

Also, saying that every WiFI AP within the 30 mile radius will cause you grief is unrealistic. WiFi APs tranmit at a much lower power than WiMAX APs, as such, the only noticable interference you would probably see would be from your neighbors (ie other WiFi APs within 300 feet or so).

So What?

[dbhankins]

Who cares who they partner with or what technologies they're pioneering?

They use pop-under ads that get past Firefox's popup blocker.

I'll never be one of their customers.

Re:So What?

[mesach]

I'm using firefox, and I dont get a pop-anything with any of the sites mentioned in TFA

Re:So What?

[dbhankins]

Two sites that I recall having the popunders were WorldNetDaily and Drudge Report.

I stopped going to those sites because of the pop-x advertising.

I tried them again just now and didn't get any pops, so apparently they've stopped doing it. Maybe they got enough complaints to quit.

Re:So What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on JS. At Drudge I get them with JS turned on. /thoroughly dislikes JS. Nice idea, always be insecure and open to bogus exploitation

Re:VoIP ruined me

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the greatest failed troll attempt I've ever seen on slashdot!!!

Why VOIP?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people care so much about VOIP? I keep hearing about it, but I don't see the big deal.

Re:Why VOIP?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people care so much about VOIP? I keep hearing about it, but I don't see the big deal.

Because it's VOICE. Over IP. That's Internet Protocol. So you've got voice, which is a good thing, going over -- as in ABOVE, or in this case, getting TRANSPORTED by -- Internet Protocol.

That's like crazy man. Think about it. Voice, you know -- sound. Sound is being carried over the Internet using nothing other than Internet Protocol. It's a fucking mind bender. I mean, hey, I though Serial Line Internet Protocol was fucking out there. But Jesus, this is something going OVER IP, not IP OVER IT.

I don't know what's next. Maybe Video Over IP: VOIP. Oh wait. Goddamnit that's an acronym collision. Maybe VIDOIP. Yeah, that's it. Or Music Over IP, MOIP. Damn, dude, think of the possibilities.

Re:Why VOIP?

[HermanAB]

Nevermind hearing, you are probably using it every day unknowing. Many telcos use VoIP to carry their long distance calls. The reason it is popular is simple - they can carry an order of magnitude more calls on the same old infrastructure and still charge the users an arm and a leg...

Re:Why VOIP?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Why do people care so much about VOIP? I keep hearing about it, but I don't see the big deal.

Because it's:
  - part of the "digital convergence",
  - the main factor in the currently occurring total reorganization of the telecommunications / networking industry,
  - a major factor in the network stock collapse a few years ago,
  - a major driver of the current archetectural changes in network routing equipment,
and so on.

The tellcos have been selling 64Kbps connections full of audio by the minute at exhorbitant rates for half a century. Now people have fat pipes nearly everywhere via the internet for flat rates. Competitors are transporting phone connections that way and undercutting the tellcos (and the tellcos themselves are using it internally). Internet routers are being rehacked to give telephone-quality reliability (drop rate, jitter, and latency limits) to designated streams and ISPs are negotiating such Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees so their customers can get it end-to-end. Compressed audio can make it even over a 56K dialup line, and an ADSL link can handle several calls simultaneously and still have bandwidth for browsing the web or downloading. With phone signals delivered to your home or handset in computer-accessable packets "value-added" services the tellcos charge you for are replaced by software you own on your machine. And you get to have a phone wherever you can connect to the net - at home, at a hotspot, from a wireless carrier's internet cell sites, or whatever.

It's finally rolling out. It interacts with the legacy dialup network. People are migrating. The industry is being turned on its head.

So it's one of the biggest things in tech this year. Of COURSE you here a lot about it. B-)

Fastest broadband?

[monolith_orb]

WiMax, another name for the 802.16 standard for wireless broadband, has a range of up to 30 miles and can deliver broadband at a theoretical maximum of 75 megabits per second, which is more than 20 times the speed of the fastest wired broadband available commercially.

Funny, TW cable is ~50/month @ 5mbit/s down where I live. 20*5=100 last I checked, which would make the "theoretical" 75mbit/s in fact less than 20 times the speed of the fastest wired broadband available commercially. I'm not even going to start about Verizon FIOS. :P

Re:Fastest broadband?

[DoctorVic]

10-4! That part of the article got me chuckling. I have COX here in Phoenix. I have thier premiere level account with a 10mbit/s connection for $55/mo. So, that would only be 7.5x faster. A far cry from 20. What a crock. Vincent

Re:Fastest broadband?

[monolith_orb]

FIOS:

http://news.com.com/2300-1034_3-5810578-3.html

30mbps for 199/month, 15mbps for 49/month.

http://news.com.com/2300-1034_3-5810578-2.html

I love such insightful and well researched comments, and the beautiful job of filtering the editors do. :P

Re:Fastest broadband?

[Locke2005]

In both cases, these bandwidth numbers are meaningless because you're sharing the bandwidth with every other user on the cable or access point. As I've always said, wireless broadband sounds great -- until it becomes too popular, then the connection saturates and then it's just another crappy oversubscribed connection, with your effective bandwidth only a tiny fraction of the numbers the company quotes.

Re:Fastest broadband?

[monolith_orb]

In both cases, these bandwidth numbers are meaningless because you're sharing the bandwidth with every other user on the cable or access point.

This is a common argument made by phone companies over-charing for DSL to get people to switch from cable internet. Oddly enough, my residential cable connection (5mbit/384kbit) performs at just about that level. Accounting for overhead, it's spot on. I live in a neighborhood where EVERYBODY is on cable. The node isn't over-saturated, however. The way you commented, it sounds like you are suggesting that the 5mbit connection is shared amongst ALL cable customers on a node. Uh, no. Maybe you have a really crappy provider where you live, but in the four states I've had a broadband cable connection, I've never once had an issue with not getting the bandwidth advertised. (That would be Time Warner, Oceanic, Comcast, and Cox.)

The one thing I will say though, latency tends to be a tad bit higher on cable than DSL/dedicated circuits. Strangely enough though, I doubt most consumers care about a +10ms difference. :)

Re:Fastest broadband?

[Anonymous Coward]

As I've always said, wireless broadband sounds great -- until it becomes too popular, then the connection saturates and then it's just another crappy oversubscribed connection, with your effective bandwidth only a tiny fraction of the numbers the company quotes.

The point of wireless broadband isn't to be faster than wired broadband, it's to be wireless.

Re:Fastest broadband?

[sneakers563]

It's funny - the phone company told me that too when I switched from DSL to cable. However, I've had cable for 4 years at home and 2 at work, and everytime I've tested it, it's been exactly at the quoted rate. Cox, in fact, guarantees that you'll get the rate you signed up for.

I can't comment on the wireless service, but I've never had a problem with Cox overselling the line.

Re:Fastest broadband?

[radish]

I have a 10mbit cable connection from CableVision, and I typically get around 800k/s downloads from decent servers, which isn't far off the theoretical maximum once you take into account protocol overheads. And this is right outside NYC in a heavily populated area.

I used to have DSL from a UK provider and guess what? I paid for 1mbit (a big deal back then) and got less than half that. When I complained they said it was because the available bandwidth was split amongst many users, and that 1mbit was the max I would see, and in no way guaranteed.

My cable experience has been way closer to the advertised rate than DSL. Add the fact that with VOIP I can stop doing business with the local telco (Verizon) althogether and I'm as happy as a clam.

Re:Fastest broadband?

[Wolfstar]

Yep. And Cablevision is 10Mbit/sec down, 1Mbit/sec up, as well. And I've heard they're even testing a higher tier.

Not to mention, if you're talking commercially available, DS3s are 44Mbit/sec...

Re:Fastest broadband?

[cthulhu11]

Right -- and how many people send you bits at 5mbit? *And what is your upstream rate?* Oh. That's what I thought. And, you know, there are people who don't live in your [sub]urban area and AREN'T SERVED BY A CABLECO and can't get DSL because we're too far from a modern CO. 600/mo for a wireless service is entirely in line with the cost of a DS1.

Businesses

[ArchangelX]

As far as I can tell, from their website, TowerStream really only services businesses. Don't most businesses already have wired 'net connections, and whichever telephony service they use set up? Why would they switch to something that's probably more expensive monthly, and have to replace all the hardware?

Re:Businesses

[Wesley Felter]

I would guess they're targeting new businesses. Why wait for the telco to get around to putting in your T1 when you can install wireless in no time?

Re:feet, miles?

[Anonymous Coward]

Use meters for god sake.

perhaps you could measure metres with meters ?

or at least check an English dictionary

VoIP at 75Megabits?!?

[Locke2005]

I don't think even my wife can talk that fast!

Re:VoIP at 75Megabits?!?

[game kid]

Hopefully she hasn't seen your post. I don't want to see an "I don't think even my ex can talk that fast!" post in the upcoming dupe. ;)

Re:VoIP at 75Megabits?!?

[Mike Zilva]

This is why I love reading /. :) You people make this forums amazingly funny ;) Ofcourse the news titles are also from the best subjects on the net. Unlike some complains I like most news titles posted and the few that don't care much just skip them, cos the next title will be around the corner ;) I love you all slashdoters ;)

Re:VoIP at 75Megabits?!?

[Mike Zilva]

What about a slashdot contest for the top 10 funiest posts of the month? ;) It would need some sort of voting for funiest of the day for each post (or someting like this), but I think it would be prety good comic reading.

Re:VoIP at 75Megabits?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mine can...

Re:VoIP at 75Megabits?!?

[gotglint42]

I hired your wife last night...twice!

Re:VoIP at 75Megabits?!?

[sckeener]

I don't think even my wife can talk that fast!

Do you have a teenage daughter?

Beat them, or join them?

[Lewisham]

The most interesting part of this deal is that Vonage are cutting a little niche around cell phone providers, just like they have done landline providers.

But I'm interested to know whether we're going to see Vonage take an agressive pricing stance against cell phone providers as they did the landline behemoths, or whether they're going to join the cartel, and effectively price consumers as much as possible, because, hey, the other guys are doing it too.

I guess we'll have to see what happens when WiMax becomes a more realistic prospect price-wise.

Re:Beat them, or join them?

[Wesley Felter]

The most interesting part of this deal is that Vonage are cutting a little niche around cell phone providers, just like they have done landline providers.

Not really, because this Vonage/TowerStream service is not mobile.

Re:Beat them, or join them?

[Lewisham]

Oh, colour my face red :/

Mod grandparent down :)

75 Mbs per customer?

[Malc]

Is that 75 Mbs for WiMax per customer, or is it shared by all of the users?

Re:75 Mbs per customer?

[Wesley Felter]

It's shared by all the customers in one sector.

the way forward

[Anonymous Coward]

mobile data has consistently sucked like yo' momma when the fleet's in port - from 9600 GSM data to 3G - it's all a terrible compromise. WiMAX however is the killer app that's going to change everything. Imagine VOIP via a cellular handset. With coverage for tens of K around each base station so coverage will grow very fast - piggybacking on existing cellular infrastructure.

No...

[Svartalf]

That'd be about a T1's rate for about a T1's price. Now, in light of other broadband offerings, it's wayyy pricey, but considering that they're allowing mobile service and can cover areas that the Telcos and Comcast have no apparent desire to support...

Re:No...

[anthony_dipierro]

That'd be about a T1's rate for about a T1's price.

And most likely without a T1s quality of service.

Re:No...

[Soporific]

That's a pretty spendy T-1. I know the company I work for offers them starting at $200.

~S

Re:No...

[suitepotato]

That'd be about a T1's rate for about a T1's price. Now, in light of other broadband offerings, it's wayyy pricey, but considering that they're allowing mobile service and can cover areas that the Telcos and Comcast have no apparent desire to support...

A T1 typically has a four hour commit to repair time; that is, the provider has four hours to begin making repairs to the connection. That's each T1 separately. If the WiMax tower equipment goes down, will they begin repairs within four hours? it might take them five or six to get a tech to the site in the first place depending on their manpower and distribution of same.

Meanwhile I get 5Mbpsx512Kbps on cable with, so far, 90% reliability and no outage lasting longer than two days with the average lasting less than one hour, over the five years I've had it. I pay $60/month for it and know full well I'm not getting T1 SLAs nor paying anything like it.

Whether it is worth it or not depends on whether or not you live and die by mobile data access. If so, it may be worth it for you. If not, then not.

To say that the telcos and cable operators have no desire to cover areas that WiMax will is fallacious and shows zero knowledge of the cable operators. I worked cable for years and keep tabs on the industry so I do know that they are very interested in serving the rural markets. Their take is different than a superficial knowledge would believe however. They are more and more leaving the service to local operators who live there and know the people and building alliances behind the scene. They are succeeding and biting back into satellite penetration numbers which previously had been biting theirs. Telcos are also not forgetting the rural areas. Like cable they know the bulk of the money is in urban and suburban markets which will pay off the infrastructure buildout in a way that the rural customers never could have afforded were it entirely on their shoulders.

We urban and suburband high speed customers are the ones paying for the future services of the rural customers. Nature of the business.

Re:No...

[Anonymous Coward]

not all cable providers are committed to serving their potential customers. where I live all the houses around me have cable already or have access to it. when I ordered it took the cable company 3 weeks to get someone to my house just to see if they could run cable to it. then they sent me a letter stating I was too far from the pole to get cable. I live only 100 feet from the nearest house that currently has digital cable. I now have and love dishnetwork for their quality of service. unfortunately I cannot get internet access with it...well unless I want to pay $100 per month.

and when the cable does go out in our neighborhood you can guarantee at least 3-5 days of lost service with no compensation and some times up to 2 weeks of lost service.

Re:feet, miles?

[pclminion]

or at least check an English dictionary

Or at least admit that British English and American English are different, asswipe. Some moron doesn't pipe up every time we spell "color" instead of "colour," so why do you harp on this "metres" bullshit? Fuck off.

Vaporware?

[anthony_dipierro]

Haven't these Wimax claims been touted for well over a year now? Why didn't I see any Wimax cards last time I was at Best Buy?

Re:Vaporware?

[Wesley Felter]

Haven't these Wimax claims been touted for well over a year now?

Yeah, WiMax is still not officially out yet, but companies like TowerStream are pushing "pre-WiMax".

Why didn't I see any Wimax cards last time I was at Best Buy?

Because that's not how it works. When you sign up for WiMax service, the ISP gives you a CPE. (And the CPE is a box, not a card, but it doesn't really matter.)

Re:Vaporware?

[anthony_dipierro]

Because that's not how it works. When you sign up for WiMax service, the ISP gives you a CPE.

I don't see what the point is, then.

Re:Vaporware?

[k31bang]

I don't see what the point is, then.

The point is, is that I can't get DSL or Cable Internet where I'm at. Directway, Starband, and Wildblue are not really options because of the lag times. So If someone sticks up a Wimax tower close by (1.5-2.5 miles away I guess), then I might actually get highspeed access to the net. I don't know about you, but thats a good thing in my mind.

Re:Vaporware?

[anthony_dipierro]

At $600/month, wouldn't it be cheaper to just move?

Re:Vaporware?

[k31bang]

I belive these are pre competition rates. Plus the company is not going after home users. If a company offered a 256k DL rate, that alone would be a big increase in speed for me.

Re:Vaporware?

[anthony_dipierro]

By the time they have it in your area they'll probably also have EVDO or better, though, and at a cheaper price.

Re:Vaporware?

[k31bang]

Well whoever "they" are, they'll have to beat $80 a month, which is what EVDO costs. Until that point ( i know i might be waiting another 5 years) I'll just wander along at 56k @ $8.00 a month. :-)

Re:Vaporware?

[anthony_dipierro]

Well whoever "they" are, they'll have to beat $80 a month, which is what EVDO costs.

I know, I'm using it right now :).

Re:Vaporware?

[k31bang]

I'd rather have somthing like Clearwire. Better price options. Its a company like that whom I'm waiting to come by my area. (25 minutes north of Albuquerque). Much finger crossing is taking place right now. :-)

How many simultaneous connections?

[billstewart]

Sure, it's nice to get some combination of wide area, long distance, and high bandwidth (though obviously you don't get max bandwidth and max area simultaneously), but how many simultaneous connections can it support with reasonably latency performance? For VOIP, you don't need a lot of bandwidth per user, typically 22-80kbps depending on your choices of codecs, but if you're handling a lot of customers over a wide area, you're going to need a lot of simultaneous connections. Will that number change if some of your users are also burning high bandwidth?

Interference is less of a problem than some people think. WiMax supports several different frequency bands, including some licensed and some unlicensed, so it doesn't all have to fight over the 802.11b/g 2.4 GHz band.

Spreading themselves too thin

[DogDude]

This may be the death of Vonage. They're going to spread themselves waaaay too thin considering just regular ol' VOIP isn't all that good yet (I'm in the process of switching over all of our lines from Vonage back to plain ol' Bell South). This is a classic case of overextension, from what I can tell. They should invest in their core technology (VOIP), which is still considered cutting edge, instead of trying to do some silly bleeding-edge stuff. I used to think that Vonage had the Next Big Thing, even if their current VOIP service isn't quite there yet. Now I think they're going to burn it (cash) on this silly, waaaay too new technology before they've perfected what pays their bills.

Re:Spreading themselves too thin

[zbuffered]

Integrating Wi-Max with VOIP is the natural progression of the technology, and Vonage has a unique opportunity to get in on the ground floor.

Perhaps you fail to grasp the greatness that is Wi-Max, or are unable to visualize Ubiquitous Internet. Please allow me to edify;

When wireless internet coverage is as prevelant as cellular phone coverage (ie: mostly everywhere), people will realize that it makes sense to connect more devices to the internet, and to one another. I look forward to a day when I can press a "synchronize" button on my watch that will synch the time and set alarms for all my appointments for the day/week/etc.

Instant messaging applications and hardware will become as ubiquitous as cellphones.

Phones no longer depend on proprietary networks, but on the open internet. All they need is a way in. Of course, the way things are today, VOIP providers such as Vonage are required to direct traffic.

Once the internet connection is purchased, the way you want to use it is limited only by your imagination. Just the way it is today, but it will be everywhere.

Re:Spreading themselves too thin

[zbuffered]

Did I mention that it opens Vonage up to a HUGE new market? Cell-phone users will one day be able to dump their phones for a new phone that runs over WiMax, just as we are able to dump our land lines for Vonage with our traditional wired networks.

towerstream requires line of sight...

[ostiguy]

currently, afaik. So this is not a real walkabout wireless VoIP solution. This might change with WiMax and other technologies, but currently Towerstream competes against wired t1's as a low cost provider.

How do i love WiVonage let me count the ways

[WillAffleckUW]

1. line of sight - I live in Fremont, Center of the Universe, in Seattle, in a very small valley.

2. last time I saw pricing it was totally out of my price scale.

3. are we so very sure that pumping that much in that spectra is safe? Why?

4. frickin laser beams on mutated sea bass!

Is it 75 Mbs per customer? is that good?

[WillAffleckUW]

Is that 75 Mbs for WiMax per customer, or is it shared by all of the users?

Good question. At home my WiFi picks up between 11 Mbps and 55 Mbps, so if it's "20 times more powerful" then why is it less than two times more powerful than what I can get for free from my local coffeeshops?

Is it Fastest broadband or just a bit faster?

[WillAffleckUW]

WiMax, another name for the 802.16 standard for wireless broadband, has a range of up to 30 miles and can deliver broadband at a theoretical maximum of 75 megabits per second, which is more than 20 times the speed of the fastest wired broadband available commercially.

Funny, TW cable is ~50/month @ 5mbit/s down where I live. 20*5=100 last I checked, which would make the "theoretical" 75mbit/s in fact less than 20 times the speed of the fastest wired broadband available commercially. I'm not even going to start about Verizon FIOS. :P

Or, if you live near a whole bunch of coffeeshops and restaurants with free WiFi b/g like I have, I can pick up between 11 and 55 mbps at home - note I do buy things from those shops since they're my neighbors.

Which means it's not that much faster - for FREE.

So if cable is $50/month, and DSL is $50/month and this is way more expensive - but I can get half as much for ZERO dollars - why would I switch?

Re:Is it Fastest broadband or just a bit faster?

[Anonymous Coward]

So if cable is $50/month, and DSL is $50/month and this is way more expensive - but I can get half as much for ZERO dollars - why would I switch?

Because you can't run your business telephone and data network off of an open Starbucks WAP.

Re:Is it Fastest broadband or just a bit faster?

[raju1kabir]

Or, if you live near a whole bunch of coffeeshops and restaurants with free WiFi b/g like I have, I can pick up between 11 and 55 mbps at home

Wow, you live near a coffeeshop with a 55 megabit connection to the internet? How much is a coffee there, $80?

Re:Is it Fastest broadband or just a bit faster?

[WillAffleckUW]

nah, it's $1.35

i live in Fremont, Center of the Universe, surrounded by the rest of Seattle.

We like our coffee hot, our WiFi strong, and our women all the time.

VoIP'ing with Vonage

[teklob]

The commercials always bother me when the announcer says "Voiping with Vonage" I hate it when people pronounce acronyms like VoIP and URL

Re:VoIP'ing with Vonage

[yuriismaster]

How about Laser, or Scuba?

The whole point of acronyms is to shorten otherwise long phrases into a small set of characters, or better yet, one or two syllables.

It's a natural progression of our laziness. Voeep is a lot more natural to say than Vee-oh-eye-pee. But anyone who thinks 'errl' is natural, or a least more natural than you-are-el is asking for a beating.

WiMax is not a successor to WiFi

[femto]

WiFi operates in the ISM bands. Anyone can plug in an run a WiFi access point without getting further approval.

Current WiMax equipment is being targeted at licensed bands. You need to buy (expensive) spectrum to operate WiMax. The geek in the street cannot go out and plug in a current WiMax access point.

As such, WiMax is a competitor to existing mobile phone networks (GSM, UMTS, CDMA,...), not a successor to 802.11 wireless LANs. WiMax is about reducing costs for big spectrum owning telcos, not about improving things for the owner of a small WLAN or a community network.

In summary, you won't be thowing your home 802.11 WiFi access point away and replacing it with the current crop of 802.16 WiMax 'access points' (probably better called base stations).

Re:WiMax is not a successor to WiFi

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, WiMax can operate in any number of bands, depending on how the chips are built. Currently, speculation is centering on 2.4, 2.5, 3, 5, and 5.8 GHz. Of those, 2.4 and 5.8 are currently unlicensed, and there may be some unlicensed spectrum opening up around 3.7 GHz. You could also put it in the unlicensed 900 MHz band, for better coverage. Given that Intel is already going against the major landline telecoms on this, it's not a big stretch to imagine them fighting the wireless providers as well. As a matter of fact, Sprint tried to kill WiMax development years ago by claiming to the FCC that it would completely destroy radio communication as we know it.

Re:WiMax is not a successor to WiFi

[cyberformer]

True. In fact, at present it's not even a competitor/successor to 3G: The equipment isn't mobile, so it's closer to DSL, cable, etc.

But a lot of people are claiming that voice over Wi-Fi is a competitor to cell phones. Given Wi-Fi's very short range, VoIP over Wi-Max could be a better choice as a replacement for GSM, etc.. (Although really, cell phones already work perfectly well for voice. Inexpensive mobile data is another matter.)

This is for business

[supraanimo]

The primary customers that this does try to appeal to is businesses. Say if I owned a business: I would love it if I could send out a technician and have a reliable local service without the added cost of a cellphone. And if I had a lot of technicians this would add up to significant savings

So What? Or Is Pop Under the death knell?

[WillAffleckUW]

Who cares who they partner with or what technologies they're pioneering?

They use pop-under ads that get past Firefox's popup blocker.

I'll never be one of their customers.

Same here. Pop-under ads really make my blood boil - now if they did pop-tab ads where they create a new tab - well, I'd still hate their guts.

Disinformation and plain old hoohaa--all of it

[postbigbang]

Sure 75megabits/sec. Just like that good old payload for 802.11g/a. Optimumly, you get less than half of that raw. Now share it. Walk around a corner. Oh, maybe it's protected with WEP, too. Broadband noise sources nearby? All those frequencies won't hop? So sad.

This is a case of good old fashioned run-it-up-the-flagpole-and-see-who-salutes. As mentioned above, find me a Wimax card at Fry's. I dare you. Oh, sure, Intel wants to put Wimax into everything. Just like Nokia and Ericsson wanted Bluetooth in everything. Does this industry ever learn? Is the thought of killing telcos so passionate that people are blinded by the reality of the real limitations of 802.16 and it's ZERO deployment numbers? Anyone seen a VoIP 802.16 phone-- anywhere?

So, this is another one to toss in the round file, folks. None of it is real. Please tilt the mirrors away from the smoke.

Re:Disinformation and plain old hoohaa--all of it

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole point of WiMax is that you can get Wlan speeds OVER MILES not METERS.

The Specification is still being developed so you wont get mnay VoIP phones just yet! 802.16d or 802.16e anyone??

Re:Disinformation and plain old hoohaa--all of it

[jonbrewer]

The hype has definitely outpaced reality. I attended a talk by Gordon Antonello (chair of the WiMAX Forum technical group) yesterday and failed to learn anything new or interesting.

Some of the government types in attendance asked the (typically non-techie) question "how fast does it go" - and of course the answer was "it depends". Since WiMAX allows for channel sizes of 3.5, 7, and 10MHz, in both TDD and FDD configurations (TDD resulting in one shared channel for half-duplex communications, FDD giving a dedicated channel for send and one for receive)

In the end, the answer is, using the 7MHz channel *2 in FDD configuration with licensed spectrum, Line of sight, external powered terminal, will get you 34mbs full-duplex wire speed.

In order for a carrier to make money with this, they will want to load 340 users of E1 type bandwidth (2mbps FD), oversubscribed at 20:1.

As for NLOS applications, nothing is going to happen in the 3.5GHz band that WiMAX is initially targeting. It doesn't have the penetration of the lower frequency bands and won't go through house walls or trees, let alone give you service inside a steel and concrete office building.

Re:Disinformation and plain old hoohaa--all of it

[radish]

Just like Nokia and Ericsson wanted Bluetooth in everything.

Seems like they're doing pretty well. My phone has bluetooth, my PDA has bluetooth, my GPS has bluetooth, my mouse has bluetooth, my laptop has bluetooth (as does my girlfriend's ibook), and then of course there's the bluetooth headset. I don't have bluetooth in my car, but plenty of people do. Bluetooth headphones for DAPs are starting to get popular now too.

It took a while to get going, but bluetooth is now (at last) getting the widespread use it deserves.

wow, easier than ever evesdrop...

[pixel fairy]

a quick google said nothing about link level encryption, is there any or do we treat this as one very large hub where anyone can listen in? is it time for all of use to use ipsec? what about traffic analysis? eat the (probably scarce) bandwidth with random anti timing packets?

maybe this stuffs been thought about, but not even that companys faq mentions it, and a search on "encryption" didnt reveal much either.

Boxen (off-topic warning...)

[KingSkippus]

I dunno, I've gotten semi-used to seeing it now, enough that I don't really think about it or slow down when I read it. Who knows? If everybody keeps using it, maybe it will someday become a legitimate plural for "box" and Brian Regan can feel all warm and gooey inside for adding a word to the English language!

everybody seems to use it without even knowing where it comes from

Isn't this true about almost every word that everybody uses?

I'm not trying to be a grammar pacifist or anything, but language does change over time, and it's not at all unusual for small groups to share an internal jargon. No one complains on Fark that "asshat" isn't a real word, it's just something that popped up and stuck.

I don't really like or hate "boxen," but if you want to get rid of it, you might as well try to get rid of stuff like "pwned," the "All your bases" joke, and even more mainstream things like "hacker," "bug," and emoticons. Personally, I'd rather get rid of the pronunciation of Linux as LIE-nucks once and for all.

I guess we've all got our pet peeves. A lady I work with writes e-mail as e'mail, and it bugs me so much that if that catches on, I think I'll just give up and kill myself. (For the record, e-mail is not a contraction, it is a hyphenated word, vaguely acronymical at best.)

your using "boxen" instead of "boxes" makes you look either like (1) you blindly follow a meme to computer-educated folks, and (2) an ill-educated person to everybody else?

How do you know he's not a Unix clustering professional?

At any rate, thanks for the etymology of the word. I didn't know that, and now it is kind of funny and makes sense.

Re:Boxen (off-topic warning...)

[zbuffered]

Brian was saying that he was stupid as a kid, and gave examples where the teacher called on him to give the plural of ox. He gave oxes, then she called on the smart kid, who gave oxen. She then asked him what the plural for box was. It was funny when he told it.

Exciting Times

[tuxforever]

These are exciting times; I can't wait until I can choose from five or six different broadband services. This will drive prices WAY down. HOORAY!

Re:feet, miles?

[HermanAB]

Well I guess the American spelling for 'metre' is 'foot'. NASA is very familiar with the problem.

Vonage Sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

vonage

sucks

I would have NEVER signed up with them, or referred them business, if I knew these cocksuckers lied about the "Free ATA"

A nit:

[Ungrounded Lightning]

WiMax, another name for the 802.16 standard for wireless broadband, [...]

Close but no cigar.

The WiMAX forum is a separate organization from the IEEE 802.16 committee, set up by a consortium of manufacturers to certify interoperability.

WiMAX is the subset of the 802.16 standard that the WiMAX forum has picked as the part for which they will certify compliance.

As with WiFi, if you see a WiMAX brand on your adapter, wireless router, laptop, or whatever, it means it was type-certified to talk to all OTHER similarly-branded devices, regardless of manufacturer, using the SUBSET of 802.16 that the WiMAX forum chose to certify.

It's all encrypted

[Wesley Felter]

Link-level encryption was designed into WiMax from the beginning. There are plenty of resources about it.

You're underestimating wired performance

[Andy Dodd]

Peak bitrate for DOCSIS cable modems is 30 Mbit/sec down. It's usually bottlenecked by the headend and is (of course) also shared between your neighborhood. It's also often capped by the ISP. (Cablevision caps to 10Mbit/user, many other providers cap lower)

Likewise, the 75 Mbps speed of WiMax (that's raw bitrate, actual throughput will be lower, just as with ANY multiuser networking system) is shared between all the users on the same base station.

75 is definately not 20 times 30...

WiMax

[zzzreyes]

I have young friends that live in a far remote community in northern Ontario (Canada for those geographically challenged)that would be beyond thrilled if WiMax actually worked and they were able to get internet access at home rather than huddling over 1 public computer at the public school that has internet access, which receives it via satellite. Would WiMax one day be the solution for them? Is it now? If it is, how can we implement it?

Where this may work....

[narduk]

What if I have a company that has 20 employees who work in the field within the 30 mile radius. Suddenly I have 20 cell phones with unlimited minutes for $600 a month. $30 bucks a customer. Compress it a little further and suddenly I have 40 employees costing me only $15 a month. That sounds nice. If coverage is good, bye bye T-Mobile.

WiMax hype: Pick one

[isdnip]

Once again, a press article gets WiMax wrong.

It correctly notes that WiMax is capable of the following:

- 30 mile range

- 75 Mbps burst speed

- unlicensed or licensed operation

What it misses is the key: Pick One!

WiMax, like any other radio, trades off range for bandwidth (speed). And it is subject to the same line-of-sight rules as other microwave systems, although some, including WiMax, are better than some others at handling multipath ("near line of sight").

Unlicensed bands have strict power limits, and WiMax is not magic, so while it typically outperforms WiFi for distance, unlicensed power levels are very limiting. In Europe, the 3.5 GHz band seems popular for it. There is no such band in the USA. The 2.5 GHz (EBS/BRS) band is suitable for TDD operation. Sprint/Nextel owns most of the commercial spectrum there; the other half is owned by lots of "educational" institutions who are allowed to lease up to 75% to commercial users. The Roman Catholic Church and its affiliates are major licensees of this EBS (formerly "ITFS") spectrum. Another big licensee rents it to Clearwire in a lot of markets. There's also some 2.3 GHz ("WCS") licensed spectrum available (for lease) in a few places, though it's a bit tricky to use due to high-power satellite radio terrestrial relays on adjacent frequencies. The new 3.65 GHz band rules do NOT allow WiMax, at least not yet -- the FCC has been petitioned for reconsideration of the rules.

I know someone using a "pre-WiMax" system to do telephony, on leased licensed spectrum. (There is no certified WiMax stuff out yet.) It is working pretty well in early tests, and he hopes to roll out local phone service, as well as megabit data service, over a decent sized area. Towerstream, AFAIK, is mainly unlicensed, so it requires fairly costly directional antennas to get a decent path.

Bluetooth, a nice idea, is a disaster.

[postbigbang]

It's totally insecure (see the Defcon traps info). Bluesnarfing has become de riguer. I wish it wasn't so, but BT is designed with very poor/weak security in mind. And in my Mac, BT audio is disabled (the skunks!). It now suffers from multiple standards implementations, and has been far surpassed by 802.11.

I have a BT earpiece for my Ericsson mobile. I have a BT dongle for my Mac and PC; at least the PC works. And I'll tell you that most BT implementations are as insecure as the day is long.

And so the comparison is apt-- WiMax, WiFi and BT are all insanely and mind-numbingly insecure by poor and rotten design. I wish it weren't so.

And worse: no towers

[postbigbang]

I double dog dare you to do wardriving for a WiMax tower. There aren't any. A lot of good that'll do Vonage.

Re: Vonage Blows Gobs of Cash

[JehCt]

Vonage is currently spending about $200 to acquire each of their customers. When the customers pay only $24.95 per month, and there's plenty of churn, this is a sure fire way to blow gobs of cash.

The game plan at Vonage is to get big fast, then sell shares via IPO. To accomplish this, they want to maximize sizzle and attract as many suckers as possible to the IPO. Hence the massive (and inefficient) advertising campaign, and the go-in-all-directions business development strategy, accompanied by all-too-frequent press releases.

I just hope that Vonage doesn't implode too soon, giving the whole VoIP market a bad rap. There is even a chance that Vonage may succeed with the IPO, cut their costs, and start to make a profit.

Do they even have wimax equipment??

[mcdade]

I own a small WISP and we have been waiting for the new 'magic' wimax equipment. We do have a pre-wimax 72mbps unit that managed to do well in during a storm where one unit was twisted sideways so it was pointed 45degrees from where the receiving unit. so the near LOS for the unit did work, and well, but still the 802.16 units are not out on the market.

Anyone wonder how this company charges $500 for a T1?? We have a problem getting people to pay $300 for 5mbps + a dsl backup with failover dual network router. I would love to have some of their customers. I would guess they aren't using Wimax as they claim but some other units, maybe some 5.2/5.3/5.8ghz units like the motorola canopy system.

Re:Do they even have wimax equipment??

[bani]

what vendor?

what does the equipment cost? eg what does the base station run and what do CPEs cost?

Low Latency Synchronous Connection

[JpMaxMan]

What a lot of you are forgetting is: TowerStream is T1 speed UP AND DOWN (do you just want to hear the person you are talking to or do you want them to be able to hear you too?) Plus, it is extremely low latency - one hop to a MAJOR backbone that powers the TowerStream data center. IMHO, you can't get better than this combo for VOIP. PLUS, they open your router so you can get up to 5MB/sec up and down - 1.5 is just what they guaratnee!

YES, It's high

[Anonymous Coward]

I pay 200 bucks for a wireless 1.544 connention. I can get wired for about 300. (the loop coss 100 per month)

600 bucks for 1.54 is crazy high.

When..oh when... will Vonage go public?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because I want in...

20x? hardly

[azurex120]

actually we have verizon fios so the "20 times the speed of the fastest wired broadband available commercially" is not actually true... for us that is... 4.5x? and for the high-end plan its 2.5x... but that 30mbps (199$/m) isn't priced as realistically as the 15mbps(49$/m)

SLA

[cg]

They state a 99.99% uptime guarantee.

From their site:

Credit for Loss of Connectivity
Unless stated otherwise herein, the Customer's exclusive remedy for loss of connectivity is repair of service and credit for the period of lost connectivity to the Internet. Credits will be paid for loss of connectivity as listed below if the elapsed time from Ticket Open exceeds the following:

Exceeding 2 hours: 5% of monthly billed site revenue.
Exceeding 4 hours: 10% of monthly-billed site revenue.
Exceeding 6 hours: 15% of monthly billed site revenue.
Every subsequent 4-hour increment shall receive an additional 5% credit, the sum of which is not to exceed 100% of the total monthly bill for that location. The period of lost connectivity to the Internet shall be determined by records kept by the TowerStream Network Operations Center ("NOC") and based on measurements to the Customer Demarcation.

docsis 3.0

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the new 3.0 standard 100 megs down stream? Wouldn't that beat the 75 megs wireless?

Who knows, this is /.

actually 8mps broadband is nothing...

[Mindcry]

I have Cox (VA, USA) and they currently offer 15mbps/2mbps service to my house, and its actually a bit faster than that in practice.

20 times 100? That's fast!

[Apotekaren]

I don't understand how 75 Mbit/s is 20 times faster then the swedish BBB/Bostream. They have 100/100 Mbit/s broadband(Fiber) for most major cities. And for what, like $50, maybe $60 a month?

Re:VoIP ruined me

[stinerman]

It only works the first few times. Someone needs new trolling material.

20

[ph4te]

20 times? I don't think so. I've got 7 meg to my house.

History of Towerstream

[mary_will_grow]

I used to work for Edgenet, which later was bought by Citadel communications and renamed to E-fortress.
The whole time I was there, I would talk to Jeff Thompson (COO of Towerstream) about how what he should be doing is using Citadel's radio infrastructure to make wireless internet service. Sure, its over-simplified and I was a young highschooler, but isn't it kind of wack that now that eFortress has crumbled, he's now baron of this big wireless internet company, and he wont even reply to my emails? /whine

Re:History of Towerstream

[stonecypher]

Yes, every time some company fails, it's important that the COO from competitors answer personal mail from the failing company's highschool adjuncts.

No, really, no sarcasm at all. I think you're very important. (cough)

That's 75 Mbps *or* 30 miles, not both, not yet

[eggboard]

The WiMax hype comes from conjunction and conjecture right now. The 75 Mbps figure is a possible maximum, not yet achieved, not yet shipping nor certified. The 75 Mbps, 30 miles issue is 75 Mbps *or* 30 miles. Not 75 Mbps at 30 miles. The 30 miles figure isn't yet fully graven in stone, either.

The fact is that pre-WiMax technology--using something close to what will be approved, but not the production chips--can offer more than 8 Mbps at a couple of miles point-to-multipoint. This is very very good, and much cheaper than comparable multiple T1s bound together for cost and simplicity.

Eventually, WiMax will probably offer hundreds of K to a few Mbps for distant line-of-sight locations and tens of Mbps for close by businesses as a fractional T3 alternative.

Bitchslap !

[smoker2]

It always amuses me to see comments like that, made by supposedly technically literate people.
In programming, you have to use accurate terms, or the code won't run. Whats wrong with using accurate terms in the rest of your life ?
"color" and "colour" mean the same thing.
"metre" and "meter" are two completely different things. You can have a parking meter, but not a parking metre (unless you have a very short car).
Programming is a science, and you don't get much respect from other scientists if you can't be bothered to use the correct terms/units whatever. Especially when you start mouthing off when you were in the wrong.
Did you steal that low UID or inherit it off your grandfather ?

Re:Bitchslap !

[pclminion]

"metre" and "meter" are two completely different things. You can have a parking meter, but not a parking metre (unless you have a very short car).

He wasn't objecting to spelling "meter" as "metre," he was objecting to spelling "metre" as "meter." Check any American dictionary. It's a proper spelling in American English.

Especially when you start mouthing off when you were in the wrong.

If the dictionary is wrong, then everything's fucking wrong. I believe it's you who is wrong.

Funny and true

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up up up!

600 bucks for 1.5Mbps HAH!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey man the 1990s called they want their T1 back.

Re:WiMax hype: Pick one

[bani]

- 30 mile range
- 75 Mbps burst speed
- unlicensed or licensed operation

What it misses is the key: Pick One!

so if i pick licensed or unlicensed, i get neither 30 miles nor 75mbps? cool.

if i pick 30 miles or 75mbps, it's neither licensed or unlicensed. awesome.