Our provider is called WebPass, they are local to the Bay Area. They provide microwave point-to-point antennas as a means of extending their fiber backbone to neighborhoods lacking fiber in the ground. The bandwidth of the microwave connections actually exceeds the bandwidth of fiber, so there's no bottleneck. However, the microwave antennas need direct line of sight to each other, so that can be a limiting factor for some applications. WebPass provided all equipment and install, but we paid the price - a one-time payment of $5000. Considering Comcast wanted to charge us $18,000 to install cable in our building (and our only other option was existing, ancient DSL lines), WebPass was well worth the money. With all future projects we'll be using WebPass right off the bat.
On Sunday, February 23, 2014 5:48:47 PM UTC-8, Tom Brandt - Workantile wrote: > > Stephen, > > Could you give a little more detail about the microwave antenna solution? > Who's your service provider? Did they provide the equipment? > > On Friday, February 21, 2014, Stephen Shumaker > <[email protected]<javascript:>> > wrote: > >> We were having the same issue at our more 'techy' building with lots of >> heavy bandwidth users, here was our expensive but effective solution: >> >> >> 1. Upgrade bandwidth to as much as we could afford, which is 50/50 >> mbps symmetrical. One-time cost of $5k (to install microwave antenna on >> roof), then $125/mo. We also have backup dual-line DSL for failover and >> VOIP. We have the option to upgrade to 100/100 in the future if needed. >> 2. Upgrade Wifi Access Points to Ruckus Wireless. We originally had >> the Unifi APs, and they worked reliably and provided good coverage, >> however >> they do not have any sort of load balancing or rate limiting features. >> Ruckus APs are a significant cost at $660 per AP and over $1000 for the >> hardware controller, but they have some incredible features, such as AP >> roaming, rate limiting, and what they call 'airtime fairness'. Airtime >> fairness works to dynamically shifting more RF energy to the devices that >> need it the most (such as those streaming video or syncing to a cloud >> server). Most APs shoot RF in every direction, like a lightbulb, meaning >> that all devices get the same 'priority' in terms of the RF reaching >> them. >> Ruckus APs 'point' their RF in a particular direction, like a lighthouse >> with a rotating spotlight. This means that light users browsing the web >> or >> checking email won't be bogged down by heavy users streaming or syncing. >> Ruckus also supports rate limiting at the AP level, though we've found >> that >> just the airtime fairness feature was enough to solve our bandwidth >> issues, >> so fine-tuned rate limiting isn't needed. However, I did configure a hard >> cap of 45/45 mbps via the Ruckus APs, so that no single device can ever >> max >> out our bandwidth, leaving a 5/5 mbps buffer for all the hardwired >> devices >> that bypass the APs. >> >> At $10-15k this is not a cheap solution, but it has solved all of our >> network/bandwidth-related problems practically overnight. For our third and >> future buildings we will be rolling out this system from the beginning. >> >> -- >> Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com >> --- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Coworking" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> > > > -- > twb > @twbrandt > Sent from my Phone of i > -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
