Well said! I wanted add my two cents. I have no dog in this fight, but I hope everyone realizes just how blest this industry and the WISPA organization is to have Patrick and Alvarion actively involved here. Its not a perfect comparison, but it is like having Juniper Networks or perhaps even Cisco actively trying to win WISP business here. You don't have to agree with him, or like their products, but please understand the commitment that Alvarion has made with the Comnet program and with Patrick trying to answer your questions/concerns.
Back to your regularly scheduled programming. :-) Happy New Year! Jeff -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marty Dougherty Sent: Wednesday, December 27, 2006 12:10 AM To: 'WISPA General List' Subject: RE: [WISPA] Jon, okay, I'm no engineer. But what about the BUSINESS? Gents: Funny watching all of this go back and forth- I think since it started we have installed another 10-12 VL's for our customers. I really don't know how you guys find the time to keep up with this. You all can argue the merits of the technical abilities of the different products but what really make the count for us is REVENUE- Revenue pays the bills and keeps the whole ship afloat. Now when I say revenue I don't mean enough for me to take a check and go to the grocery. I mean enough revenue to hire the proper staff, (so I don't have to work 80 hours per week), revenue to rent a real office, revenue to pay full benefits like health care and 401K, revenue to pay for training, revenue to purchase network management so we can keep an eye on the network, revenue so we can take a few days off and attend industry trade shows and seminars, etc etc. So if you set aside your technical dream solution hat (I am an engineer by training too) and instead put on your revenue hat you will see things with a different light. A solution is not revenue focused if it does not scale your customer base beyond the grocery store check. Scale means the products allow you to install LOTS of customer without each one being a science project. Scale means you have a VERY LOW failure rate. Scale means the solution fits a majority of your desired customers. Scale means you have all of the tools needed to prevent your customers from abusing you or your other customers. Scale means you can hand the product to a contractor and it will get installed without a major effort. Scaling means..etc etc... A solution that scales also comes with REAL support. A real account manager and a real SE- not to mention marketing. Can you really expect your network to keep up with/grow to your needs if your sole source of product information and future direction is a WEB site? When was the last time a Trango EMPLOYEE asked for your feedback? We have installed well over 1000 VL's and close to 1900 total customers, almost all using Alvarion products. We started with Wifi, Trango, MOTO etc but in the end the Alavarion product line was the most focused on revenue and the only solution that allowed us to scale. Today our customers are VERY happy and our network performs excellently. We have a very LOW turnover (almost none) and our monthly AR is also very low. I learned long time ago that happy customers pay their bills and unhappy ones, well you know what happens. So in summary the VL's and (Alvarion products) may not have every version of every possible bell and whistle but if you decide to really make a big play (scale) you can't go wrong with Alvarion and their team. BTW-I have the revenue to prove it! Marty ________________________________________________________________________ ____ Marty Dougherty CEO Roadstar Internet Inc -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Patrick Leary Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2006 6:31 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: [WISPA] Jon, okay, I'm no engineer. But what about the BUSINESS? Sigh. Jon, I'm really not sure why you beat that drum when examples exist all around that show it is not true. In fact, no tier 1 or 2 operator that deploys in the 5GHz unlicensed bands (i.e. operators that tend to do lengthy trials, comparisons) that I know of has fallen for that argument either, at least not for long. Many WISPs also know better. It is only a few Canopy-based WISPs who continue to believe that GPS is required in the UL bands. Could it be because they have to use it to get Canopy to scale so they can't imagine how other systems could scale well without it? As for the non-engineer part, it seems Jon that you'd benefit from some wider non-technical thinking. What about the business? Here are some BUSINESS-minded things to think about: - What about an operator that does not want to be stranded by being limited in their service offering, such as one that would like to do scaled VoIP? BreezeACCESS VL can scale VoIP very well where other systems struggle with only minimal users. Canopy Advantage's VoIP scaling abilities are there for all to see in Motorola's own white paper -- 26-28 simultaneous calls per AP only, and that's with a 50% uplink/downlink configuration. VL can do 10x that and that all equates to revenue potential. - What about the LOS-limited coverage of Canopy that might require 2 or more times the towers to get the same coverage as one cell of VL? Even cell for cell, CAPEX is now similar between brands, but VL produces about 2x the geographic coverage. Canopy requires more cells (i.e. higher OPEX due to more cell leases and more sectors to maintain) and needs more premium sites. - And that's not counting the customer accessibility -- even within the exact same geography, VL can "see" many more of the potential customers than can Canopy. - And what about cell capacity? Using the same channel sizes, Canopy needs 2x the sectors to get still 15% less than VL? - And what about subscriber capacity? Anyone in the cell that wants more than 14mbps is totally out of the revenue picture and business model -- even with a Canopy ptp. BreezeACCESS VL pmp can connect 15mbps, 20mbps, 25mbps and even higher speed demanding customers. - And for sure now even the cost equation is now equal or better for VL than Canopy both per cell and per CPE since the advent of the AlvarionCOMNET program for WISPs. If you analyze completely today, you may find that Canopy's GPS ability is the only thing left that can even be spun as being an advantage over BreezeACCESS VL since we have come out with v.4.0 and the AlvarionCOMNET program. And when you realize that Canopy needs 2x sectors PER cell (to get the same capacity) and about 2x cells PER geography (to achieve the same coverage) -- it becomes pretty clear why Canopy must have GPS. Patrick Leary AVP WISP Markets Alvarion, Inc. o: 650.314.2628 c: 760.580.0080 Vonage: 650.641.1243 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jon Langeler Sent: Wednesday, December 27, 2006 1:06 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Alvarion Comnet Radios have arrived Marlon, if that's the type of product your looking for, I'll save you the hassle of looking (and you can come back to this post in 5-10 years to make your conclusions on my recommendation) because your best best is to go with canopy or wait until a 5GHz 802.16e solution comes out(not likely soon). If Alvarion would get an actual ENGINEER to debate about their RF technology compared to others on-list, that would be the day :-) Jon Langeler Michwave Tech. Marlon K. Schafer (509) 982-2181 wrote: > Got it. Thanks. > > I guess my "beef" comes from being a wifi based wisp. I find it too > difficult to reject interference with a csma based product. Anything > with a "wait for clear air, then transmit" MAC is GREAT for > collocation. But sucks when there are products around that don't > follow that mechanism. That's (my personal belief) why Canopy went > with it's GPS sync. It doesn't care who's already out there, when > it's time to transmit it does. Trango does that to, just without > sync'ing the AP's. > > My REAL world experience so far is that csmak (or csma/ca, or whatever > collision avoidance scheme you want to use) is GREAT where there > aren't many other systems within ear shot of the radios. However, > when there are other devices in the area, especially those that don't > have a collision avoidance mechanism, the csma radio will pay a heavy > price in performance. > > Having used both csma and polling products, I'm not putting in any > wifi type products at 5 gig. All of our next gen products will be > polling as long as we can keep things that way. > > These days, I'm learning to sacrifice raw performance for reliability > and uptime. There's a balance, sure, but getting that last 10 to 20% > out of a product is less important to me than having a product that > can survive some of the games that my less scrupulous competitors play. > > However, with EITHER technology choice, it's critical to design a > network that can, and does, physically (antenna choice and ap > locations) isolates your system as well as you possibly can. That > seems to be the type of trick that just can't be taught. Your network > designer either gets it or he doesn't. Heck, I've even done > consulting gigs where I looked a guy right in the eye and gave them > several choices for site locations. Only to have them pick something > completely different, and sometimes unworkable. > > 80 to 90% of people's problems with wireless are self inflicted. > Either outright or in a lack of forethought manner. > > Here's an idea for you Patrick. Make this product work both ways. > Give it the option to be either csma or some fancy new version of > token ring. Then we could optimize performance for any environment > that we find ourselves in. > > Oh yeah, I remember the big hubbub about GPS in the BreezeACCESS II > line. Why was it important for collocation then but not now? > > Hope you guys all had a great Christmas! > Marlon > (509) 982-2181 Equipment sales > (408) 907-6910 (Vonage) Consulting services > 42846865 (icq) And I run my own wisp! > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > www.odessaoffice.com/wireless > www.odessaoffice.com/marlon/cam > > -- WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] 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(190). ************************************************************************ ************ ************************************************************************ ************ This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals & computer viruses(43). ************************************************************************ ************ ************************************************************************ ************ 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: [email protected] Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
