Re: [WISPA] Thanking Marlon and multipath experience
Not trying to be pedantic here, but I think some clarification is needed regarding reflection, refraction, and diffraction. Reflection is the phenomenon that occurs when an EM wave encounters a surface (larger than approximately one wavelength), hits it, and leaves the surface with reduced intensity. Same thing as light hitting a mirror. It's the big one for multipath. Refraction is the effect that bends an EM wave when it transitions between two different media with different permittivities. We see this effect when you put a stick in a pool of water, and the stick looks bent at the surface of the water. Diffraction (knife-edge diffraction) is the phenomenon that allows EM waves to travel around objects. It's the reason you can get an AM radio signal in a valley obstructed by mountains on all sides, the mountaintops diffract the signal and fill the valley with RF. It's my understanding that this phenomenon is not really worth considering at the frequencies we're using. Hope that helps! Patrick Shoemaker Vector Data Systems LLC shoemak...@vectordatasystems.com office: (301) 358-1690 x36 http://www.vectordatasystems.com Marlon K. Schafer wrote: Glad to be of help Forbes! Once in a while I make a lucky guess. grin OK, design note time. I work to keep all of my links in the -65 to -75 range. If you look up the specs for your radios you will likely find that this is well above the lowest receive signal level, but not too far above it. Why is this important? As I've been taught over the years (Thanks Jaime, Bob and others) most knife edged refraction (a bounced signal off of an object) will be about 30 dB down below the original signal level. So if your radio has a max sensitivity of -94 and you have a -65 signal you'll be almost out of the possibility of the receive radio even picking up your refracted signal. Think of the refraction as a reflection or echo. An echo makes it really hard to understand someone. Multipath is the same thing. But if you can make the echo so quiet that you can't hear is it won't hurt anything, even if it's there. MOST of my towers put out LESS than 1 WATT! A few are still close to 4 watts, but changes in AP's allow me to run ever lower tx powers. Believe it or not I have customers getting over 2 megs of service from systems that are less than 2 watts and at ranges of 18 miles! Yes I can prove this if anyone wants to come visit If you are picking up your towers at levels above -60 to -65 you'll have a LOT more trouble on your network. Especially tower to tower. Turn the danged things down. If you need more power at a customer's place install a bigger antenna! Over the years I've run into many companies that try to use a bigger stick. They systems never work well for long. The more customers go on it the worse that problem gets too. I fact I have started pulling customers from a competitor in the area. He's running a system near me that looks to be running about 42 watts (remember we're only allowed 4). Why am I getting his customers? Because his system doesn't work right. Much of that is due to his design flaws. OK, next question is, how do I know what he's running? All you need to know is what gain the antenna is at your end, what the receive signal is and how far the transmitter is away from you. From there it's easy with a formula. At 42dB I have him at about a 15dB antenna and 1 or so watt TX power. A VERY common config sold by some distributors. It's too bad, these never work well long term and rotten wisp networks give us all a bad name. Anyway, Forbes, try turning that power down. WAY down. I'll bet you can go back to g mode and have even more stability than you have now. laters, marlon - Original Message - From: Forbes Mercy forbes.me...@wabroadband.com To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 1:47 PM Subject: [WISPA] Thanking Marlon and multipath experience I admit that most of you can dance around me in the field of RF. I'm more of an installer and management type. Today I had a Nano CPE with a -48 dbi signal which, as you know, is amazing; it should be it was a block away from the tower. The problem is the customer had long outages and erratic service. Aiming away from the tower kept the great connection but still crappy pings. Marlon suggested Multipath as a possibility and advised to turn the radio to B only and reduce the power on the radio. I had heard of Multipath but never experienced it. We changed both settings and while the signal stayed at -48dbi the time-outs and erratic pings went away. 90% of our system is two or more miles from towers, so we never had this problem before. This particular town is the only place where the towers are on buildings all within ½ mile of nearly everyone It answered a lot of problems for others in town we
Re: [WISPA] Thanking Marlon and multipath experience
Nice explanation that takes me way back to my fiber optics days. Patrick Leary Aperto Networks 813.426.4230 mobile -Original Message- From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of Patrick Shoemaker Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 5:16 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Thanking Marlon and multipath experience Not trying to be pedantic here, but I think some clarification is needed regarding reflection, refraction, and diffraction. Reflection is the phenomenon that occurs when an EM wave encounters a surface (larger than approximately one wavelength), hits it, and leaves the surface with reduced intensity. Same thing as light hitting a mirror. It's the big one for multipath. Refraction is the effect that bends an EM wave when it transitions between two different media with different permittivities. We see this effect when you put a stick in a pool of water, and the stick looks bent at the surface of the water. Diffraction (knife-edge diffraction) is the phenomenon that allows EM waves to travel around objects. It's the reason you can get an AM radio signal in a valley obstructed by mountains on all sides, the mountaintops diffract the signal and fill the valley with RF. It's my understanding that this phenomenon is not really worth considering at the frequencies we're using. Hope that helps! Patrick Shoemaker Vector Data Systems LLC shoemak...@vectordatasystems.com office: (301) 358-1690 x36 http://www.vectordatasystems.com Marlon K. Schafer wrote: Glad to be of help Forbes! Once in a while I make a lucky guess. grin OK, design note time. I work to keep all of my links in the -65 to -75 range. If you look up the specs for your radios you will likely find that this is well above the lowest receive signal level, but not too far above it. Why is this important? As I've been taught over the years (Thanks Jaime, Bob and others) most knife edged refraction (a bounced signal off of an object) will be about 30 dB down below the original signal level. So if your radio has a max sensitivity of -94 and you have a -65 signal you'll be almost out of the possibility of the receive radio even picking up your refracted signal. Think of the refraction as a reflection or echo. An echo makes it really hard to understand someone. Multipath is the same thing. But if you can make the echo so quiet that you can't hear is it won't hurt anything, even if it's there. MOST of my towers put out LESS than 1 WATT! A few are still close to 4 watts, but changes in AP's allow me to run ever lower tx powers. Believe it or not I have customers getting over 2 megs of service from systems that are less than 2 watts and at ranges of 18 miles! Yes I can prove this if anyone wants to come visit If you are picking up your towers at levels above -60 to -65 you'll have a LOT more trouble on your network. Especially tower to tower. Turn the danged things down. If you need more power at a customer's place install a bigger antenna! Over the years I've run into many companies that try to use a bigger stick. They systems never work well for long. The more customers go on it the worse that problem gets too. I fact I have started pulling customers from a competitor in the area. He's running a system near me that looks to be running about 42 watts (remember we're only allowed 4). Why am I getting his customers? Because his system doesn't work right. Much of that is due to his design flaws. OK, next question is, how do I know what he's running? All you need to know is what gain the antenna is at your end, what the receive signal is and how far the transmitter is away from you. From there it's easy with a formula. At 42dB I have him at about a 15dB antenna and 1 or so watt TX power. A VERY common config sold by some distributors. It's too bad, these never work well long term and rotten wisp networks give us all a bad name. Anyway, Forbes, try turning that power down. WAY down. I'll bet you can go back to g mode and have even more stability than you have now. laters, marlon - Original Message - From: Forbes Mercy forbes.me...@wabroadband.com To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 1:47 PM Subject: [WISPA] Thanking Marlon and multipath experience I admit that most of you can dance around me in the field of RF. I'm more of an installer and management type. Today I had a Nano CPE with a -48 dbi signal which, as you know, is amazing; it should be it was a block away from the tower. The problem is the customer had long outages and erratic service. Aiming away from the tower kept the great connection but still crappy pings. Marlon suggested Multipath as a possibility and advised to turn the radio to B only and reduce the power on the radio. I had heard of Multipath but never experienced it.
Re: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability
I've never found a lender willing to lend against using the in-place used equipment as colladeral. It is the biggest double standard. I find it highly ironic that they'll use a car for colladeral that looses 50% of its value the day it leaves the lot, and has a rate of failure and risk of damage higher than just about any product on the market, and it has a huge cash burn (gas :-). but yet lendors won't put equivellent value on wireless gear, that holds its value, Ebay boasting easilly 50% after 3-4 years of use, even after fully depreciated. I'll never understand the lending market. The big difference is that a car loan is tied to your personal credit, just like a credit card, and very few are going to borrow $1 million for a car (while plenty here could easily use $1 million for their network) FWIW, every industry specific vertical (e.g., restaurants, medical devices, manufacturing etc) has the same problem when it comes down to infrastructure financing -- traditional lenders won't finance business-specific machinery -- rather, they only use stuff they know as collateral (e.g., real estate, cash flow) That said, when it comes down to cash flow, it's worth analyzing and understanding that most ISPs (specifically facilities based ones) are probably pretty short on cash flow given the fact that 1. the business is based upon a recurring subscription model where I invest (e.g., in CPE) to earn a residual contract (e.g., $50 / month service) 2. ISPs are generally cash-poor due to the fact that excess cash flow usually gets reinvested into the business (more infrastructure) An argument could be made that the most valuable assets of an ISP are the recurring contracts / revenue / etc -- and that's something that financial institutions understand (e.g., receivables / factoring) and ultimately, that's what an ISP is worth (some multiple of MRC) That said, I wonder if a case be made on financing secured by monthly recurring revenue...thoughts? -Charles 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] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability
In a worse case scenario, a car is probably considerably easier to repo than the antenna on my roof and radio in my attic. And the car would be worth a magnitude more money. The installed infrastructure is worthless if it costs a huge amount to get to it. On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 07:27:09PM -0400, Tom DeReggi wrote: I've never found a lender willing to lend against using the in-place used equipment as colladeral. It is the biggest double standard. I find it highly ironic that they'll use a car for colladeral that looses 50% of its value the day it leaves the lot, and has a rate of failure and risk of damage higher than just about any product on the market, and it has a huge cash burn (gas :-). but yet lendors won't put equivellent value on wireless gear, that holds its value, Ebay boasting easilly 50% after 3-4 years of use, even after fully depreciated. I'll never understand the lending market. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: rea...@muddyfrogwater.us To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 1:55 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability Answers in-line. insert witty tagline here - Original Message - From: Charles Wu c...@cticonnect.com To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 8:49 AM Subject: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability With all the hype being generated by the stimulus bill, we have been approached by a multitude of third party financial organizations that have a renewed interest in potentially financing rural broadband...now, specifically, for WISPs, in the past, equipment leasing has been a very popular option for financing, but in looking at our numbers over the past year, I've noticed a marked decline in the amount of leasing that we do - that said, I have the following questions for the listserv about financing Assuming that WISPs are still need to buy equipment... 1. Are you able to just purchase equipment out of cash-flow organically generated from operations Other than originally starting with our own personal seed money, that's what we've done. 2. Have you gone to more traditional forms of money (e.g., bank / SBA / RUS loans)? I could not qualify for any of them. 3. Are you doing more vendor leasing programs (e.g., Motorola 3% financing deal) Never sought any. 4. Have you not been able to borrow money due to the credit crunch (e.g., not deploying as aggressively) My corporation hasn't ever been able to obtain hard money credit.In fact, the credit crunch start last Fall raised my 30+ day past due amount from a piddly $1200 to at one time to almost $13,000 in just four months. That almost put us under, and we're still barely scraping by until our seasonally variable cash flow revives come August, with still several thousand on the books that's very slowly getting chipped away at. 5. Are you holding off on deployments because of the economy No, we're holding off due to lack of cash flow. We have plenty of people waiting for us to build infrastructure out to them. 6. Have you gone to Agility...cough Louie the loanshark =) After much discussion, being some of the first people Agility contacted, we have not done any business with them. In my estimation, they wanted control over our business and day to day decisions, which we concluded was both unwarranted and unwise. Or any other thoughts / comments on this topic? WISP equipment is not really a commodity in that there is almost no market for it outside of the maker-vendor relationship. Other than Ebay, and a couple of people who attempt to do it piecemeal, there is no market which stabilizes the value of used equipment, making them a commodity you can borrow against. Perhaps it would be more useful, if vendors had the ability to get capital and create stable working and short term credit relationships with their buyers, kind of like the used car market. -Charles 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:
Re: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability
On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 10:49:01AM -0500, Charles Wu wrote: With all the hype being generated by the stimulus bill, we have been approached by a multitude of third party financial organizations that have a renewed interest in potentially financing rural broadband...now, specifically, for WISPs, in the past, equipment leasing has been a very popular option for financing, but in looking at our numbers over the past year, I've noticed a marked decline in the amount of leasing that we do - that said, I have the following questions for the listserv about financing Assuming that WISPs are still need to buy equipment... 1.Are you able to just purchase equipment out of cash-flow organically generated from operations Yes, unless it's a large project on a short time table. We've been buying wireless gear for 11 years now. In the early years, our wireless deployment was funded by dialup revenue, but now it's a self-sustaining major part of our business, and dialup is a very small part. We've had some loans for big deployments in the past, and the amounts of money spent on loan repayment currently are comparable to what we'd be spending on equipment to meet current demands. So as those are paid off, we have more money to spend on gear each month. We'll save our loan tolerance for big projects that require high capex, and buy customer radios and modest project infrastructure out of our pocket every month or a shorter term line of credit. Things like Alvarion's comnet let us get quantity pricing breaks on radios as long as we commit to regular CPE deliveries of certain quantity levels, so that works good for cash-flow focused ISPs. 2.Have you gone to more traditional forms of money (e.g., bank / SBA / RUS loans)? We've had bank loans and SBA backed bank loans in the past. 3.Are you doing more vendor leasing programs (e.g., Motorola 3% financing deal) No. 4.Have you not been able to borrow money due to the credit crunch (e.g., not deploying as aggressively) 5.Are you holding off on deployments because of the economy I could be deploying a lot more if the economy were better and more people were more willing to get nicer Internet services. 6.Have you gone to Agility...cough Louie the loanshark =) I've investigated leasing, and it appears to be a choice for when the bank doesn't want to deal with you. If I had that sort of relationship with the bank, I'd want to fix that before spending more money. Or any other thoughts / comments on this topic? -Charles 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/ -- /* Jason Philbrook | Midcoast Internet Solutions - Wireless and DSL KB1IOJ| Broadband Internet Access, Dialup, and Hosting http://f64.nu/ | for Midcoast Mainehttp://www.midcoast.com/ */ 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] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability
Just as a side note here. For our new building we just moved into about 6mo ago we had to put up our inventory as collateral plus a bunch of other things. Even brand new unused equipment they would only give 10c on the dollar for our inventory based on our cost. Tried to explain until I was blue in the face that not a single piece of the equipment we have is obsolete and stock is being rotated at least for 90% of the inventory every 90 days or less and that if they would let us handle the sale in the case of a failure we would have at least 75% sold at cost or even small markup and be sold within 45 days. Remaining 25% would take probably another 90 days to sell at cost or at slight profit. But no go. Only thing I managed was to convince one of the senior bankers that he would buy the inventory at the 10c on the dollar personally and let me sell it and split the profit with me. Not like that is likely to happen but with that in mind I can see why a bank due to lack of knowled ge etc would use a WISP radio equipment installed all over the place as securement for a loan. After all your talking used equipment at 100's of locations most of the time not directly controlled by the WISP when they will only give 10c on the dollar for brand new equipment in box non which is older then a year and all being at one location in a building they own. /Eje Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile -Original Message- From: Jason Hensley jhens...@mozarks.com Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 09:49:07 To: 'WISPA General List'wireless@wispa.org Subject: Re: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability Most lenders I've worked with really don't seem to even consider lending against recurring revenue as the recurring revenue is what they will use to justify to themselves, board, investors, and the FDIC that it's a reasonable loan. The recurring revenue is not really considered an asset because if the business goes south, the recurring revenue is gone and their left holding basically nothing but blue sky. Hard assets can be sold and at least recoup a portion of what they loaned the business. There are plenty of places out there that will do Accounts Receivables loans, but most of those seem to be kinda like the payday loan people. Big fee up front, and huge interest rates. -Original Message- From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of Charles Wu Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 8:44 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability I've never found a lender willing to lend against using the in-place used equipment as colladeral. It is the biggest double standard. I find it highly ironic that they'll use a car for colladeral that looses 50% of its value the day it leaves the lot, and has a rate of failure and risk of damage higher than just about any product on the market, and it has a huge cash burn (gas :-). but yet lendors won't put equivellent value on wireless gear, that holds its value, Ebay boasting easilly 50% after 3-4 years of use, even after fully depreciated. I'll never understand the lending market. The big difference is that a car loan is tied to your personal credit, just like a credit card, and very few are going to borrow $1 million for a car (while plenty here could easily use $1 million for their network) FWIW, every industry specific vertical (e.g., restaurants, medical devices, manufacturing etc) has the same problem when it comes down to infrastructure financing -- traditional lenders won't finance business-specific machinery -- rather, they only use stuff they know as collateral (e.g., real estate, cash flow) That said, when it comes down to cash flow, it's worth analyzing and understanding that most ISPs (specifically facilities based ones) are probably pretty short on cash flow given the fact that 1. the business is based upon a recurring subscription model where I invest (e.g., in CPE) to earn a residual contract (e.g., $50 / month service) 2. ISPs are generally cash-poor due to the fact that excess cash flow usually gets reinvested into the business (more infrastructure) An argument could be made that the most valuable assets of an ISP are the recurring contracts / revenue / etc -- and that's something that financial institutions understand (e.g., receivables / factoring) and ultimately, that's what an ISP is worth (some multiple of MRC) That said, I wonder if a case be made on financing secured by monthly recurring revenue...thoughts? -Charles 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] Water tower question
We've gotten access to two water towers that are what I call bubble towers. An example is here: http://www.watertowers.com/photos_314_Arboretum_Water_Tower.html Obviously we'll have to sector around it, etc etc, not worried about that. Question is, for anyone who has mounted on a tower like this, how do you get your cabling to the ground? Do you go down the legs or is there some other way to do it? Only way we've come up with is to either rappel down or talk the fire dept into helping with their ladder truck and bring the cables down one of the legs. Neither option is very attractive. Is there some other way to get the cabling down the tower? Thanks! 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] Water tower question
Bring it down along the ladder? Just drop it all the way down then as you descend secure it? Nick Olsen Brevard Wireless From: Jason Hensley jhens...@mozarks.com Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 12:14 PM To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Subject: [WISPA] Water tower question We've gotten access to two water towers that are what I call bubble towers. An example is here: http://www.watertowers.com/photos_314_Arboretum_Water_Tower.html Obviously we'll have to sector around it, etc etc, not worried about that. Question is, for anyone who has mounted on a tower like this, how do you get your cabling to the ground? Do you go down the legs or is there some other way to do it? Only way we've come up with is to either rappel down or talk the fire dept into helping with their ladder truck and bring the cables down one of the legs. Neither option is very attractive. Is there some other way to get the cabling down the tower? Thanks! 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] Water tower question
run power and fiber up the side of the ladder or conduit that their power goes for the light on top. If you don't need connection below then just run power. Put box at top with equipment and 5 foot aluminum 1.5 or 2 inch pipes with two u-bolts each or pipe clamps depending on how you have to mount them. tape wires running around top to middle guard rail inside and you are good to go... put ups inside little hut or have box on outside with one. Scott Carullo Brevard Wireless 321-205-1100 x102 Original Message From: Jason Hensley jhens...@mozarks.com Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 12:14 PM To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Subject: [WISPA] Water tower question We've gotten access to two water towers that are what I call bubble towers. An example is here: http://www.watertowers.com/photos_314_Arboretum_Water_Tower.html Obviously we'll have to sector around it, etc etc, not worried about that. Question is, for anyone who has mounted on a tower like this, how do you get your cabling to the ground? Do you go down the legs or is there some other way to do it? Only way we've come up with is to either rappel down or talk the fire dept into helping with their ladder truck and bring the cables down one of the legs. Neither option is very attractive. Is there some other way to get the cabling down the tower? Thanks! 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] Water tower question
Ok, assuming there is no ladder (which would be odd) then they still have conduit already attached for lights at top. Run next to it. Only other option depending on your relationship with them is to put flasher circuit on top and use existing power already in conduit - that way your gear doesn't turn on and off every few sec ;) Scott Carullo Brevard Wireless 321-205-1100 x102 Original Message From: Jason Hensley jhens...@mozarks.com Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 12:14 PM To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Subject: [WISPA] Water tower question We've gotten access to two water towers that are what I call bubble towers. An example is here: http://www.watertowers.com/photos_314_Arboretum_Water_Tower.html Obviously we'll have to sector around it, etc etc, not worried about that. Question is, for anyone who has mounted on a tower like this, how do you get your cabling to the ground? Do you go down the legs or is there some other way to do it? Only way we've come up with is to either rappel down or talk the fire dept into helping with their ladder truck and bring the cables down one of the legs. Neither option is very attractive. Is there some other way to get the cabling down the tower? Thanks! 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] Water tower question
I forgot to add something VERY important - - The less you have touching anything of theirs the better off you will be in the future when it comes time for them to sandblast and paint!! Put your sectors standing off the handrails as far as possible using DB clamps and run your own conduit to attach your CAT5 to!! Mac -Original Message- From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of Jason Hensley Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 11:13 AM To: 'WISPA General List' Subject: [WISPA] Water tower question We've gotten access to two water towers that are what I call bubble towers. An example is here: http://www.watertowers.com/photos_314_Arboretum_Water_Tower.html Obviously we'll have to sector around it, etc etc, not worried about that. Question is, for anyone who has mounted on a tower like this, how do you get your cabling to the ground? Do you go down the legs or is there some other way to do it? Only way we've come up with is to either rappel down or talk the fire dept into helping with their ladder truck and bring the cables down one of the legs. Neither option is very attractive. Is there some other way to get the cabling down the tower? Thanks! --- - 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/ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.238 / Virus Database: 270.12.33/2120 - Release Date: 05/19/09 06:21:00 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] Water tower question
On important thing I failed to mention, no ladder access from the outside of the tower. Ladder runs up the inside of the middle of the tower, all the way to the top and outside the top hatch, then down a ladder to the catwalk. If there was a ladder on one of the outside legs I wouldn't be asking the question :-) Got 4 other towers we're on that we don't have this issue with. -Original Message- From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of Mac Dearman Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 11:43 AM To: 'WISPA General List' Subject: Re: [WISPA] Water tower question I forgot to add something VERY important - - The less you have touching anything of theirs the better off you will be in the future when it comes time for them to sandblast and paint!! Put your sectors standing off the handrails as far as possible using DB clamps and run your own conduit to attach your CAT5 to!! Mac -Original Message- From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of Jason Hensley Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 11:13 AM To: 'WISPA General List' Subject: [WISPA] Water tower question We've gotten access to two water towers that are what I call bubble towers. An example is here: http://www.watertowers.com/photos_314_Arboretum_Water_Tower.html Obviously we'll have to sector around it, etc etc, not worried about that. Question is, for anyone who has mounted on a tower like this, how do you get your cabling to the ground? Do you go down the legs or is there some other way to do it? Only way we've come up with is to either rappel down or talk the fire dept into helping with their ladder truck and bring the cables down one of the legs. Neither option is very attractive. Is there some other way to get the cabling down the tower? Thanks! --- - 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/ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.238 / Virus Database: 270.12.33/2120 - Release Date: 05/19/09 06:21:00 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] Wireless Beehive 58DP
Anyone used the 58DP from WB? Anyone have them in stock? Jayson 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] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability
Just for round representative numbers, lets say you have have a pretty established customer base and you have the staff and the growth potential to install $10k/month worth of new CPE. I would buy $10k/month worth of CPE to get what I need when I need it. When I have more customers, I can spend proportionately more. If you lease enough CPE to cost you $10k/month, you have a big pile of CPE sitting around that's costing you money and isn't making money. You eventually get them installed, and can repeat the less efficient stepwise function again. If you break it down to lower amounts, it's still a stepwise function of outlay versus return. After a while, you'll have reached a certain size where the lease or loan bills will be higher than the cost to continue the same growth rate without borrowing. If something happens where we each have a couple real bad months of business, I can just defer some installs or upgrades, which would not be pleasant. You would be unable to pay the leasing company, which could be less pleasant still. If a loan or lease helps you get better CPE, it's worth it though. I think buying quality gear with a loan or lease is a better plan than suffering with junk you bought because it was all you could afford to scrouge together or because some non-technical manager was too cheap. I'm not at all against loans or leasing. I built a nice datacenter with a loan, as I would not have been able to build it any other way. It's been really useful and worth every penny. I bought a tower site with a mortgage, I have a tenant whose lease pays the majority of the payment, and it's almost paid off. I recently accepted a private loan to put infrastructure in an area that was without broadband; it was simpler and faster than applying for a grant and it got them to the top of the list of our projects, as there is still more demand than any one company's means. On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 10:10:26AM -0600, Travis Johnson wrote: Lease, lease, lease.br br Why spend money each month paying for CPE up front for every customer? Are you doing that with bandwidth? Are you doing that with employees? br br We spend $7 per month per CPE for 36 months. It's just part of doing business... just like insurance, bandwidth, payroll, etc. It's one of those monthly expenses that is just part of operating in this industry. We then use the install fee to cover the truck roll, router, etc.br br So we are making a profit on every single customer we install starting from the day they are installed.br br Travisbr Microservbr br jp wrote: blockquote cite=mid:20090522152952.gb15...@saucer.midcoast.com type=cite pre wrap=On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 10:49:01AM -0500, Charles Wu wrote: /pre blockquote type=cite pre wrap=With all the hype being generated by the stimulus bill, we have been approached by a multitude of third party financial organizations that have a renewed interest in potentially financing rural broadband...now, specifically, for WISPs, in the past, equipment leasing has been a very popular option for financing, but in looking at our numbers over the past year, I've noticed a marked decline in the amount of leasing that we do - that said, I have the following questions for the listserv about financing Assuming that WISPs are still need to buy equipment... 1.Are you able to just purchase equipment out of cash-flow organically generated from operations /pre /blockquote pre wrap=! Yes, unless it's a large project on a short time table. We've been buying wireless gear for 11 years now. In the early years, our wireless deployment was funded by dialup revenue, but now it's a self-sustaining major part of our business, and dialup is a very small part. We've had some loans for big deployments in the past, and the amounts of money spent on loan repayment currently are comparable to what we'd be spending on equipment to meet current demands. So as those are paid off, we have more money to spend on gear each month. We'll save our loan tolerance for big projects that require high capex, and buy customer radios and modest project infrastructure out of our pocket every month or a shorter term line of credit. Things like Alvarion's comnet let us get quantity pricing breaks on radios as long as we commit to regular CPE deliveries of certain quantity levels, so that works good for cash-flow focused ISPs. /pre blockquote type=cite pre wrap=2. Have you gone to more traditional forms of money (e.g., bank / SBA / RUS loans)? /pre /blockquote pre wrap=! We've had bank loans and SBA backed bank loans in the past. /pre blockquote type=cite pre wrap=3. Are you doing more vendor leasing programs (e.g., Motorola 3% financing deal) /pre /blockquote pre wrap=! No. /pre blockquote type=cite pre wrap=4. Have you not been able to borrow money
Re: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability
I liked Agility's initial concept. For the buyer to present a BASIC spreadsheet type business plan, showing how they will without a doubt be able to generate enough revenue to pay the lease. All banks should do that, to understand what it is they are lending for. But for everything that followed after that concept, they lost me :-) Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: RickG rgunder...@gmail.com To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 11:10 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability Well, Agility will but what out for the terms! -RickG On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 7:27 PM, Tom DeReggi wirelessn...@rapiddsl.net wrote: I've never found a lender willing to lend against using the in-place used equipment as colladeral. It is the biggest double standard. I find it highly ironic that they'll use a car for colladeral that looses 50% of its value the day it leaves the lot, and has a rate of failure and risk of damage higher than just about any product on the market, and it has a huge cash burn (gas :-). but yet lendors won't put equivellent value on wireless gear, that holds its value, Ebay boasting easilly 50% after 3-4 years of use, even after fully depreciated. I'll never understand the lending market. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: rea...@muddyfrogwater.us To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 1:55 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability Answers in-line. insert witty tagline here - Original Message - From: Charles Wu c...@cticonnect.com To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 8:49 AM Subject: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability With all the hype being generated by the stimulus bill, we have been approached by a multitude of third party financial organizations that have a renewed interest in potentially financing rural broadband...now, specifically, for WISPs, in the past, equipment leasing has been a very popular option for financing, but in looking at our numbers over the past year, I've noticed a marked decline in the amount of leasing that we do - that said, I have the following questions for the listserv about financing Assuming that WISPs are still need to buy equipment... 1. Are you able to just purchase equipment out of cash-flow organically generated from operations Other than originally starting with our own personal seed money, that's what we've done. 2. Have you gone to more traditional forms of money (e.g., bank / SBA / RUS loans)? I could not qualify for any of them. 3. Are you doing more vendor leasing programs (e.g., Motorola 3% financing deal) Never sought any. 4. Have you not been able to borrow money due to the credit crunch (e.g., not deploying as aggressively) My corporation hasn't ever been able to obtain hard money credit. In fact, the credit crunch start last Fall raised my 30+ day past due amount from a piddly $1200 to at one time to almost $13,000 in just four months. That almost put us under, and we're still barely scraping by until our seasonally variable cash flow revives come August, with still several thousand on the books that's very slowly getting chipped away at. 5. Are you holding off on deployments because of the economy No, we're holding off due to lack of cash flow. We have plenty of people waiting for us to build infrastructure out to them. 6. Have you gone to Agility...cough Louie the loanshark =) After much discussion, being some of the first people Agility contacted, we have not done any business with them. In my estimation, they wanted control over our business and day to day decisions, which we concluded was both unwarranted and unwise. Or any other thoughts / comments on this topic? WISP equipment is not really a commodity in that there is almost no market for it outside of the maker-vendor relationship. Other than Ebay, and a couple of people who attempt to do it piecemeal, there is no market which stabilizes the value of used equipment, making them a commodity you can borrow against. Perhaps it would be more useful, if vendors had the ability to get capital and create stable working and short term credit relationships with their buyers, kind of like the used car market. -Charles 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:
Re: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability
Lease, lease, lease. Agreed that leasing is a great option, but in looking at my numbers these past few months, I've noticed that the amount of leasing that we do is a fraction of what we used to do 12 months ago (if it wasn't for the Motorola 3% program, I don't think we'd be doing any leasing) - part of it is because many of our leasing vendors aren't leasing anymore (e.g., GE Capital), but given that infrastructure sales haven't dropped off that much in this economy (in fact, our March numbers for 2009 were BETTER than our March 2008 numbers), I'm trying to understand why people who may have leased in the past no longer seem to be leasing (obviously, you're still leasing away so this question doesn't apply to you =)... So if you were leasing 12 months ago, but no longer are, Is it because 1. The economy sucks and you're not buying new equipment? 2. The economy is fine, you want to lease equipment but can't get approved? 3. The economy is fine, but you're making so much money that you no longer need to lease equipment? Just curiosity on my side -Charles 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] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability
Option 3 Gino A. Villarini g...@aeronetpr.com Aeronet Wireless Broadband Corp. tel 787.273.4143 fax 787.273.4145 -Original Message- From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of Charles Wu Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 4:50 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability Lease, lease, lease. Agreed that leasing is a great option, but in looking at my numbers these past few months, I've noticed that the amount of leasing that we do is a fraction of what we used to do 12 months ago (if it wasn't for the Motorola 3% program, I don't think we'd be doing any leasing) - part of it is because many of our leasing vendors aren't leasing anymore (e.g., GE Capital), but given that infrastructure sales haven't dropped off that much in this economy (in fact, our March numbers for 2009 were BETTER than our March 2008 numbers), I'm trying to understand why people who may have leased in the past no longer seem to be leasing (obviously, you're still leasing away so this question doesn't apply to you =)... So if you were leasing 12 months ago, but no longer are, Is it because 1. The economy sucks and you're not buying new equipment? 2. The economy is fine, you want to lease equipment but can't get approved? 3. The economy is fine, but you're making so much money that you no longer need to lease equipment? Just curiosity on my side -Charles 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] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability
We are still leasing, but also #3 applies as well... but we are putting the cash flow money into other things... like real estate, that is dirt cheap right now... ;) Travis Microserv Charles Wu wrote: Lease, lease, lease. Agreed that leasing is a great option, but in looking at my numbers these past few months, I've noticed that the amount of leasing that we do is a fraction of what we used to do 12 months ago (if it wasn't for the Motorola 3% program, I don't think we'd be doing any leasing) - part of it is because many of our leasing vendors aren't leasing anymore (e.g., GE Capital), but given that infrastructure sales haven't dropped off that much in this economy (in fact, our March numbers for 2009 were BETTER than our March 2008 numbers), I'm trying to understand why people who may have leased in the past no longer seem to be leasing (obviously, you're still leasing away so this question doesn't apply to you =)... So if you were leasing 12 months ago, but no longer are, Is it because 1. The economy sucks and you're not buying new equipment? 2. The economy is fine, you want to lease equipment but can't get approved? 3. The economy is fine, but you're making so much money that you no longer need to lease equipment? Just curiosity on my side -Charles 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] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability
The big difference is that a car loan is tied to your personal credit, just like a credit card, So are most business loans, when they are made to a small business. I've yet to find a traditional lender willing to consider my business on its own. We just aren't large (signficant) enough, in their minds. So a car loan ONLY had personal colladeral. Wireless Gear has BOTH personal colladeral AND business colladeral and future generated revenue. Clearly that is a step up over a car loan's colladeral. The ONLY advantage a Car Loan adds, is every American is a prospective buyer. But they also forget, that every one is selling, so there is a lot of competition for the liquidation. A Wireless radio is a like a money tree, and the car is the opposite that consumes money off the tree. Clearly the wireless radio is the safer bet. That said, I wonder if a case be made on financing secured by monthly recurring revenue...thoughts? I guess we can argue that they already ask for financials, to look at monthly net profit. But a lender would never really care about revenue, because they'd never want to wait to sell your business to collect on a multiples of revenue. Thats what investors do. All leasors care about is how the payment is going to be made. What I will say is... Is I had successfully gotten a loan, by bringing in and showing the bank new signed long term monthly revenue contracts. Showing the new money that would be earned, if the loan was given. That worked. The side effect was 1) when they saw how much profit there was for the borrower, they raised the interest to try to get a higher piece of the action. 2) They wanted the contract term (length) to match the loan term (payback schedule). But for the borrower, the risk was significantly increased and growth potential significantly compromised, being forced to do a 1 yr loan for a 1 yr broadband contracts. Meaning, almost 100% of revenue went to pay the loan payment. This didn't meet the need of the bank or borrower based on risk. The secret was getting long term contracts (3yr), from customers. But its hard to get 3yr contracts from new subs that never tried a new wireless technology before. They always want to try it before they commit to it long term. So a catch 22 from the start. The other problem was... they then asked, what if the customer cancels, because you don;t provide your SLA. It was just to complicated for the average lendor, as average lenders generally re-sell the loans, and need to be able to easily justify the loan. But lending by monthly revenue does make sense, if the borrower can find a lender they can really talk to. The trick to prove is that there is a replicatable profit from every dollar of revenue, even if it is not shown on the books because it typically is reinvested by choice. Once a lender understands that, reporting and measuring revenue growth is one of the easiest things to provide and prove to a lender. For example, if your lender is your bank, they have the bank records to prove and see your deposits. There are programs already based around this for high risk borrowers. They look at your monthly credit card transaction or monthly bank deposits, and then give credit limit based on how much that is, and do auto payments from that source. Meaning the have a mechanism to take fro mthe revenue first. The only problem is they ONLY look at revenue, not at your business, and therefore label you high risk, and charge loan shark rates. I've seen it offered as high as 35-40% interest. I still think the only thing they'll ever consider is cash flow, and what has to be done is to get a lender willing to seperate what costs on your balance sheet didn;t have to be costs. Meaning what could be the company cash flow, IF the monthly profit was not re-invested? A lender has to understand your business to understand that. Which again is the problem. My personal opinion is there is no answer to the problem. The only answer is to be patient, and chip away at the problem every day, until the company can emerge to the stage that has healthy cash flow, and is worthy in the eyes of the traditional lendor. The only other answer is to find private lendors. That have fewer otpions to get a return on their money. Who are willing to take risk for higher reward. Anyone with any sense can see the high ROI in lending to a WISP with a good business strategy, and ultimately that it is less risk. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Charles Wu c...@cticonnect.com To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 9:43 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability I've never found a lender willing to lend against using the in-place used equipment as colladeral. It is the biggest double standard. I find it highly ironic that they'll use a car for
Re: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability
Travis Johnson wrote: but we are putting the cash flow money into other things... like real estate, that is dirt cheap right now... ;) Thats what we did in Novemeber. Got a 500k property for about 325k . And got the owner to carry 90% @ 6% on an 8 year term. Not much interest to pay, just a heavy monthly payment. But, I hope the market turns around so I can sell, get my profit and principle back so I can plow fiber into my infrastructure. 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] Water tower question
Got SCUBA lol? Scott Carullo Brevard Wireless 321-205-1100 x102 Original Message From: Jason Hensley jhens...@mozarks.com Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 12:57 PM To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Subject: Re: [WISPA] Water tower question On important thing I failed to mention, no ladder access from the outside of the tower. Ladder runs up the inside of the middle of the tower, all the way to the top and outside the top hatch, then down a ladder to the catwalk. If there was a ladder on one of the outside legs I wouldn't be asking the question :-) Got 4 other towers we're on that we don't have this issue with. -Original Message- From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of Mac Dearman Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 11:43 AM To: 'WISPA General List' Subject: Re: [WISPA] Water tower question I forgot to add something VERY important - - The less you have touching anything of theirs the better off you will be in the future when it comes time for them to sandblast and paint!! Put your sectors standing off the handrails as far as possible using DB clamps and run your own conduit to attach your CAT5 to!! Mac -Original Message- From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of Jason Hensley Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 11:13 AM To: 'WISPA General List' Subject: [WISPA] Water tower question We've gotten access to two water towers that are what I call bubble towers. An example is here: http://www.watertowers.com/photos_314_Arboretum_Water_Tower.html Obviously we'll have to sector around it, etc etc, not worried about that. Question is, for anyone who has mounted on a tower like this, how do you get your cabling to the ground? Do you go down the legs or is there some other way to do it? Only way we've come up with is to either rappel down or talk the fire dept into helping with their ladder truck and bring the cables down one of the legs. Neither option is very attractive. Is there some other way to get the cabling down the tower? Thanks! --- - 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/ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.238 / Virus Database: 270.12.33/2120 - Release Date: 05/19/09 06:21:00 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] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability
Maybe when talking about CPE. But what about when one is talking about a $10,000 Part101 radio? Just like a car, all that the lender should need is to hold the title of the radio until paid off, and get a down payment of $2000 to cover the cost of tower climber/repo man, and a signed letter of authorization from lanlord stating the location of the tower gear is installed on and they acknowledge that the gear is not abandoned equipment. (So it does not automatically become property of landlord in 4 months, and teh landlord knows the equipment owner has first rights to the gear). Think about it... Wouldn't repo costs be reduced when the repo man knows exactly where to find the radio? A car can easilly be relocated and hard-to-find, when the owner skips town. Plus the home likely has an owner with a shot gun or a big dog, which the tower/MTU likely does not. The MTU building might even have a security guard to escort teh lender safely to the roof :-) Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: jp j...@saucer.midcoast.com To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 11:13 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability In a worse case scenario, a car is probably considerably easier to repo than the antenna on my roof and radio in my attic. And the car would be worth a magnitude more money. The installed infrastructure is worthless if it costs a huge amount to get to it. On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 07:27:09PM -0400, Tom DeReggi wrote: I've never found a lender willing to lend against using the in-place used equipment as colladeral. It is the biggest double standard. I find it highly ironic that they'll use a car for colladeral that looses 50% of its value the day it leaves the lot, and has a rate of failure and risk of damage higher than just about any product on the market, and it has a huge cash burn (gas :-). but yet lendors won't put equivellent value on wireless gear, that holds its value, Ebay boasting easilly 50% after 3-4 years of use, even after fully depreciated. I'll never understand the lending market. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: rea...@muddyfrogwater.us To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 1:55 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability Answers in-line. insert witty tagline here - Original Message - From: Charles Wu c...@cticonnect.com To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 8:49 AM Subject: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability With all the hype being generated by the stimulus bill, we have been approached by a multitude of third party financial organizations that have a renewed interest in potentially financing rural broadband...now, specifically, for WISPs, in the past, equipment leasing has been a very popular option for financing, but in looking at our numbers over the past year, I've noticed a marked decline in the amount of leasing that we do - that said, I have the following questions for the listserv about financing Assuming that WISPs are still need to buy equipment... 1. Are you able to just purchase equipment out of cash-flow organically generated from operations Other than originally starting with our own personal seed money, that's what we've done. 2. Have you gone to more traditional forms of money (e.g., bank / SBA / RUS loans)? I could not qualify for any of them. 3. Are you doing more vendor leasing programs (e.g., Motorola 3% financing deal) Never sought any. 4. Have you not been able to borrow money due to the credit crunch (e.g., not deploying as aggressively) My corporation hasn't ever been able to obtain hard money credit.In fact, the credit crunch start last Fall raised my 30+ day past due amount from a piddly $1200 to at one time to almost $13,000 in just four months. That almost put us under, and we're still barely scraping by until our seasonally variable cash flow revives come August, with still several thousand on the books that's very slowly getting chipped away at. 5. Are you holding off on deployments because of the economy No, we're holding off due to lack of cash flow. We have plenty of people waiting for us to build infrastructure out to them. 6. Have you gone to Agility...cough Louie the loanshark =) After much discussion, being some of the first people Agility contacted, we have not done any business with them. In my estimation, they wanted control over our business and day to day decisions, which we concluded was both unwarranted and unwise. Or any other thoughts / comments
Re: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability
The banks can sell a car with little effort. They already have relationships with dealers and auctions. And often, if the consumer's credit is questionable, the dealer will guarantee to take the car back if the loan defaults. Who is going to buy a $10,000 radio that has been repo'd? Even for $5k, I wouldn't touch it. I'd buy a new radio with warranty, that I know is good and hasn't been fried or broken. The banks will never loan on the equipment alone. There is no security there... but again, why do you need a bank loan for equipment when you can just lease it and get the same results? Up to 60 months with $1 buyout is the same as a 5 year bank loan. What's the difference? Travis Microserv Tom DeReggi wrote: Maybe when talking about CPE. But what about when one is talking about a $10,000 Part101 radio? Just like a car, all that the lender should need is to "hold the title" of the radio until paid off, and get a down payment of $2000 to cover the cost of tower climber/repo man, and a signed letter of authorization from lanlord stating the location of the tower gear is installed on and they acknowledge that the gear is not abandoned equipment. (So it does not automatically become property of landlord in 4 months, and teh landlord knows the equipment owner has first rights to the gear). Think about it... Wouldn't repo costs be reduced when the repo man knows exactly where to find the radio? A car can easilly be relocated and hard-to-find, when the owner skips town. Plus the home likely has an owner with a shot gun or a big dog, which the tower/MTU likely does not. The MTU building might even have a security guard to escort teh lender safely to the roof :-) Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: "jp" j...@saucer.midcoast.com To: "WISPA General List" wireless@wispa.org Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 11:13 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability In a worse case scenario, a car is probably considerably easier to repo than the antenna on my roof and radio in my attic. And the car would be worth a magnitude more money. The installed infrastructure is worthless if it costs a huge amount to get to it. On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 07:27:09PM -0400, Tom DeReggi wrote: I've never found a lender willing to lend against using the in-place used equipment as colladeral. It is the biggest double standard. I find it highly ironic that they'll use a car for colladeral that looses 50% of its value the day it leaves the lot, and has a rate of failure and risk of damage higher than just about any product on the market, and it has a huge cash burn (gas :-). but yet lendors won't put equivellent value on wireless gear, that holds its value, Ebay boasting easilly 50% after 3-4 years of use, even after fully depreciated. I'll never understand the lending market. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: rea...@muddyfrogwater.us To: "WISPA General List" wireless@wispa.org Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 1:55 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability Answers in-line. insert witty tagline here - Original Message - From: "Charles Wu" c...@cticonnect.com To: "WISPA General List" wireless@wispa.org Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 8:49 AM Subject: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability With all the hype being generated by the stimulus bill, we have been approached by a multitude of third party financial organizations that have a renewed interest in potentially financing rural broadband...now, specifically, for WISPs, in the past, equipment leasing has been a very popular option for financing, but in looking at our numbers over the past year, I've noticed a marked decline in the amount of leasing that we do - that said, I have the following questions for the listserv about financing Assuming that WISPs are still need to buy equipment... 1. Are you able to just purchase equipment out of cash-flow organically generated from operations Other than originally starting with our own personal seed money, that's what we've done. 2. Have you gone to more traditional forms of money (e.g., bank / SBA / RUS loans)? I could not qualify for any of them. 3. Are you doing more vendor leasing programs (e.g., Motorola 3% financing deal) Never sought any. 4. Have you not been able to borrow money due to the credit crunch (e.g., not deploying as aggressively) My corporation hasn't ever been able to obtain hard money credit.In fact, the "credit crunch" start last Fall raised my
Re: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability
Well Gino, it looks you're buying ski tickets next time =) -Charles -Original Message- From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of Gino Villarini Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 3:54 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability Option 3 Gino A. Villarini g...@aeronetpr.com Aeronet Wireless Broadband Corp. tel 787.273.4143 fax 787.273.4145 -Original Message- From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of Charles Wu Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 4:50 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Quesiton on Funding / Financing / Capital Availability Lease, lease, lease. Agreed that leasing is a great option, but in looking at my numbers these past few months, I've noticed that the amount of leasing that we do is a fraction of what we used to do 12 months ago (if it wasn't for the Motorola 3% program, I don't think we'd be doing any leasing) - part of it is because many of our leasing vendors aren't leasing anymore (e.g., GE Capital), but given that infrastructure sales haven't dropped off that much in this economy (in fact, our March numbers for 2009 were BETTER than our March 2008 numbers), I'm trying to understand why people who may have leased in the past no longer seem to be leasing (obviously, you're still leasing away so this question doesn't apply to you =)... So if you were leasing 12 months ago, but no longer are, Is it because 1. The economy sucks and you're not buying new equipment? 2. The economy is fine, you want to lease equipment but can't get approved? 3. The economy is fine, but you're making so much money that you no longer need to lease equipment? Just curiosity on my side -Charles 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/
