As we all know, this can take the form of an almost religious debate,
which I'm going to try to avoid (and I'll ask Brad or others from Alvarion
to avoid the same). We here have a strong tendency toward passion as it
relates to this market, and to be sure, we feel a strong sense of pride in
the role our company has played in building this market. We also way too
often take it personally when our brand gets attacked or we get accused of
being anti-WISP when we know how much we have personally, from a heart and
soul perspective, invested in this market. Mark, know that I am DEFINITELY
NOT saying you are doing either of those things, your questions are fair and
should always be asked and each WISP has to find the mix of answers that
works best for him or her.
That said, our success as a company in the early WISP days has directly led
to the many and broad range of choices WISPs have today across many brands.
That's all good, even for us, since it denotes the existence of a robust,
worthwhile market.
What we can say with absolute certainty is that there are many WISPs that
have successfully scaled using our products, most having migrated from other
brands. Whether your definition of what constitutes mainstream is actually
mainstream is open to debate, since there exist lots of operators outside
the characteristics you cite. What you may be describing may be more
accurately defined as a typical, rural, entrepreneurial WISP. Within that
pool is where I believe can be found the preponderance of WISPs using
purpose built BWA versions of 802.11, ala SmartBridges, Microtek, Tranzeo,
etc. and specialty niche products Lonnie's Star-OS, Engenius CB-3s, etc.
Also within that grouping of WISPs can be found a few Alvarion guys (not as
many as we'd like, but we understand) such as Marty Dougherty's Roadstar in
Virginia and Steve Gowdy's Stonebridge in Minnesota, among others. Also, a
fair amount of Trango and Canopy folks (though I would argue that Canopy has
also lost share among this segment to the purpose-built and niche 802.11
products) are in this grouping. Examples of great guys we lost over time in
this pool of operators includes folks like Allen Marsalis and Eje Gustafson
(both who are also more focused today on selling products and services to
their peers). There are many others out there with mixed networks, with
their old Alvarion still chugging away. Then there are folks in that pool I
have never quite been able to reach, got close, and have huge respect for
them, but we have not yet succeeded in convincing them to try us, such as
Matt Larson. Scriv was in that pile until two weeks ago! :)
But outside that segment of the WISP market exist lots of other, well,
WISPs, only they might have spun off as a subsidiary of another firm, such
as Diode Broadband (from Diller tel in Nebraska), AMA*Techtel (from
Attenbury Grain in Texas), Wheatland Broadband (from Wheatland Electric in
Kansas), Clearwave (from Midwest Wireless, now Alltel in Minnesota), and
many, many others.
Why would any WISP choose us? It helps to have previous, experienced
exposure to wireless broadband before being able to understand our value.
From a sales and marketing standpoint, that's a pretty big cross we bear --
newbies to wireless will think anything they use, no matter how raw and
spare, is the best thing out there since they have no frame of reference. It
is like the villager who spent his early years driving and ox cart,
emigrates on day, and buys his first car...a used Yugo. A little quicky and
rickety for sure, but as far as he knows, it is the best darned car ever.
But in wireless, it is even harder to learn the distinctions because you
can't see the other cars driving around you, you only experience them as
interference. When it is an actual car, that immigrant with the Yugo can at
least see the other cars on the road, how well-built they appear, how little
they leak fluids, how quiet and fast they are, etc.
So it can be hard to appreciate the value of obscure, but operationally
effective (and cost saving) features like broadcast rate limiting, our very
advanced CIR/MIR, remote Ethernet port control and power up, batch
upgradeability with a shadow flash, and scads of other things I'm not smart
enough to understand. Someone like Marty could explain it better.
So, back to the Alvarion operator:
- Often it is one who has matured over the years technically and
financially, since better access to capital is a natural result of a growing
and improving WISP operation.
- Often, an Alvarion WISP will come from the more traditional telecom space,
so the values we offer are more obvious from the start.
- Occasionally, a funded start-up WISP is drawn to us for ego reasons.
Sounds silly, but it is sometimes true, since we are viewed by the larger
BWA market as a best-of-breed, even if many within the entrepreneurial WISP
segment of the market might not agree. For a start up that favor a visible
profile, this might be the case (and I am not
