Elliot, I have looked into offering broadband solutions in New York and I have looked into the following vendors:
Nokia Rooftop: http://www.rooftop.com/ ( or http://www.nwr.nokia.com/index.html ) Lucent Vandis: http://vandis.com/ Cabletron: http://www.enterasys.com Beam Reach Networks: http://www.beamreachnetworks.com/ Malibu Networks: http://www.malibunetworks.com There were a few others as well but I can't find their links. You can see a nice listing at http://db.napco.com/bs/fixedwireless.htm . I run off of 2 56K modems at my home. The phone company (Verizon) can not install DSL, IDSL or ISDN at my house for a few technical reasons. I have heard that about 50% of users in the US are not able to get DSL services due to technical difficulties, poor line conditions, mixtures of copper and fiber wiring etc. How ironic is it that DSL (currently) can not run over fiber ? The phone companies in my area spent millions of dollars to rip up the streets to lay down fiber a few years back. They though that they would be able to offer "cable" level services through these fiber cables. As we all know this never happened. Supposedly there is technology that can allow the phone companies to offer DSL over fiber and mixtures of copper and fiber. IDSL is one of these examples, but it only goes up to about 126 or less (about twice as fast as a regular modem.) The telcos aren't currently interested in this new technology since they would have to replace all of their old hardware to support this new technology. I tried getting a high speed connection via cable but cable services are not offered on my street - yet. There are 2 broadband solutions that virtually anybody can use in the US and Canada. One is Starband and the other is DirecTV. They are in the midst of possibly merging (or one might take over the other?) I can't get these since I have trees around my house and these satellites have to point to the north. They are also a bit more expensive then DSL or Cable solutions. DSL and cable run from about $30+ but Satellite costs about $80 per month. I would personally pay $500 a month if I had a decent solution. I have even thought of bringing in a T1 to my house (that's what you call desperate) ;-) . I figured I was not the only consumer/Small business in my area to have this problem. I contacted a few business contacts and we decided to research the fixed wireless market. After a few weeks of research I came to the following conclusions: 1. Almost all of the technologies currently offered require line of site. This is quite a problem in New York where you have tall buildings etc. Fixed wireless would be more successful in rural areas where there are no tall buildings to block the signals. 2. All current hardware/software that we looked at required a technician to make the install at the end users location. A powered antenna had to be installed on top of every location as well. One of the vendors we looked at was releasing a solution that anybody could install. It was basically a box that attached to the computer that housed an indoor antenna. That new system was high powered and did not need the antenna to be installed on top of the roof. This would allow us to actually have the end user plug in the box into the back of their computer and slide in the auto install cd without even having to actually go down to the end-users physical location. 3. In order to keep costs down the wireless solution should be operated under spectrum that does not need a license from the FCC, such as 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz bands. Using licensed spectrum can be prohibitively expensive. Almost all solutions can operate under unlicensed spectrum, but this spectrum is being used more frequently and transmission rates will be scrambled if many people/services/devices are using the same MHz. I think once a solution is released that does not need "line of site" and is easy as plug and play (not Microsoft's definition of "plug and play") we would really be able to sell fixed wireless solutions. Best Regards, Alex Brecher Visit us at http://www.Successfulhosting.com We'll make your web site a success! Get your own domain name for only $14.99 http://www.DiscountDomainRegistry.com *****PLEASE DO NOT DELETE ANY PART OF THIS MESSAGE WHEN REPLYING***** ----- Original Message ----- From: ""Elliot Noss"" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Newsgroups: opensrs.discuss Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2001 12:50 PM Subject: broadband issues > I wanted to run a few ideas past you all with respect to broadband issues. I > apologize in advance that this is pretty much North America-centric, but if > we can make some ground we may be able to generalize some of these > solutions. > > A couple underlying premises. First, current broadband penetration in North > America is pathetic. Dominated by telco and cableco solutions, the level of > service is low, the penetration is low and the chance of a regulatory > solution is almost non-existant (ironically, I came to Tucows through > relationships formed at CAIP (Canadian association of Internet providers) in > negotiations with cablecos to implement government-mandated third-party > access to facilities. In 1996. It has still not happened). > > Second, there is a high level of unsatisfied demand for broadband, certainly > at the consumer level, but, more importantly for all of you, at a small and > medium-sized enterprise (SME) level . I fundamentally believe that many of > you have a number of SME clients, whether you are in the access business, > the hosting business, or something else. I also believe that many of you > would be absolutely the best at servicing this segment. > > Third, broadband dominated by telcos and cablecos represents a real threat > to ISPs/IPPs/Vars and other important elements of our reseller channel. I > have no fear of it causing extinction. This is much more about providing a > limitation to all of your upside potential. > > Let me describe a potential solution that seems somewhat interesting to me. > I know of an existing fixed-point wireless solution that could cover a > little under 80 sq. km. (about 30 sq. miles), could provide service up to 25 > mbs, and has the ability to be throttled effectively and easily all the way > from 128kbs to 25mbs thus providing a lovely upgrade path. The upfront cost > for a base station is about $100k in hardware, some networking knowledge, > some professional services in terms of site location and setup (I know the > folks doing this today and, while they are not looking to "sell" a bunch of > professional services, they are eager to see this more broadly adopted). > Customer premises equipment is between $1200-$2400. Line-of-sight is > relevant, but not an absolute as advances are being made here. The CPE > should come down over time. Once the hardware is up and running, coverage > allows for consumer offerings as well (cover the investment on the SME > market, use the consumer market as gravy). Of course it opens things up for > any number of services that broadband allows. The thing I love about this > is, relative to other alternatives, it has REALLY low upfront costs. Twenty > customers at $500/month basically pays for the cost in a year and then you > have your own broadband solution for the forseeable future. > > This type of solution has two sweetspots. First, a medium-sized population > centre with a business core that is tight geographically. In size (I have no > idea about geography) I mean places like Albany, Mobile or Saskatoon. > Second, strategic locations in larger cities. This level of coverage allows > for a huge swath of clients in most large cities. If anyone is in the > LA/Hollywood area I can hook them up with access to this solution, with no > hardware investment, now. If there were two or three folks who could "share" > this in one area that would work quite well also. > > This solution also obviously provides an absolutely awesome platform to > upsell into hosting, corporate email, dns management of course and > networking. > > I am simply looking for feedback at this point. Not commitments to spend > that kind of money. I would also be thrilled with only 1-3 situations to > explore. I would also note that we have some other initiatives that we are > poking at with respect to broadband that are a bit more conventional. Also, > be assured that none of this is distracting development away from the core > business. We are just looking down the field at issues we think help all of > you (note here that this solution can have international value, but it needs > to be tighter). > > If you choose to respond to me directly, please indicate whether you mind if > I post your comments to the list. I have a few (unfortunately a few too > many) that I owe responses to from the search engine submission question. > > Thanks in advance. > > Regards > > > >
