Re: [WISPA] FREE OSS and Billing Software for WiSPS - Leasing CPE
Charles, SNIP - will help you over the phone to allow you to have one guy out there aiming an antenna at the AP getting feedback on bidirectional SNR, packet loss/retransmission, etc - will help you over the phone if you're on top of a tower putting on a connector and asking How's that working now? END SNIP Not to take anything away from you or CTI, as your companies have been a big help to WISPs for years, in many ways. However, whats interesting about this company's (DBoss) pitch, is they are enabling WISPs, by providing things upfront that potentially directly help the ISP save on COST THAT THEY ARE ALREADY SPENDING, by preventing unnecessary cash burn on inefficiencies. For example, Payroll for that second guy to wait in the office, $20,000 a year, with DBOSS, that remote hand costs $5000 /year. Its basically, just diverting existing money, so its pretty easy to justify the expendature. (If they can deliver). I'm glad to see someone attempt to take on this role, needed for startups. Outsourced support companies have always focused on End User support. Or Higher end engineering type support for less experienced WISPs. But what about low end support for the technician himself? Many WISPs already have the high end expertise, what they lack is the resources to scale. The basic man power. It takes a minimum of 5 people to run a WISP, but a small WISP doesn' have enough work to keep more than 2 busy full time. I have no knowledge of whether DBOSS does a good job or if their fees are reasonable or not. But the concept is a neat idea. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Charles Wu [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'WISPA General List' wireless@wispa.org Sent: Sunday, November 05, 2006 3:19 PM Subject: RE: [WISPA] FREE OSS and Billing Software for WiSPS - Leasing CPE snip I'm on the upper end of their 250-CPE mark and will pay $250 per month with (most likely) no $$$ up front. Then I will pay $500 per month for the 251st-500th CPEs. I am going to try this out on a 1-year contract. It's worth that much to me just to see if it will work out for my situation. I think that if it is a good service, then it will be a good option for some small WISPs. It is clear to me that if my business will keep growing, it will grow out of a service like this. This may buy me some time and get me over that hump, though. p.s. I haven't talked with them about their CPE lease option but I plan to. I'm also talking to other leasing companies about leasing CPE. Anyone out there have opinions on leasing companies? (I chose my words carefully there about not starting a debate on whether or not to lease CPE.) /snip shameless plug We (CTI) have been leasing CPE for the WISP market for 5+ years now We work with many members of WISPA this listserv ISP-Planet did a nice writeup about us. Check out http://www.isp-planet.com/fixed_wireless/equipment/distributors/cti.html In addition to leasing, we have other nice financing programs, including a 0% Canopy SM purchase that's been gaining a lot of traction lately /shameless plug Plus, we've been in this industry since day 1, I've known some of the people on this (or related) listservs since 98/99 -Charles P.S. In addition, whether or not it means anything, we've submitted a vendor member application to WISPA (waiting on invoice bill) --- WiNOG Wireless Roadshows Coming to a City Near You http://www.winog.com -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] FREE OSS and Billing Software for WiSPS
I'm sure he'd be welcome on the list, but there may be some conflicts on what he can say responding as a vendor, that is not a paid sponsor. I'd argue, that this would be a great place for him to find new clients, and suggest that you invite him to be a paid vendor member. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Brian Rohrbacher [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2006 11:03 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FREE OSS and Billing Software for WiSPS List mod, Would it be out of line for me to invite the main man from this company over to the list. I'm very interested in the service, but I can never seem to come up with the right questions to ask... I'd like to see the great minds on the list quiz him down to see if the service is the real deal. Brian Mark Nash - Lists wrote: The paid services look pretty good. I'm checking them out now. I've looked at other 3rd party tech support companies but they all seem to have to adapt to WISP support. This is a WISP that knows WISP needs. When I talked with the guy he had most of the right answers to my questions. They will send you 2 servers to put at your main POP. The two servers load share and fail over. The servers are in-line on your network but parallel to each other at your POP. Your customer traffic goes through them...they each split up the load of CPEs they manage and if one goes down the other takes on all traffic from all CPEs. The servers do bandwidth management (I think it's limited now in that it cannot do traffic-type-shaping...just mainly up/down speeds on different CPE service type profiles). They do DHCP, NMS, alerting, etc. Their level 1 tech support: - will take phone calls from your customers (currently they have a 12-hour shift but he said they were expanding their level 1 support hours). - will help your customers with their routers, their firewall software, their e-mail program, their e-mail password - will provision a radio on your system and set up a customer record - will help you over the phone to allow you to have one guy out there aiming an antenna at the AP getting feedback on bidirectional SNR, packet loss/retransmission, etc - will help you over the phone if you're on top of a tower putting on a connector and asking How's that working now? Their NOC support: - responds to alarms and checks a protocol to see if you want to be woken up at 2 in the morning for such an alarm (7/24) - watches performance of backhauls Their billing system is free for you to use and integrates with the customer service side of the database. If you have your own merchant account for billing via credit card, it will do that free of charge. If you want to use their merchant account, there are fees. You can even set it up so that your customers can pay by check but you never have to handle the checks (with fees, of course, as this will take labor). I'm on the upper end of their 250-CPE mark and will pay $250 per month with (most likely) no $$$ up front. Then I will pay $500 per month for the 251st-500th CPEs. I am going to try this out on a 1-year contract. It's worth that much to me just to see if it will work out for my situation. I think that if it is a good service, then it will be a good option for some small WISPs. It is clear to me that if my business will keep growing, it will grow out of a service like this. This may buy me some time and get me over that hump, though. p.s. I haven't talked with them about their CPE lease option but I plan to. I'm also talking to other leasing companies about leasing CPE. Anyone out there have opinions on leasing companies? (I chose my words carefully there about not starting a debate on whether or not to lease CPE.) Mark Nash Network Engineer UnwiredOnline.Net 350 Holly Street Junction City, OR 97448 http://www.uwol.net 541-998- 541-998-5599 fax -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] FREE OSS and Billing Software for WiSPS
I'll see if he's up for a good beating. Tom DeReggi wrote: I'm sure he'd be welcome on the list, but there may be some conflicts on what he can say responding as a vendor, that is not a paid sponsor. I'd argue, that this would be a great place for him to find new clients, and suggest that you invite him to be a paid vendor member. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Brian Rohrbacher [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2006 11:03 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FREE OSS and Billing Software for WiSPS List mod, Would it be out of line for me to invite the main man from this company over to the list. I'm very interested in the service, but I can never seem to come up with the right questions to ask... I'd like to see the great minds on the list quiz him down to see if the service is the real deal. Brian Mark Nash - Lists wrote: The paid services look pretty good. I'm checking them out now. I've looked at other 3rd party tech support companies but they all seem to have to adapt to WISP support. This is a WISP that knows WISP needs. When I talked with the guy he had most of the right answers to my questions. They will send you 2 servers to put at your main POP. The two servers load share and fail over. The servers are in-line on your network but parallel to each other at your POP. Your customer traffic goes through them...they each split up the load of CPEs they manage and if one goes down the other takes on all traffic from all CPEs. The servers do bandwidth management (I think it's limited now in that it cannot do traffic-type-shaping...just mainly up/down speeds on different CPE service type profiles). They do DHCP, NMS, alerting, etc. Their level 1 tech support: - will take phone calls from your customers (currently they have a 12-hour shift but he said they were expanding their level 1 support hours). - will help your customers with their routers, their firewall software, their e-mail program, their e-mail password - will provision a radio on your system and set up a customer record - will help you over the phone to allow you to have one guy out there aiming an antenna at the AP getting feedback on bidirectional SNR, packet loss/retransmission, etc - will help you over the phone if you're on top of a tower putting on a connector and asking How's that working now? Their NOC support: - responds to alarms and checks a protocol to see if you want to be woken up at 2 in the morning for such an alarm (7/24) - watches performance of backhauls Their billing system is free for you to use and integrates with the customer service side of the database. If you have your own merchant account for billing via credit card, it will do that free of charge. If you want to use their merchant account, there are fees. You can even set it up so that your customers can pay by check but you never have to handle the checks (with fees, of course, as this will take labor). I'm on the upper end of their 250-CPE mark and will pay $250 per month with (most likely) no $$$ up front. Then I will pay $500 per month for the 251st-500th CPEs. I am going to try this out on a 1-year contract. It's worth that much to me just to see if it will work out for my situation. I think that if it is a good service, then it will be a good option for some small WISPs. It is clear to me that if my business will keep growing, it will grow out of a service like this. This may buy me some time and get me over that hump, though. p.s. I haven't talked with them about their CPE lease option but I plan to. I'm also talking to other leasing companies about leasing CPE. Anyone out there have opinions on leasing companies? (I chose my words carefully there about not starting a debate on whether or not to lease CPE.) Mark Nash Network Engineer UnwiredOnline.Net 350 Holly Street Junction City, OR 97448 http://www.uwol.net 541-998- 541-998-5599 fax -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Friday Fun. Worlds most expensive gate chain
Marlon K. Schafer (509) 982-2181 wrote: One of my tower sites has this chain on the main gate. It's always fun to remember where the key goes http://www.odessaoffice.com/wireless/images/misc/chain.htm Anyone else have similar setups? Marlon (509) 982-2181 Equipment sales (408) 907-6910 (Vonage)Consulting services 42846865 (icq)And I run my own wisp! 64.146.146.12 (net meeting) www.odessaoffice.com/wireless www.odessaoffice.com/marlon/cam Looks like Ephrata! -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] FREE OSS and Billing Software for WiSPS
Tranzeo press release... RidgeviewTel is a Tranzeo reseller, and they use it in their own WISP. http://tranzeo.com/investors/index.php?action=pressid=29 Mark Nash Network Engineer UnwiredOnline.Net 350 Holly Street Junction City, OR 97448 http://www.uwol.net 541-998- 541-998-5599 fax - Original Message - From: Tom DeReggi [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Monday, November 06, 2006 11:29 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FREE OSS and Billing Software for WiSPS I'm sure he'd be welcome on the list, but there may be some conflicts on what he can say responding as a vendor, that is not a paid sponsor. I'd argue, that this would be a great place for him to find new clients, and suggest that you invite him to be a paid vendor member. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Brian Rohrbacher [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2006 11:03 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FREE OSS and Billing Software for WiSPS List mod, Would it be out of line for me to invite the main man from this company over to the list. I'm very interested in the service, but I can never seem to come up with the right questions to ask... I'd like to see the great minds on the list quiz him down to see if the service is the real deal. Brian Mark Nash - Lists wrote: The paid services look pretty good. I'm checking them out now. I've looked at other 3rd party tech support companies but they all seem to have to adapt to WISP support. This is a WISP that knows WISP needs. When I talked with the guy he had most of the right answers to my questions. They will send you 2 servers to put at your main POP. The two servers load share and fail over. The servers are in-line on your network but parallel to each other at your POP. Your customer traffic goes through them...they each split up the load of CPEs they manage and if one goes down the other takes on all traffic from all CPEs. The servers do bandwidth management (I think it's limited now in that it cannot do traffic-type-shaping...just mainly up/down speeds on different CPE service type profiles). They do DHCP, NMS, alerting, etc. Their level 1 tech support: - will take phone calls from your customers (currently they have a 12-hour shift but he said they were expanding their level 1 support hours). - will help your customers with their routers, their firewall software, their e-mail program, their e-mail password - will provision a radio on your system and set up a customer record - will help you over the phone to allow you to have one guy out there aiming an antenna at the AP getting feedback on bidirectional SNR, packet loss/retransmission, etc - will help you over the phone if you're on top of a tower putting on a connector and asking How's that working now? Their NOC support: - responds to alarms and checks a protocol to see if you want to be woken up at 2 in the morning for such an alarm (7/24) - watches performance of backhauls Their billing system is free for you to use and integrates with the customer service side of the database. If you have your own merchant account for billing via credit card, it will do that free of charge. If you want to use their merchant account, there are fees. You can even set it up so that your customers can pay by check but you never have to handle the checks (with fees, of course, as this will take labor). I'm on the upper end of their 250-CPE mark and will pay $250 per month with (most likely) no $$$ up front. Then I will pay $500 per month for the 251st-500th CPEs. I am going to try this out on a 1-year contract. It's worth that much to me just to see if it will work out for my situation. I think that if it is a good service, then it will be a good option for some small WISPs. It is clear to me that if my business will keep growing, it will grow out of a service like this. This may buy me some time and get me over that hump, though. p.s. I haven't talked with them about their CPE lease option but I plan to. I'm also talking to other leasing companies about leasing CPE. Anyone out there have opinions on leasing companies? (I chose my words carefully there about not starting a debate on whether or not to lease CPE.) Mark Nash Network Engineer UnwiredOnline.Net 350 Holly Street Junction City, OR 97448 http://www.uwol.net 541-998- 541-998-5599 fax -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives:
Re: [WISPA] Friday Fun. Worlds most expensive gate chain
South Portsmouth KY. The chain is over 9 feet long, nothing but locks. One of the issues is no one ever pulls their old lock, and the gate is to a ridge with at least 6 different towers, 5 of which are rental sites! Marlon K. Schafer (509) 982-2181 wrote: One of my tower sites has this chain on the main gate. It's always fun to remember where the key goes http://www.odessaoffice.com/wireless/images/misc/chain.htm Anyone else have similar setups? -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Friday Fun. Worlds most expensive gate chain
On Mon, 6 Nov 2006, Blake Bowers wrote: South Portsmouth KY. The chain is over 9 feet long, nothing but locks. One of the issues is no one ever pulls their old lock, and the gate is to a ridge with at least 6 different towers, 5 of which are rental sites! Blake WON! Now..tell 'im what he won! (grin) -- Butch Evans Network Engineering and Security Consulting 573-276-2879 http://www.butchevans.com/ Mikrotik Certified Consultant (http://www.mikrotik.com/consultants.html) -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
