Re: [WISPA] Alvarion Comnet Radios have arrived

Tom DeReggi Thu, 28 Dec 2006 11:46:03 -0800

There is some truth to Brad's point.

With Trango, we knew exactly how much bandwidth would be available, and itmet the requirement for business grade CIR.If we didn't get that, then it was a broke link needing repair, which waslikely to be accomplishable.The problem is our business model was limited to 10 mbps. What do you dowhen you scale past that?When we use Alvarion, we don't design using it for 30mbps of CIR capacity inmind. It can't deliver that.But it very well may deliver 24 mbps of MIR traffic, and 10mbps of CIRtraffic without a doubt. Or 16mbps of MIR traffic in half the spectrum. Wejust change our offering to sell MIR traffic, and the customers that needCIR, buy more capacity than they need to guarantee the headroom to meettheir need. We no longer try to guarantee finite exact amounts ofbandwdith. Instead we deliver better value and an improved experience. If50% of the time you can tranfer twice as fast, thats an improved experience.

I as well share the view that all radios should come stock with DualPolarity, and to this day, I do not understand why so many vendors have notyet seen the light.But the fact is, they don't. So we need to make choices. And 5 years intothis industry it frustrates me to have to make hard choices. When 10mbps wasgood enough for me, it was clear as day to pick a Dual Polarity TDD radio.But when greater than 10mbps is needed, its not so clear anymore. Does onesacrifice needed capacity, for greater options to stear from interference?I'm not answering that question, its up to the WISP to answer for himself,and how confident they are that they will likely need or not need to steararound interference. As more customers are taken on, more bandwdith isneeded. And as more competitors come to town, more bandwdith is needed. Andthe WISP that picks up more of the customers sooner, gets more of them, andstarts paying off their gear sooner, to allow them to have the priceadvantage long term as their competitors become stronger. Sure I can addmore downtilt, and deploy more cell sites, but that cost more money andrequires paying more landlords, instead of put money in my pocket, orincrease the reoccurring value of my assets. Money given to a landlord, isa pure cost, with no reoccurring value earned after the month is over. Itsnot a matter of whats best, that battle is not possible to win. Thesituation here is, there is a specific need, and Alvarion is comming backwith an answer to that need, and its available bug-free and proven, TODAY.

Alvarion offers.. a low cost CPE, a quality high gain antenna that meets 90%of the install needs in one product, improves installation time and cost,allows higher speeds most of the time, and maximizes its effectiveness byadding many advanced features (See Patrick's posts). This answer is not foreveryone, but its a heck of a value proposition for many.


Tom DeReggi
RapidDSL & Wireless, Inc
IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband

----- Original Message -----From: "Brad Belton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: "'WISPA General List'" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 27, 2006 6:41 PM
Subject: RE: [WISPA] Alvarion Comnet Radios have arrived

Hello Rich,

Exactly my point and exactly why users operating in the unlicensed spectrum
need as many tools available at their disposal as possible.  My criticism
and suggestions have been to illuminate just those features as extremely
valuable to guys like me that sell CIR not MIR.

Frankly the DP & DB features should be extremely valuable to any unlicensed
operator regardless of the business plan.  How can it be that greater
flexibility as I have described isn't going to better a product?

Just like many believe ATPC should be mandatory on all future unlicensed
products I believe DP & DB should be mandatory!  Not going to happen, but
the products that do offer these features will be superior in their
abilities to avoid and/or work around interference.

Best,

Brad

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Rich Comroe
Sent: Wednesday, December 27, 2006 10:56 AM
To: WISPA General List
Subject: Re: [WISPA] Alvarion Comnet Radios have arrived

There's no unlicensed product which guarantees business class services in
interference.  To suggest product A does and product B doesn't is nonsense.
I think you've done a good job of describing why you think some products do
a better job of than others.  That's fair.  Sharing experiences where one
product did better than another is fair.  I love reading your posts and
others comparing the attributes which impact on this.  It's educational and
I get insights into equipment that I haven't personally had direct
experience.  But the constant bashing that some product will guarantee
business class services in interference and another won't is tiresome, and
just turns people off from the good content that people appreciate.

Rich

----- Original Message -----From: Brad Belton

 To: 'WISPA General List'
 Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2006 7:26 PM
 Subject: RE: [WISPA] Alvarion Comnet Radios have arrived

 Certainly you can do committed rate business class services with
unlicensed
 products.  WMUX, Terabridge, Trango just to name a few.  Are they
 interchangeable in application?  Nope, they require you use the right
 product for the job at hand.  What may work well on one project may not on
 the next.

 Interference typically isn't temporary...at least not around these parts!
 No, you need to engineer the link with enough forethought and available
 tools on hand to give yourself options in the event a link does begin to
 incur interference.

 In our experience the VL was erratic in its ability to consistently
produce
 the same end result day in and day out.  Alvarion, me and the third party
 client all knew before hand the site was very RF unfriendly.  I visited
the
 site personally to run surveys before any gear was deployed.  We spent the
 better part of a month with Alvarion trying to get the VL to produce a
 consistent level of throughput at any level without success.  Just as I
 began to believe we had it licked we would get another call from the
client.
 The really frustrating part of all this is the throughput would vary
 depending on just how busy the other gear in the area was.  The busiest
 times of day is when we realized the link really suffered.

 I felt obligated to share our VL results here because Marlon indicated he
 was looking for a business class product.  VL is not that...at least not
in
 our book.

 Best,

 Brad

 -----Original Message-----
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
 Behalf Of Rich Comroe
 Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2006 5:35 PM
 To: WISPA General List
 Subject: Re: [WISPA] Alvarion Comnet Radios have arrived

 >Products that are best effort [snip product name]
 >end up making guys like us look bad.

 I'm confused how can anyone do better than "best effort" in unlicensed
 spectrum, regardless of manufacturer?

 >There is nothing worse than installing one day at 6Mbps and the next day
 >getting a call saying they are getting something less than that.

 If you have no allowance for even temporary interference, what short of a
 licensed channel can accomplish that?

 Rich

----- Original Message -----From: Brad Belton

   To: 'WISPA General List'
   Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2006 5:17 PM
   Subject: RE: [WISPA] Alvarion Comnet Radios have arrived

   If we are in an environment where ANY particular solution will not
produce
   the results we are after then we look at other products.  We will not
tie
   our hands to one brand.  No reason to.

   Our business model is different than the next and so on and so on.  Yes,
 CIR
   is what we sell not MIR.  That may be a good thing for us or it may turn
 out
   to be a bad thing for us, but that is the level of service we strive to
   deliver.

   Products that are best effort like VL end up making guys like us look
bad.
   There is nothing worse than installing one day at 6Mbps and the next day
   getting a call saying they are getting something less than that.

   Expectations and end results are everything to us.  We meet expectations
 or
   we'd rather not do it, part ways amiability and maintain our reputation.
   It's a small town!

   Best,

   Brad

   -----Original Message-----
   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
   Behalf Of Tom DeReggi
   Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2006 2:57 PM
   To: WISPA General List
   Subject: Re: [WISPA] Alvarion Comnet Radios have arrived

   >The Alvarion VL is great for bursty, best effort requirements where 90%
 of
   >the user applications can wait for that clear air within the noise
floor,
   >but not for committed rate business class service.

   Agreed.  But what about when you are in an environment that TDD won't
work

   well? Sometimes the answer is to modify your offering to what the beset
   thing is that can be delivered.
   CIR service may need to be changed to MIR. In what cases is CIR really
   needed? And what areas of your business or network also prevent the CIR
 Full

   QOS guarantee from being realized?

   Tom DeReggi
   RapidDSL & Wireless, Inc
   IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband

----- Original Message -----From: "Brad Belton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

   To: "'WISPA General List'" <[email protected]>
   Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2006 1:03 PM
   Subject: RE: [WISPA] Alvarion Comnet Radios have arrived

   My thoughts exactly.

   If the VL had a mechanism to "tune out" noise and a few other tools
(dual
   pol - dual band) that would enable the user avoid noise then it is
 possible
   there simply would not be a better PtMP LE product available today.
 Without
   those critical elements the VL is just not able to perform consistently
in
   RF hostile environments.

   The Alvarion VL is great for bursty, best effort requirements where 90%
of
   the user applications can wait for that clear air within the noise
floor,
   but not for committed rate business class service.

   Best,

   Brad

   -----Original Message-----
   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
   Behalf Of Marlon K. Schafer (509) 982-2181
   Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2006 11:46 AM
   To: WISPA General List
   Subject: Re: [WISPA] Alvarion Comnet Radios have arrived

   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

----- Original Message -----From: "Patrick Leary" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

   To: "WISPA General List" <[email protected]>
   Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2006 9:26 AM
   Subject: RE: [WISPA] Alvarion Comnet Radios have arrived

   I'd never call you a neophyte, Marlon. A jolly elf maybe, neophyte
   never...

   CSMA/CA. But the MAC has been substantially altered, especially with 4.0
   and the WLP (wireless link prioritization) feature where all stations
   can be made to wait while those stations with spooled up voice can
   release their packets regardless of where they are in the cell. Also, in
   VL an operator can adjust numerous values of the CSMA/CA, such as
   contention window duration, contention levels, etc. It is more
   sophisticated than your basic polling and more efficient.

   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 Marlon K. Schafer (509) 982-2181
   Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2006 9:13 AM
   To: WISPA General List
   Subject: Re: [WISPA] Alvarion Comnet Radios have arrived

   Got that part.  I still didn't see in there anywhere, in plain English
   that
   a neophyte like me can understand, is this a polling or csmak product?
   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

----- Original Message -----From: "Patrick Leary" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

   To: "WISPA General List" <[email protected]>
   Sent: Friday, December 22, 2006 1:54 PM
   Subject: RE: [WISPA] Alvarion Comnet Radios have arrived


   Marlon, I'll answer this with a re-post of a September post that
   explains, in part, why VL is not just regular CSMA:

   <<trim>>