Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
The core issue all these mesh networks is they were not built with proper density which by our calculations for a network the size of mountain view would be about 45 nodes per sq mile, instead of the 30-32 nodes per square mile implemented. YMMV... - Jeff On 8/30/06 9:29 AM, Patrick Leary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matt, We are on the same page, trust me. There has yet to be a solidly working civic access muni network. By solidly, I mean indoor coverage without forced buying of a secondary CPE. We have also yet to see a successfully scaled mesh network for low cost civic access. Philly and San Fran are still on paper only. These networks are able to provide good outdoor coverage only so far. That is also why we like playing the multipoint backhaul layer. We can reliably deliver that middle layer and get high connectivity for the mesh nodes, fixed cameras, traffic lights, a city buildings, but the success of the Wi-Fi layer is beyond our control and remains the questionable piece. Patrick -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Matt Liotta Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 9:10 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi Patrick Leary wrote: I agree that many WISPs have panned muni wi-fi instead of leveraging their expertise. WISPs were arguably best positioned initially to address this need. Smart VARs and resellers got busy though and whether WISPs realize it, almost all the VARs that serve the WISP community now have a muni engagement. It is just a business reality. And why shouldn't they? If you are radio vendor, reseller, or VAR muni Wi-Fi is a great thing. You get to sell a bunch radios and consulting time. It doesn't matter if the business plan makes sense or if the network even works long term. operators on the other hand have to be concerned about the long-term. Patrick, I bet your radios are doing great technically in the Mountain View deployment, but you stated you personally aren't able to use the Wi-Fi portion of the network. Does that make the network a failure from your perspective as a consumer? -Matt -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
RE: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
Grin...been there done that already. First data card was from Ricochet I think back in 2001 - 2002? They went belly up and the service was spotty (read coverage) and you basically had to be sitting still. Next was Sprint's first data card...ran at about 70Kbps - 130Kbps and was great until subscriber base climbed to the point that Sprint introduced their second generation data card that I am using now. The point I am making can be applied to any network. The cellular companies will only continue to push the capacity limits further and further as demand requires it. Coverage is the key and how well the network hands off traffic. With the old Sprint data card I drove from DFW to Riggins, ID and then back by way of Aspen, CO. Rarely did I not have coverage driving 70MPH+...as long as I was in Sprint coverage my data card worked. The new Sprint data card I have is even better with lower latency and speeds up to 1.5Mbps and if I visit any number of places including Sun Valley, Boca Raton or Rancho Santa Fe I'll have service. The same can't be said for any Muni-WiFi solution. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Matt Larsen - Lists Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 11:44 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi Check back in with us in a year and let us know how that cell data card is working. If you thought the oversubscription on dialup lines was bad, wait until more people get on the cellular data networks. Talk about something that will not scale when the data hits it - wow. Matt Larsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brad Belton wrote: I wasn't going to pipe in on this topic, but George hit it square on the head: Cellular. Laptops are now available with built-in cellular data cards. This trend will only continue as the cellular data rates continue to increase. My Sprint data card pretty consistently pulls 500Kbps and can peak at nearly 1.5Mbps. This is far better than many WiFi hotspots I have connected to and certainly better than any Muni-WiFi system I've seen. Pure coverage alone will give the cellular networks a huge advantage over any muni system. I can guarantee you the next laptop I buy will have a cellular data card built-in. grin Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of George Rogato Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 4:07 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi Tom DeReggi wrote: My arguement is that the biggest prospective client for use of a mobile network is the governement. If you give service to them free or without financial contribution from them, its just plain stupid in my mind. But what about cellular? Aren't they posed best to take advantage of mobile customers because they are all theirs anyways? Sprint just announced they will be doing mobile wimax. Verizon already has a decent nation wide high speed mobile internet access product that a lot of law enforcement are all ready using in the plice cars. And just this morning we heard about 4g cellular delivering 100megs to the police car at 37 miles per hour. How does muni fit into the future that will be dominated by cellular? George -- 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] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
I wouldn't worry too much about FiberTower. They did gross revenue of $883,000 the first half of this year, while at the same time losing over $9M in the same time period. Further, in urban markets cellular carriers are on average paying less than $150 per T1. In some outer parts of our market they tend to pay on average around $500 per T1, but certainly no where near $1,200. I know Nextlink and FiberTower both want to sell backhaul to cell companies, but who is buying? Verizon uses their own wireless backhaul for their sites in Atlanta. Cingular uses BellSouth fiber. I bet Sprint will want to use their own WiMAX equipment. I hear Alltel uses their own wireles backhaul, so that doesn't really leave many choices for Nextlink and FiberTower. Guess that is why Nextlink's latest strategy is to sell wireless last mile to XO. -Matt Brian Webster wrote: Matt, The cellular folks have been quietly improving their data network capability. Their biggest problem to date was the T1 backhauls from the tower sites. These were already loaded with voice traffic. In many markets there are aggressive programs underway to replace all the T1's with licensed microwave backhaul with much more bandwidth. Cellular has the advantage of cleaner spectrum and lower noise floors. It has been proven that they can deliver over the air rates necessary, once they fix the backhaul bottleneck they will be serious competitors. Remember they also get to leverage their already existing tower network. Sprint/Nextel even has the advantage of all that 2.5 GHz spectrum they just announced their WIMAX plans for. One of the major players for giving them wireless backhaul is FiberTower who just merged with First Avenue Networks. This gives them instant access to a lot of spectrum all over the US. While this may not be good news to most of the folks on this list, there is an upside. The telcos are going to lose a lot of business from them dropping those expensive $1200 per month T1 circuits to each and every tower site.that should effect some numbers for those guys. Thank You, Brian Webster www.wirelessmapping.com http://www.wirelessmapping.com -Original Message- From: Matt Larsen - Lists [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 12:44 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi Check back in with us in a year and let us know how that cell data card is working. If you thought the oversubscription on dialup lines was bad, wait until more people get on the cellular data networks. Talk about something that will not scale when the data hits it - wow. Matt Larsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brad Belton wrote: I wasn't going to pipe in on this topic, but George hit it square on the head: Cellular. Laptops are now available with built-in cellular data cards. This trend will only continue as the cellular data rates continue to increase. My Sprint data card pretty consistently pulls 500Kbps and can peak at nearly 1.5Mbps. This is far better than many WiFi hotspots I have connected to and certainly better than any Muni-WiFi system I've seen. Pure coverage alone will give the cellular networks a huge advantage over any muni system. I can guarantee you the next laptop I buy will have a cellular data card built-in. grin Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of George Rogato Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 4:07 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi Tom DeReggi wrote: My arguement is that the biggest prospective client for use of a mobile network is the governement. If you give service to them free or without financial contribution from them, its just plain stupid in my mind. But what about cellular? Aren't they posed best to take advantage of mobile customers because they are all theirs anyways? Sprint just announced they will be doing mobile wimax. Verizon already has a decent nation wide high speed mobile internet access product that a lot of law enforcement are all ready using in the plice cars. And just this morning we heard about 4g cellular delivering 100megs to the police car at 37 miles per hour. How does muni fit into the future that will be dominated by cellular? George -- 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] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
Brian, I'm sure that there are a lot of upgrades going on in urban areas, but it will take a while before they hit many rural markets. In the meantime, all these folks that are going to try downloading videos and music to their phones will put exponentially higher loads on the cellular data networks. Even with the advantages of licensed spectrum and cleaner noise floors, you are still talking about the disadvantages of having to maintain that data stream to a moving target, roaming between towers through widely varying signal conditions and low gain antennas on the customer side. Fixed applications don't have to deal with that at all, and it is possible to optimize signal strength to make it perform. My former partner in Vistabeam is the operations manager for a cell carrier, and I get to hear about all the issues on their networks. Suffice to say, they get to deal with a lot of the same problems we do, the problems are just a lot more expensive to fix. Hell, as far as I can tell the cellular guys are having problems just keeping voice operational on many of their networks! Just as a few of the guys on this list that I call regularly (Mac, Scriv, Marlon) and ask them how many times my conversations with them get cut off because of crappy phone service. They should get voice figured out before they try to deliver live video to a postage stamp screen on a cell phone. Matt Larsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brian Webster wrote: Matt, The cellular folks have been quietly improving their data network capability. Their biggest problem to date was the T1 backhauls from the tower sites. These were already loaded with voice traffic. In many markets there are aggressive programs underway to replace all the T1's with licensed microwave backhaul with much more bandwidth. Cellular has the advantage of cleaner spectrum and lower noise floors. It has been proven that they can deliver over the air rates necessary, once they fix the backhaul bottleneck they will be serious competitors. Remember they also get to leverage their already existing tower network. Sprint/Nextel even has the advantage of all that 2.5 GHz spectrum they just announced their WIMAX plans for. One of the major players for giving them wireless backhaul is FiberTower who just merged with First Avenue Networks. This gives them instant access to a lot of spectrum all over the US. While this may not be good news to most of the folks on this list, there is an upside. The telcos are going to lose a lot of business from them dropping those expensive $1200 per month T1 circuits to each and every tower site.that should effect some numbers for those guys. Thank You, Brian Webster www.wirelessmapping.com http://www.wirelessmapping.com -Original Message- From: Matt Larsen - Lists [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 12:44 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi Check back in with us in a year and let us know how that cell data card is working. If you thought the oversubscription on dialup lines was bad, wait until more people get on the cellular data networks. Talk about something that will not scale when the data hits it - wow. Matt Larsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brad Belton wrote: I wasn't going to pipe in on this topic, but George hit it square on the head: Cellular. Laptops are now available with built-in cellular data cards. This trend will only continue as the cellular data rates continue to increase. My Sprint data card pretty consistently pulls 500Kbps and can peak at nearly 1.5Mbps. This is far better than many WiFi hotspots I have connected to and certainly better than any Muni-WiFi system I've seen. Pure coverage alone will give the cellular networks a huge advantage over any muni system. I can guarantee you the next laptop I buy will have a cellular data card built-in. grin Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of George Rogato Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 4:07 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi Tom DeReggi wrote: My arguement is that the biggest prospective client for use of a mobile network is the governement. If you give service to them free or without financial contribution from them, its just plain stupid in my mind. But what about cellular? Aren't they posed best to take advantage of mobile customers because they are all theirs anyways? Sprint just announced they will be doing mobile wimax. Verizon already has a decent nation wide high speed mobile internet access product that a lot of law enforcement are all ready using in the plice cars. And just this morning we heard about 4g cellular delivering 100megs to the police car at 37 miles per hour. How does muni fit into the future that will be dominated by cellular? George -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless
Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
No kidding. In the last month my Nextel went from 4 bars in all places to 0-1 bar at most times now. Something bad is going on. And I am way out in the sticks. Should be less interference. Brian Rohrbacher Matt Larsen - Lists wrote: Brian, I'm sure that there are a lot of upgrades going on in urban areas, but it will take a while before they hit many rural markets. In the meantime, all these folks that are going to try downloading videos and music to their phones will put exponentially higher loads on the cellular data networks. Even with the advantages of licensed spectrum and cleaner noise floors, you are still talking about the disadvantages of having to maintain that data stream to a moving target, roaming between towers through widely varying signal conditions and low gain antennas on the customer side. Fixed applications don't have to deal with that at all, and it is possible to optimize signal strength to make it perform. My former partner in Vistabeam is the operations manager for a cell carrier, and I get to hear about all the issues on their networks. Suffice to say, they get to deal with a lot of the same problems we do, the problems are just a lot more expensive to fix. Hell, as far as I can tell the cellular guys are having problems just keeping voice operational on many of their networks! Just as a few of the guys on this list that I call regularly (Mac, Scriv, Marlon) and ask them how many times my conversations with them get cut off because of crappy phone service. They should get voice figured out before they try to deliver live video to a postage stamp screen on a cell phone. Matt Larsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brian Webster wrote: Matt, The cellular folks have been quietly improving their data network capability. Their biggest problem to date was the T1 backhauls from the tower sites. These were already loaded with voice traffic. In many markets there are aggressive programs underway to replace all the T1's with licensed microwave backhaul with much more bandwidth. Cellular has the advantage of cleaner spectrum and lower noise floors. It has been proven that they can deliver over the air rates necessary, once they fix the backhaul bottleneck they will be serious competitors. Remember they also get to leverage their already existing tower network. Sprint/Nextel even has the advantage of all that 2.5 GHz spectrum they just announced their WIMAX plans for. One of the major players for giving them wireless backhaul is FiberTower who just merged with First Avenue Networks. This gives them instant access to a lot of spectrum all over the US. While this may not be good news to most of the folks on this list, there is an upside. The telcos are going to lose a lot of business from them dropping those expensive $1200 per month T1 circuits to each and every tower site.that should effect some numbers for those guys. Thank You, Brian Webster www.wirelessmapping.com http://www.wirelessmapping.com -Original Message- From: Matt Larsen - Lists [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 12:44 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi Check back in with us in a year and let us know how that cell data card is working. If you thought the oversubscription on dialup lines was bad, wait until more people get on the cellular data networks. Talk about something that will not scale when the data hits it - wow. Matt Larsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brad Belton wrote: I wasn't going to pipe in on this topic, but George hit it square on the head: Cellular. Laptops are now available with built-in cellular data cards. This trend will only continue as the cellular data rates continue to increase. My Sprint data card pretty consistently pulls 500Kbps and can peak at nearly 1.5Mbps. This is far better than many WiFi hotspots I have connected to and certainly better than any Muni-WiFi system I've seen. Pure coverage alone will give the cellular networks a huge advantage over any muni system. I can guarantee you the next laptop I buy will have a cellular data card built-in. grin Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of George Rogato Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 4:07 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi Tom DeReggi wrote: My arguement is that the biggest prospective client for use of a mobile network is the governement. If you give service to them free or without financial contribution from them, its just plain stupid in my mind. But what about cellular? Aren't they posed best to take advantage of mobile customers because they are all theirs anyways? Sprint just announced they will be doing mobile wimax. Verizon already has a decent nation wide high speed mobile internet access product that a lot of law enforcement are all
Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
Many WISPs have been too busy trashing the Muni-WiFi concept to look at the opportunities. Who can blame ATT for taking advantage when most WISPs turned up their noses. It is not too late for WISPs to get a foothold in the Muni-WiFi arena if they try. Turning up their noses at the idea will not win them any contracts though. The most important thing to understand is that getting access to light poles and electrical power is golden. The street light based wireless broadband platform will change over time. Eventually a platform will emerge that will work well. There are many people who are aggressively making headway toward building real carrier class wireless broadband operating off of street lights. I have 4 nodes being installed on street lights this morning. I see a day when these nodes will have GigE backhaul capacity with redundant paths all through the air. WiMAX distribution to homes and businesses will be the norm. This is going to happen. Scriv Peter R. wrote: http://techdirt.com/articles/20060829/190813.shtml Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi from the /is-that-about-face,-or-just-two-faced?/ dept Remember the good old days of... well, last year, when telcos were telcos and they absolutely hated muni-WiFi? It was such a huge threat to their business that they gave Congress people plenty of money to make it illegal. Of course, that was before they actually bothered looking at many of the muni-WiFi proposals, and recognized they weren't really government-run at all, but were really no different than traditional telco deals. The government was simply giving away rights of way for placing equipment in return for promises of service. The providers could still be commercial providers with real business models. Suddenly, the industry opposition quieted down. Industry associations claimed that muni-WiFi was great... and ATT (whose former employee introduced the bill to ban muni-WiFi) was seen providing the very same free, tax-supported WiFi they had screamed about just months before. Well, congrats to ATT for all that hard work trying to stop muni-WiFi. You've just won another muni-WiFi deal (this one without taxpayer funding). Of course, for those of you who thought that muni-WiFi would give consumers an alternate provider, offering real competition to the incumbent telco... well, that doesn't really work so well when that alternate provider is the telco itself. -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
It helps you because you get to be the muni wireless company rather than a new player who may infringe upon your market share. George Matt Liotta wrote: I think you may be taking your city's view about muni Wi-Fi and applying it to the rest of the country. For example, if you read the Atlanta RFP, they require you to provide coverage for 95% of the city. Do you know what the city is offering up to the winning bidder? Access to traffic lights and city owned buildings. That's it! If you want pole rights you still have to contract with the local utility. If you want roof rights you have to contract with various building owners. So, what you consider golden isn't even on the table. And its not like Atlanta's RFP is somehow different than other major cities. We already have roof rights throughout the city and we already pay the local utility company for pole rights and power. How does providing a service to the city help me? -Matt John Scrivner wrote: Many WISPs have been too busy trashing the Muni-WiFi concept to look at the opportunities. Who can blame ATT for taking advantage when most WISPs turned up their noses. It is not too late for WISPs to get a foothold in the Muni-WiFi arena if they try. Turning up their noses at the idea will not win them any contracts though. The most important thing to understand is that getting access to light poles and electrical power is golden. The street light based wireless broadband platform will change over time. Eventually a platform will emerge that will work well. There are many people who are aggressively making headway toward building real carrier class wireless broadband operating off of street lights. I have 4 nodes being installed on street lights this morning. I see a day when these nodes will have GigE backhaul capacity with redundant paths all through the air. WiMAX distribution to homes and businesses will be the norm. This is going to happen. Scriv Peter R. wrote: http://techdirt.com/articles/20060829/190813.shtml Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi from the /is-that-about-face,-or-just-two-faced?/ dept Remember the good old days of... well, last year, when telcos were telcos and they absolutely hated muni-WiFi? It was such a huge threat to their business that they gave Congress people plenty of money to make it illegal. Of course, that was before they actually bothered looking at many of the muni-WiFi proposals, and recognized they weren't really government-run at all, but were really no different than traditional telco deals. The government was simply giving away rights of way for placing equipment in return for promises of service. The providers could still be commercial providers with real business models. Suddenly, the industry opposition quieted down. Industry associations claimed that muni-WiFi was great... and ATT (whose former employee introduced the bill to ban muni-WiFi) was seen providing the very same free, tax-supported WiFi they had screamed about just months before. Well, congrats to ATT for all that hard work trying to stop muni-WiFi. You've just won another muni-WiFi deal (this one without taxpayer funding). Of course, for those of you who thought that muni-WiFi would give consumers an alternate provider, offering real competition to the incumbent telco... well, that doesn't really work so well when that alternate provider is the telco itself. -- George Rogato Welcome to WISPA www.wispa.org 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] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
George Rogato wrote: It helps you because you get to be the muni wireless company rather than a new player who may infringe upon your market share. Even if we did do a deal with the city that wouldn't stop a new player from entering the market. Again, without something of value provided by the city there is no reason to do the deal. -Matt -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
I did look at the budget for the project. However, without an anchor customer the business plan doesn't look too hot. Personally, I doubt Earthlink can even afford to do it. Then again, they probably can't afford to not do it. I'd hate to be a shareholder. -Matt Brad Larson wrote: Matt, I understand your frustration. Did you spend the time to try and figure out what the cost would be for the Atlanta build out? Today most Muni's want someone to build and maintain on the service provider's dollar which puts larger projects beyond most wisp budgets. Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 10:12 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi George Rogato wrote: It helps you because you get to be the muni wireless company rather than a new player who may infringe upon your market share. Even if we did do a deal with the city that wouldn't stop a new player from entering the market. Again, without something of value provided by the city there is no reason to do the deal. -Matt -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
RE: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
I should also add that we have a wait-and-see approach to the build it for free model will work. Cities get huge efficiency benefits from these networks and they should not expect to get this for free. The best networks are those that are being carefully designed with most of the applications in mind from the start, not those just designing networks for cheap public use. Patrick -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brad Larson Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 8:28 AM To: 'WISPA General List' Subject: RE: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi Matt, I understand your frustration. Did you spend the time to try and figure out what the cost would be for the Atlanta build out? Today most Muni's want someone to build and maintain on the service provider's dollar which puts larger projects beyond most wisp budgets. Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 10:12 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi George Rogato wrote: It helps you because you get to be the muni wireless company rather than a new player who may infringe upon your market share. Even if we did do a deal with the city that wouldn't stop a new player from entering the market. Again, without something of value provided by the city there is no reason to do the deal. -Matt -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses(192). This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses(42). -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses(192). This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses(42). This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses. -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
Patrick Leary wrote: I agree that many WISPs have panned muni wi-fi instead of leveraging their expertise. WISPs were arguably best positioned initially to address this need. Smart VARs and resellers got busy though and whether WISPs realize it, almost all the VARs that serve the WISP community now have a muni engagement. It is just a business reality. And why shouldn't they? If you are radio vendor, reseller, or VAR muni Wi-Fi is a great thing. You get to sell a bunch radios and consulting time. It doesn't matter if the business plan makes sense or if the network even works long term. operators on the other hand have to be concerned about the long-term. Patrick, I bet your radios are doing great technically in the Mountain View deployment, but you stated you personally aren't able to use the Wi-Fi portion of the network. Does that make the network a failure from your perspective as a consumer? -Matt -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
RE: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
Matt, We are on the same page, trust me. There has yet to be a solidly working civic access muni network. By solidly, I mean indoor coverage without forced buying of a secondary CPE. We have also yet to see a successfully scaled mesh network for low cost civic access. Philly and San Fran are still on paper only. These networks are able to provide good outdoor coverage only so far. That is also why we like playing the multipoint backhaul layer. We can reliably deliver that middle layer and get high connectivity for the mesh nodes, fixed cameras, traffic lights, a city buildings, but the success of the Wi-Fi layer is beyond our control and remains the questionable piece. Patrick -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Matt Liotta Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 9:10 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi Patrick Leary wrote: I agree that many WISPs have panned muni wi-fi instead of leveraging their expertise. WISPs were arguably best positioned initially to address this need. Smart VARs and resellers got busy though and whether WISPs realize it, almost all the VARs that serve the WISP community now have a muni engagement. It is just a business reality. And why shouldn't they? If you are radio vendor, reseller, or VAR muni Wi-Fi is a great thing. You get to sell a bunch radios and consulting time. It doesn't matter if the business plan makes sense or if the network even works long term. operators on the other hand have to be concerned about the long-term. Patrick, I bet your radios are doing great technically in the Mountain View deployment, but you stated you personally aren't able to use the Wi-Fi portion of the network. Does that make the network a failure from your perspective as a consumer? -Matt -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses(192). This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses(42). This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses. -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
RE: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
And when low cost civic access is not a component of the project, we do not believe mesh fits at all (except for small, localized clusters like in parks). In such cases, there is no one to fund it for free and cities themselves cannot justify 50-60 mesh nodes per square mile for their own internal use. So we spec in our mobile 900MHz layered under BreezeACCESS VL and/or 4900 cells (depending on the applications). In this method, we can get 1mbps net to vehicles using only a tenth of less of the infrastructure. At the same time, we enable officers to benefit from low cost Wi-Fi access by making the cars themselves Wi-Fi pico cells that they can use to connect to via PDAs or laptops. This is exactly why we won large installed public safety projects like Ocean City, MD; Cheyenne, WY; Fresno, CA; multiple cities on the edge of Chicago; and many other places. Those are networks where there is no residential/low cost civic access, this no rational case at all for mesh. Patrick Leary AVP Marketing Alvarion, Inc. o: 650.314.2628 c: 760.580.0080 Vonage: 650.641.1243 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Patrick Leary Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 9:30 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: RE: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi Matt, We are on the same page, trust me. There has yet to be a solidly working civic access muni network. By solidly, I mean indoor coverage without forced buying of a secondary CPE. We have also yet to see a successfully scaled mesh network for low cost civic access. Philly and San Fran are still on paper only. These networks are able to provide good outdoor coverage only so far. That is also why we like playing the multipoint backhaul layer. We can reliably deliver that middle layer and get high connectivity for the mesh nodes, fixed cameras, traffic lights, a city buildings, but the success of the Wi-Fi layer is beyond our control and remains the questionable piece. Patrick -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Matt Liotta Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 9:10 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi Patrick Leary wrote: I agree that many WISPs have panned muni wi-fi instead of leveraging their expertise. WISPs were arguably best positioned initially to address this need. Smart VARs and resellers got busy though and whether WISPs realize it, almost all the VARs that serve the WISP community now have a muni engagement. It is just a business reality. And why shouldn't they? If you are radio vendor, reseller, or VAR muni Wi-Fi is a great thing. You get to sell a bunch radios and consulting time. It doesn't matter if the business plan makes sense or if the network even works long term. operators on the other hand have to be concerned about the long-term. Patrick, I bet your radios are doing great technically in the Mountain View deployment, but you stated you personally aren't able to use the Wi-Fi portion of the network. Does that make the network a failure from your perspective as a consumer? -Matt -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses(192). This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses(42). This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses. -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses(191). This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp
Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
Patrick Leary wrote: We are on the same page, trust me. There has yet to be a solidly working civic access muni network. By solidly, I mean indoor coverage without forced buying of a secondary CPE. We have also yet to see a successfully scaled mesh network for low cost civic access. Philly and San Fran are still on paper only. These networks are able to provide good outdoor coverage only so far. That is also why we like playing the multipoint backhaul layer. We can reliably deliver that middle layer and get high connectivity for the mesh nodes, fixed cameras, traffic lights, a city buildings, but the success of the Wi-Fi layer is beyond our control and remains the questionable piece. What happens to Alvarion when these networks fail? Does the market get flooded with your radios for pennies on the dollar? Does it make customers question the viability of wireless operators in general? We are certainly questioned routinely on why we will succeed when WinStar and others failed. -Matt -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
RE: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
Our side of the network works well, and while the mesh side is not so good for residential, nomadic users are using it as are some city workers. So these networks will never be claimed to be a public failure. Instead, you may see them quietly transferred for local groups to run if the big guys building them cannot make a case over time. But again, our side works well and a major part of the business case is NOT the residential side, but in selling fixed services to businesses using the middle layer technology. At the same time, our radios are also connecting the traffic systems in some case, cameras in some, etc. Patrick Leary AVP Marketing Alvarion, Inc. o: 650.314.2628 c: 760.580.0080 Vonage: 650.641.1243 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Matt Liotta Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 9:44 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi Patrick Leary wrote: We are on the same page, trust me. There has yet to be a solidly working civic access muni network. By solidly, I mean indoor coverage without forced buying of a secondary CPE. We have also yet to see a successfully scaled mesh network for low cost civic access. Philly and San Fran are still on paper only. These networks are able to provide good outdoor coverage only so far. That is also why we like playing the multipoint backhaul layer. We can reliably deliver that middle layer and get high connectivity for the mesh nodes, fixed cameras, traffic lights, a city buildings, but the success of the Wi-Fi layer is beyond our control and remains the questionable piece. What happens to Alvarion when these networks fail? Does the market get flooded with your radios for pennies on the dollar? Does it make customers question the viability of wireless operators in general? We are certainly questioned routinely on why we will succeed when WinStar and others failed. -Matt -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses(192). This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses(42). This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses. -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
Actually you are also taking your own city's view and trying to say that is all there is. My opportunity gets me a paid contract to deploy mobile WiFi service into all police vehicles (even though it does not pay much), use of street light poles, use of water towers, etc. I doubt another provider would be interested in trying to compete if you cover a good part of your city. If you are not then why aren't you trying to cover the whole of the city? I am betting there is plenty of opportunity. What I don't know is if it makes money or goes broke using the muni-deployment model. Does the model pay out on paper? How long is ROI? What does the IRR look like over 5 years? I would be interested in seeing what you see as a model for this going forward. At least the capex and opex based on what revenues. Can you share? Maybe on the operator membership list? Thanks for anything you can share Matt. Scriv Matt Liotta wrote: I think you may be taking your city's view about muni Wi-Fi and applying it to the rest of the country. For example, if you read the Atlanta RFP, they require you to provide coverage for 95% of the city. Do you know what the city is offering up to the winning bidder? Access to traffic lights and city owned buildings. That's it! If you want pole rights you still have to contract with the local utility. If you want roof rights you have to contract with various building owners. So, what you consider golden isn't even on the table. And its not like Atlanta's RFP is somehow different than other major cities. We already have roof rights throughout the city and we already pay the local utility company for pole rights and power. How does providing a service to the city help me? -Matt John Scrivner wrote: Many WISPs have been too busy trashing the Muni-WiFi concept to look at the opportunities. Who can blame ATT for taking advantage when most WISPs turned up their noses. It is not too late for WISPs to get a foothold in the Muni-WiFi arena if they try. Turning up their noses at the idea will not win them any contracts though. The most important thing to understand is that getting access to light poles and electrical power is golden. The street light based wireless broadband platform will change over time. Eventually a platform will emerge that will work well. There are many people who are aggressively making headway toward building real carrier class wireless broadband operating off of street lights. I have 4 nodes being installed on street lights this morning. I see a day when these nodes will have GigE backhaul capacity with redundant paths all through the air. WiMAX distribution to homes and businesses will be the norm. This is going to happen. Scriv Peter R. wrote: http://techdirt.com/articles/20060829/190813.shtml Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi from the /is-that-about-face,-or-just-two-faced?/ dept Remember the good old days of... well, last year, when telcos were telcos and they absolutely hated muni-WiFi? It was such a huge threat to their business that they gave Congress people plenty of money to make it illegal. Of course, that was before they actually bothered looking at many of the muni-WiFi proposals, and recognized they weren't really government-run at all, but were really no different than traditional telco deals. The government was simply giving away rights of way for placing equipment in return for promises of service. The providers could still be commercial providers with real business models. Suddenly, the industry opposition quieted down. Industry associations claimed that muni-WiFi was great... and ATT (whose former employee introduced the bill to ban muni-WiFi) was seen providing the very same free, tax-supported WiFi they had screamed about just months before. Well, congrats to ATT for all that hard work trying to stop muni-WiFi. You've just won another muni-WiFi deal (this one without taxpayer funding). Of course, for those of you who thought that muni-WiFi would give consumers an alternate provider, offering real competition to the incumbent telco... well, that doesn't really work so well when that alternate provider is the telco itself. -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
Matt Liotta wrote: Patrick Leary wrote: We are on the same page, trust me. There has yet to be a solidly working civic access muni network. By solidly, I mean indoor coverage without forced buying of a secondary CPE. We have also yet to see a successfully scaled mesh network for low cost civic access. Philly and San Fran are still on paper only. These networks are able to provide good outdoor coverage only so far. That is also why we like playing the multipoint backhaul layer. We can reliably deliver that middle layer and get high connectivity for the mesh nodes, fixed cameras, traffic lights, a city buildings, but the success of the Wi-Fi layer is beyond our control and remains the questionable piece. What happens to Alvarion when these networks fail? Does the market get flooded with your radios for pennies on the dollar? Does it make customers question the viability of wireless operators in general? We are certainly questioned routinely on why we will succeed when WinStar and others failed. -Matt Why should the networks all fail? If they provide easy mobile access to WiFi then that is what you design and build them to do. That is what I am doing. If the 4 nodes we turned on today in our downtown provide me with the ability to find a business downtown through the captive portal, allow me to access the Internet to check my email, and allow me to search for other information then it does what it needs to do for me. Define the terms for failure you are predicting. I have yet to see anyone prove that muni-WiFi will fail any more than I have seen anyone prove it will work. Matt, if you are thinking the platform will fail then why are you launching nodes on street lights yourself? Is it just a test system you are building or what? I believe there is too much interest in seeing muni-WiFi as a future platform for it to be a complete failure. I sure would like to see that business plan that shows it failing or prospering though. Neither plan exists as far as I know. It is the great unknown right now. Scriv -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
Certainly I didn't mean to imply that Atlanta's RFP is the same as every other city. However, almost all of the first tier cities have similar RFPs. In regard to competition, remember that coverage doesn't matter; sales matter. It is easy to compete with even established WISPs who have large coverage areas because most of the time they don't know how to sell. This is not a problem that only WISPs face. We see it with CLECs as well. In our market, CBeyond easily beat all the established CLECs right in their backyards because they know how to sell. Footprint is not enough; execution is everything. -Matt John Scrivner wrote: Actually you are also taking your own city's view and trying to say that is all there is. My opportunity gets me a paid contract to deploy mobile WiFi service into all police vehicles (even though it does not pay much), use of street light poles, use of water towers, etc. I doubt another provider would be interested in trying to compete if you cover a good part of your city. If you are not then why aren't you trying to cover the whole of the city? I am betting there is plenty of opportunity. What I don't know is if it makes money or goes broke using the muni-deployment model. Does the model pay out on paper? How long is ROI? What does the IRR look like over 5 years? I would be interested in seeing what you see as a model for this going forward. At least the capex and opex based on what revenues. Can you share? Maybe on the operator membership list? Thanks for anything you can share Matt. Scriv Matt Liotta wrote: I think you may be taking your city's view about muni Wi-Fi and applying it to the rest of the country. For example, if you read the Atlanta RFP, they require you to provide coverage for 95% of the city. Do you know what the city is offering up to the winning bidder? Access to traffic lights and city owned buildings. That's it! If you want pole rights you still have to contract with the local utility. If you want roof rights you have to contract with various building owners. So, what you consider golden isn't even on the table. And its not like Atlanta's RFP is somehow different than other major cities. We already have roof rights throughout the city and we already pay the local utility company for pole rights and power. How does providing a service to the city help me? -Matt John Scrivner wrote: Many WISPs have been too busy trashing the Muni-WiFi concept to look at the opportunities. Who can blame ATT for taking advantage when most WISPs turned up their noses. It is not too late for WISPs to get a foothold in the Muni-WiFi arena if they try. Turning up their noses at the idea will not win them any contracts though. The most important thing to understand is that getting access to light poles and electrical power is golden. The street light based wireless broadband platform will change over time. Eventually a platform will emerge that will work well. There are many people who are aggressively making headway toward building real carrier class wireless broadband operating off of street lights. I have 4 nodes being installed on street lights this morning. I see a day when these nodes will have GigE backhaul capacity with redundant paths all through the air. WiMAX distribution to homes and businesses will be the norm. This is going to happen. Scriv Peter R. wrote: http://techdirt.com/articles/20060829/190813.shtml Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi from the /is-that-about-face,-or-just-two-faced?/ dept Remember the good old days of... well, last year, when telcos were telcos and they absolutely hated muni-WiFi? It was such a huge threat to their business that they gave Congress people plenty of money to make it illegal. Of course, that was before they actually bothered looking at many of the muni-WiFi proposals, and recognized they weren't really government-run at all, but were really no different than traditional telco deals. The government was simply giving away rights of way for placing equipment in return for promises of service. The providers could still be commercial providers with real business models. Suddenly, the industry opposition quieted down. Industry associations claimed that muni-WiFi was great... and ATT (whose former employee introduced the bill to ban muni-WiFi) was seen providing the very same free, tax-supported WiFi they had screamed about just months before. Well, congrats to ATT for all that hard work trying to stop muni-WiFi. You've just won another muni-WiFi deal (this one without taxpayer funding). Of course, for those of you who thought that muni-WiFi would give consumers an alternate provider, offering real competition to the incumbent telco... well, that doesn't really work so well when that alternate provider is the telco itself. -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
John Scrivner wrote: Why should the networks all fail? If they provide easy mobile access to WiFi then that is what you design and build them to do. That is what I am doing. If the 4 nodes we turned on today in our downtown provide me with the ability to find a business downtown through the captive portal, allow me to access the Internet to check my email, and allow me to search for other information then it does what it needs to do for me. Define the terms for failure you are predicting. I have yet to see anyone prove that muni-WiFi will fail any more than I have seen anyone prove it will work. Matt, if you are thinking the platform will fail then why are you launching nodes on street lights yourself? Is it just a test system you are building or what? I believe there is too much interest in seeing muni-WiFi as a future platform for it to be a complete failure. I sure would like to see that business plan that shows it failing or prospering though. Neither plan exists as far as I know. It is the great unknown right now. Many of these networks are meant for home broadband; not nomadic use. In fact, if you read Philadelphia's RFP one of the reasons they wanted the network was to provide broadband at homes where DSL is not available. I don't think all muni networks will fail, but I do expect ones where the city provides no revenue to fail. Why would we deploy nodes ourselves? Call it a defensive measure. I won't say anything else publicly. -Matt -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
I do not see the upside to any Muni-Wifi Project for WISPs. Unless, the Muni is providing the funds to grant to the WISP that wins the RFP. Even if RFP required a Small Business set aside portion in proposal (for example 25% of opportunity must be contracted out to third party local WISPs), it would not be enough. Most new Muni projects are only offering non-cash assets, that established WISPs likely already have in some equivellent shape or form. I embrace Muni Wifi, only for the reason that I loose less, if I get involved. By getting involved... WISPs have the opportunity to protect the wireless broadband reputation, by encouraging best practices. WISPs have the opporuntiy to incourage non-interference and co-existence, by gaining good will with parties involved. WISPs have the opportunity to delay progress, by bring up relevent issues that need addressing before deployments would be successful (Buying time). It doesn't have to be that way, but it is, because legislators are to worried about conserving tax dollars to win elections than they are about putting tax dollars to good use to help the success of an industry that would indirectly help the public. The exception to this, are the WISPs going after grants and loans, where the local governement becomes a partner to help secure the requirements for receiving federal or state funding. The other reason this is the case is that high volume projects are structured to reduce profit margin. Once that happens, its a commodity price business, just like everything else where service no longer matters. I will say that Muni networks will likely help some under preveledged areas get broadband, where they currently couldn't. So some public will benefit. But I don't see how the WISP will end up winning. It may create jobs for skilled Wireless techs, who's previous companies got put out of business. The worst part of Muni Wireless is that it will substancially kill the abilty for funding options to independent WISPs. If their is a public funded Wifi Project, it will be impossible for independant WISPs to get funding support from Governements to compete against the public project. It wouldn't be politically correct. I actually think Muni Wireless will be rather Ironic at the end of the day. Many WISPs spent years trying to get easements from governement assets, ending up empty handed. Only for easements to eventually be given to the goliath company that wins the RFP. You know, the company that wouldn't deliver broadband to mcuh of the needy consumers the first 5 years, which was the reason for the start of WISP companies in the first place. There is no loyalty in this business, is my opinion. Whats most ironic about it, is Muni Wireless is often nomadic in technical design. Most likely WiMax(e) Mobile will replace the architecture, and most of the Muni Projects will just have to be rebuilt again, 2 years down the road, to compete with the Telcos for nomadic broadband services. A better approach, would be for the federal Government to require all MTU property owners to deploy or contract to deploy a minimum of 2 broadband options to their buildings. And then let the WISPs or those moving fastest start taking orders. Public assets are not whats needed, its private MTU owners's assets taht are needed for mass adoption. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: John Scrivner [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 1:50 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi Matt Liotta wrote: Patrick Leary wrote: We are on the same page, trust me. There has yet to be a solidly working civic access muni network. By solidly, I mean indoor coverage without forced buying of a secondary CPE. We have also yet to see a successfully scaled mesh network for low cost civic access. Philly and San Fran are still on paper only. These networks are able to provide good outdoor coverage only so far. That is also why we like playing the multipoint backhaul layer. We can reliably deliver that middle layer and get high connectivity for the mesh nodes, fixed cameras, traffic lights, a city buildings, but the success of the Wi-Fi layer is beyond our control and remains the questionable piece. What happens to Alvarion when these networks fail? Does the market get flooded with your radios for pennies on the dollar? Does it make customers question the viability of wireless operators in general? We are certainly questioned routinely on why we will succeed when WinStar and others failed. -Matt Why should the networks all fail? If they provide easy mobile access to WiFi then that is what you design and build them to do. That is what I am doing. If the 4 nodes we turned on today in our downtown provide me with the ability to find a business downtown through the captive portal, allow me to access
Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
There are networks like Allconet that are definate success stories of Muni wireless, in their case that use Alvarion gear. But these are different animals, and projects funded by the government for governement as the subscribers. There are definately benefits to government workers that need nomadic or mobile connectivity options. The secret is to sell that benefit, so that governement pays for it, and has the excess capacity jsut sitting theree unused to sell or donate to public use. My arguement is that the biggest prospective client for use of a mobile network is the governement. If you give service to them free or without financial contribution from them, its just plain stupid in my mind. The reason most Muni will fail, is that they try and maximize the advantage of their assets by playing the potentual users agaisnt each other in competition to find the higherst bidder to buy the exclusive rights. (Which I argue is unethical). But they then limit their options to one provider. Instead what they should do is create a blank PO for ALL service providers that will give the assets up to the quickest takers on a first come first serve basis for as much space that is available for free. (not just one provider). To be clear, I'm not suggesting all exclusive city wide territory, in the Blank PO, I'm referring to a Blank PO that would cover and accelerate approval for all poles but the right to install on a specific pole is a first come first serve per pole. No right is granted for more than 30 days in advance of it actually being installed. This would create a labd fight race to see who could build quickest to serve people. And it wouldn't put all the governments eggs in one basket. Or the governement should issue a certain number of Circuit order for broadband, and award them to the first come first server Wireless providers that can deliver the service. I personally, deployed way more cell sites than I should ahve financially jstified, but I did it because if I didn;t snag them someone else would first. The Governement has the abilty to create such a type of Demand. Instead they want to issue it to one, where it has been proven that there is no accountabilty for failure when no competition has been created in the endeavor. So many confuse Competition as companies competing for the right to be the one to mail the invoice. Competition is need in the infrastructure to. Without it its a doomed model. Its different for Muni FIber. Fiber NEEDs the easement. Fiber is expensive, and can not be justified if its not a long term financed project for all to share the burden of the cost, and where the capacity is near unlimited in practical purposes. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Patrick Leary [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 1:05 PM Subject: RE: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi Our side of the network works well, and while the mesh side is not so good for residential, nomadic users are using it as are some city workers. So these networks will never be claimed to be a public failure. Instead, you may see them quietly transferred for local groups to run if the big guys building them cannot make a case over time. But again, our side works well and a major part of the business case is NOT the residential side, but in selling fixed services to businesses using the middle layer technology. At the same time, our radios are also connecting the traffic systems in some case, cameras in some, etc. Patrick Leary AVP Marketing Alvarion, Inc. o: 650.314.2628 c: 760.580.0080 Vonage: 650.641.1243 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Matt Liotta Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 9:44 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi Patrick Leary wrote: We are on the same page, trust me. There has yet to be a solidly working civic access muni network. By solidly, I mean indoor coverage without forced buying of a secondary CPE. We have also yet to see a successfully scaled mesh network for low cost civic access. Philly and San Fran are still on paper only. These networks are able to provide good outdoor coverage only so far. That is also why we like playing the multipoint backhaul layer. We can reliably deliver that middle layer and get high connectivity for the mesh nodes, fixed cameras, traffic lights, a city buildings, but the success of the Wi-Fi layer is beyond our control and remains the questionable piece. What happens to Alvarion when these networks fail? Does the market get flooded with your radios for pennies on the dollar? Does it make customers question the viability of wireless operators in general? We are certainly questioned routinely on why we will succeed when WinStar and others failed. -Matt -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless
RE: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
IMHO. For some reason wifi has gone from being a convenience and hotspot technology to the 4th leg of broadband for the masses or the 4th leg of broadband to close the digital divide (meaning 95% or more coverage over a whole community-large and small). Mesh on the edge could be getting oversold and at some point convenience will be the telling force for deployments again. I'm waiting for a deployment to prove me wrong but the RFP's I see for data, voip, and video etc. to the edge are a stretch. I think this may be what Patrick is trying to say?? VOIP is the latest killer application and it brings most wireless networks to their knees with lots of the products that are shipping today. You'll hear more and more on this as deployments start getting legs. Wait until some of the comparisons come out that I have seen from Alvarion and several well respected customers who have done some substantial voip testing. Data is hard enough blanketing whole communities with wifi mesh and when voip and other applications are added the dynamics change quite a bit. Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 1:06 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: RE: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi Our side of the network works well, and while the mesh side is not so good for residential, nomadic users are using it as are some city workers. So these networks will never be claimed to be a public failure. Instead, you may see them quietly transferred for local groups to run if the big guys building them cannot make a case over time. But again, our side works well and a major part of the business case is NOT the residential side, but in selling fixed services to businesses using the middle layer technology. At the same time, our radios are also connecting the traffic systems in some case, cameras in some, etc. Patrick Leary AVP Marketing Alvarion, Inc. o: 650.314.2628 c: 760.580.0080 Vonage: 650.641.1243 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Matt Liotta Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 9:44 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi Patrick Leary wrote: We are on the same page, trust me. There has yet to be a solidly working civic access muni network. By solidly, I mean indoor coverage without forced buying of a secondary CPE. We have also yet to see a successfully scaled mesh network for low cost civic access. Philly and San Fran are still on paper only. These networks are able to provide good outdoor coverage only so far. That is also why we like playing the multipoint backhaul layer. We can reliably deliver that middle layer and get high connectivity for the mesh nodes, fixed cameras, traffic lights, a city buildings, but the success of the Wi-Fi layer is beyond our control and remains the questionable piece. What happens to Alvarion when these networks fail? Does the market get flooded with your radios for pennies on the dollar? Does it make customers question the viability of wireless operators in general? We are certainly questioned routinely on why we will succeed when WinStar and others failed. -Matt -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses(192). This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses(42). This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses. -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses(191
Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
Tom DeReggi wrote: My arguement is that the biggest prospective client for use of a mobile network is the governement. If you give service to them free or without financial contribution from them, its just plain stupid in my mind. But what about cellular? Aren't they posed best to take advantage of mobile customers because they are all theirs anyways? Sprint just announced they will be doing mobile wimax. Verizon already has a decent nation wide high speed mobile internet access product that a lot of law enforcement are all ready using in the plice cars. And just this morning we heard about 4g cellular delivering 100megs to the police car at 37 miles per hour. How does muni fit into the future that will be dominated by cellular? George -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
RE: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
I wasn't going to pipe in on this topic, but George hit it square on the head: Cellular. Laptops are now available with built-in cellular data cards. This trend will only continue as the cellular data rates continue to increase. My Sprint data card pretty consistently pulls 500Kbps and can peak at nearly 1.5Mbps. This is far better than many WiFi hotspots I have connected to and certainly better than any Muni-WiFi system I've seen. Pure coverage alone will give the cellular networks a huge advantage over any muni system. I can guarantee you the next laptop I buy will have a cellular data card built-in. grin Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of George Rogato Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 4:07 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi Tom DeReggi wrote: My arguement is that the biggest prospective client for use of a mobile network is the governement. If you give service to them free or without financial contribution from them, its just plain stupid in my mind. But what about cellular? Aren't they posed best to take advantage of mobile customers because they are all theirs anyways? Sprint just announced they will be doing mobile wimax. Verizon already has a decent nation wide high speed mobile internet access product that a lot of law enforcement are all ready using in the plice cars. And just this morning we heard about 4g cellular delivering 100megs to the police car at 37 miles per hour. How does muni fit into the future that will be dominated by cellular? George -- 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/
