Re: [WISPA] Feasibility of a non-profit WISP
Japhy, Good for you in recognizing a need and being willing to go after it. I've been involved from time to time with non-profits, and there are a # of advantages, but also some disadvantages. If you haven't done it already, here's some steps/questions that I'd recommend that you'd do: 1. You are in an area that does have Internet access available...what need are you looking to fill? Digital Divide? Public Internet space? Increased competition? All of the above? 2. Contact some of the community wireless projects that actually succeeded.CuWIN (http://www.cuwireless.net/) is a good one and not to far from you, there are others out there. Sascha Meinrath ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) is a name that I've seen frequently in that space and might be a good point of contact. 3. Nail down a business model. Run the numbers. This is true even if you're doing a non-profit--you still have to be sustainable and, ideally, profitable if you want to grow it at some point. A lot of non-profits forget that a non-profit business is, in the end, a business... For-profit has advantages 1. The legal/tax work involved with a non-profit is substantial, and much more so than with for-profit companies. I know of a couple of non-profits, though, that help with this. 2. Many WISPS, as mentioned by George, are legally for-profit companies even though they don't really generate any profit or likely ever will: but, a lot of people in this space are motivated by similar motivations as yours--community, etc... 3. It (somewhat) forces you to better build the business model. 4. It is easier to get investments, however, my sense is that there's really not much investment money for WISPs available, unless you do some really good selling around your community. Non-Profit also has its advantages 1. Use of volunteer labor. This is a _lot_ of work, though--attracting, training, and keeping volunteers requires a lot of effort and creating a good workflow to cover these areas. However, given the scale, non-profit may really be good to lighten the load in terms of upkeep / maintenance. 2. Easier access to grant money. 3. Donations. All of those are a lot of work, just so you know, and, in the end, require building a business process. As a general rule, I'd avoid building a non-profit that runs on donations unless you're really good at getting donations and/or you've got a cause that hits a very small sweet spot. In the end, donations are very unpredictable and drop rapidly during economic downturns. This is especially true if you're dealing with a smaller community, since you'd have to get the same people to re-donate year after year. So, while it may be worth getting donations to cover startup costs, it isn't really advisable to figure that in your operating costs... Technology wise, keep a couple of things in mind: 1. If you can get the funding to do it, fiber might be a much better option, especially in terms of economic development. It also can be more viable in the long run since it can be more easily monitized and has less frequent upgrade cycle. 2. Often the problem in coverage isn't from the access point, but the client speaking back to the access point. So, while your radio may be able to go 5 miles, a laptop's wifi card can't even go a small fraction of that \. Generally, most WISPs give/sell/lease some sort of customer premise equipment to the customer that has at least a somewhat engineered link back to your access points. This is more of a point to multipoint architecture (one access point speaks to multiple clients). If you want to provide the service of someone opening up a laptop and hitting an access point, you'll need to have an AP pretty much on each corner block or so; people in buildings will still likely need some sort of radio. 3. The term mesh can mean a couple of different things (utilizing the same concept). In a generic sense, it is the idea that each node can have paths through multiple nodes to redunancy purposes. - 1. Access point / backhaul mesh. So, if you setup 4 access points, and make sure that they can all talk to each other in addition to their clients, then that can give you additional redundancy on your backhaul links. This is also done on a block by block level, as mentioned above. Regardless, this is an engineered approach where each node is carefully setup to talk to particular other nodes and some link engineering is required to make sure they have good wireless links, etc... - 2. Some network architectures (Meraki pushes this approach) use an approach of throw a lot of cheap hardware at the problem. This, in the end, is more of a solution for the _client_ portion, and not the access point portion. So, instead of a WISP putting an access point on premise that is carefully lined up to get a good signal back to the access points, you just give a lot of customer's these mesh clients that talk both to the access point and each other and (usually/hopefully) the software can work out a
Re: [WISPA] Comcast will also be offering up to 50 Mbps
If you have a network of any real physical size (multiple states) and have gigs and gigs of usage, you can peer with others. Many Web 2.0 networks peer directly with the eyeball networks. -- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com - Original Message - From: Tom DeReggi [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 6:54 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Comcast will also be offering up to 50 Mbps Reality of 50mbps. Well, they can do it eventually, anyone can that offers Fiber. The question is, how quickly do they want to give away their margin? and How quickly can they deploy? Thats the real questions, as long as their is an underserved market, WISPs have a future. How long would it take Comcast or CableVision to roll out Docsis3.0 available to all subscribers? And to all commercial tenant buildings? One of the things to remember is that most Cable companies buy transit, and are not actually a Tier1 themselves. How will that pan out for pricing? They get good rates as long as they are 95% Download traffic. I don't think the cable cos will control the business market, until they also own a significant portion of the server side market. I's ask another question... Who's more of a threat to Business WISPs? Fios or Cable Cos? Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Femtocells
Does anyone know how much BW a call will require? Marty -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Gino Villarini Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 5:57 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Femtocells Hmm I see better opportunity going to the Cellco directly and offer them the service, so that they do a bundle to the end user... Internet - Femtocell And you make and arrangement with the cellco to deliver the traffic directly to them instead of going to the internet...Saving them some $$ On Internet Bandwidth and also providing a lower latency link to them!!! ... maybe this is the next step beyond voip... Gino A. Villarini [EMAIL PROTECTED] Aeronet Wireless Broadband Corp. tel 787.273.4143 fax 787.273.4145 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of George Rogato Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 6:30 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: [WISPA] Femtocells femtocells This is a great innovation that can help wisps gain market share. With these femtocells, the cell phone works in the house so the consumer doesn't need to have an extra land line. The customer is probably paying 80.00 or so for their dsl - telephone line. No land line needed for us wisps, the customer's 80.00 telco package is now in play. Maybe they want to trade it in for a faster and probably lesser expensive internet connection. It's a good opportunity for us, or the cable company. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/wireless_show_femtocells;_ylt=ArOpXSwLh8fh4Jp nL.VHQpsjtBAF Verizon Wireless is joining Sprint Nextel Corp. in jumping on the latest craze in the wireless world: little boxes called femtocells that boost cell-phone coverage in subscribers' homes. WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Femtocells
G.711 require 64kbps plus overhead. Normally about 90 kbps. But there are lossless compression methods that can cut this in about half. - Original Message - From: Marty Dougherty [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'WISPA General List' wireless@wispa.org Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2008 8:24 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Femtocells Does anyone know how much BW a call will require? Marty -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Gino Villarini Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 5:57 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Femtocells Hmm I see better opportunity going to the Cellco directly and offer them the service, so that they do a bundle to the end user... Internet - Femtocell And you make and arrangement with the cellco to deliver the traffic directly to them instead of going to the internet...Saving them some $$ On Internet Bandwidth and also providing a lower latency link to them!!! ... maybe this is the next step beyond voip... Gino A. Villarini [EMAIL PROTECTED] Aeronet Wireless Broadband Corp. tel 787.273.4143 fax 787.273.4145 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of George Rogato Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 6:30 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: [WISPA] Femtocells femtocells This is a great innovation that can help wisps gain market share. With these femtocells, the cell phone works in the house so the consumer doesn't need to have an extra land line. The customer is probably paying 80.00 or so for their dsl - telephone line. No land line needed for us wisps, the customer's 80.00 telco package is now in play. Maybe they want to trade it in for a faster and probably lesser expensive internet connection. It's a good opportunity for us, or the cable company. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/wireless_show_femtocells;_ylt=ArOpXSwLh8fh4Jp nL.VHQpsjtBAF Verizon Wireless is joining Sprint Nextel Corp. in jumping on the latest craze in the wireless world: little boxes called femtocells that boost cell-phone coverage in subscribers' homes. WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
