Thanks very much Tom. That is a very interesting subject indeed: I think you have a very good insight on the current broadband/gigabit marketplace, a very well written piece. MMW is currently "high price - low volume" and there are far fewer MMW deployments than FSO in the world so far AFAIK. Part of that is also regulatory, relatively few countries have followed the FCC lead and deregulated E-band (70-80GHz). UK just has done (three cheers!) Prices WILL come down on MMW as the volumes go up. And products will become more mature too.
BTW, we sell both MMW and FSO, we're not picking a fight between the two. FSO fades in fog, MMW in rain. Some of the choice therefore depends where you live! Tropics is probably not too good a place for MMW ... And there are some places where FSO suffers too. We have deployed "Twinpath" FSO+MMW for some mission-critical applications where 100% uptime was required - i.e. no single point of failure. Sounds a strange thing to do, but the result is about the most resilient wireless connection you can get. Required price points - interesting. Both MMW and FSO technology is inherently more expensive than current OFDM gear. (We make/sell that too). And being limited in range, requiring LOS, there are fewer MMW or FSO applications - an OFDM radio can go 20km, or a few km near-LOS. Right now, there's a lot of "buzz" about MMW, which is like FSO was 7-8 years ago. It will be interesting to see what happens as the MMW market matures. Look forward to hearing more on this debate - Best regards Stephen Patrick CableFree Solutions -----Original Message----- From: Tom DeReggi [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 16 March 2007 15:38 To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] PtP pricing Stephen, Excellent post. I agree that every product has it's place. The industry is lucky to have so many options to choose from. The negative side is the options are often still expensive (perception of expense is relative :-) The reasons, is vendors put a value on their product based on the worst case special unique need a customer might have for the product, instead of looking at how the product can compete with other technologies in the space, and price it to work for every case. Meaning going for Profit margin, not volume. I think its because leading edge vendors are underfinanced as well. MMW is still averaging > 11-35K for short links, and Long range License around 20K, which puts them outside of the budget for the majority of the potential applications, although the price can easilly be justified for 10% of the potential applications. I can give an example, of I just recently finished some engineering for about a half mil worth of MMW links, and my conclusion was I could buy Fiber for an over all lower cost than the MMW gear, so why go wireless? What I found surprizing is that when push came to shove, when I put the money on the table, Lendors and Vendors weren't yet willing to drop the price to compete with Fiber Deployment /Dark Fiber costs. (Based on planned deployment which was not time sensitive). Take away the "now" benefit of Time to Market that wireless offered, and it wasn;t a winner, yet. But still MMW works for many that don't have the fiber available to their locations. I think the race this next year is going to be about how low they (non-fiber) vendors can go. In 2006, Proxim set the bar (Like Trango did for Unlicenced 6 years ago), by putting Short range GB wireless (< 1/2mile) on the table for $10K a link, about what Free-Space Optics was until then. (Some argue its Bridgewave that set that price, by releasing a far superior product to generate competitive preasure). This year we are going to see who is going to be the first to be the "Cogent" of Wireless gear manufacturering. Short Range GB, needs to come down, Lease payments closer to Local Loop Costs ($80 /month), and Longer range shots need to come down below Dark Fiber Costs (sub $500 /mon.). I have to say currently there is little demand to lower the short range cost, because their isnl;t a lower cost long range solution yet. But when the lower cost Long range product comes, the demand for lower cost short range will skyrocket. The BEST thing a MMW product vendor could do strategically, is LOWER the price on LONG RANGE links, to enable carriers to have fast Backhauls, so that they can support buying a HUGE number of Fast Short Range Local Loop MMW products. Most argue that MMW is superior to Laser, if obtained at the same cost. (although I'm sure their are arguements that may differ that opinion, in more controlled climates). It will be interesting to see what Happens in laser technology.... If they are the first to bring GB to the masses (cheaper), sub $5000 range, or if the product just loses significant market share as MMW drops in price, and it will. I'd argue that Laser technology most likely is more cost effective to make nowadays, with years of the R&D behind it already. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL & Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen Patrick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org> Sent: Friday, March 16, 2007 7:46 AM Subject: RE: [WISPA] PtP pricing > Dear all, > > We're an FSO vendor - as well as our other radio and micrwoave products. > Actually I feel we should pitch in on the LEDs vs lasers - a topic we know > very well: > - LEDs are limited in power and bandwidth (more than 50Mbps at reasonable > power is a real problem for the raw LED devices) > - LEDs fade with lifetime, and there is no closed-loop control to > compensate > this > - LEDs don't collimate into very nice beams > - LEDs generally are at 975nm which is the same as some laser products > (such > as our 980nm Access series) > 980nm transmits better at long distances than shorter wavelengths, but at > short distances there is no disadvantage with short wavelengths > - LEDs are cheaper devices than laser, which is actually the only reason > they are used. > There is no advantage of LEDs with dust, except in the case of a few > vendors > that have narrow-aperture laser systems (avoid those: known to cause > problems). > We have LED technology and only use it for very short (a few feet) > customised and indoor links. For outdoor links, use laser, it's far > better. > > Using Laser we have achieved "better than 5 nines" for some operators even > in foggy areas like London, on sub-kilometer links. > For one network operator (broadband ISP) they have under 15 seconds > downtime > over 7 years - 155Mbps sub-kilometer links - which rather proves the > point. > Though we have long distance laser installations at 4km+, those require > relatively clear conditions, or RF resilient path. > Generally, below 1km (say, 3/4 a mile) laser is absolutely a great > solution. > In the USA, our lasers are deployed with cell carriers like Nextel, for > example, for backhaul from base stations on similar short hops. > Elsewhere in the world we have several hundred lasers for individual cell > carriers where microwave was considered too expensive. > > Equipment reliability, vendors differ enormously - caveat emptor. We have > installations back to 1997 still in service, so we're good on that score. > Some features like peltier cooling (solid state TEC) radically improves > lifetime, as laser lifetime drops off with temperature. > Automatic Transmit Power Control (ATPC) increases TX power in fade > conditions, and reduces in clear weather, improving availability and > lifetime. > Power supplies generally mounted indoors and DC run to the laser units; > though it is possible to put PSUs in roof/tower locations. > Generally, our customers "fit and forget" and just as you say, walk away > and > leave them running. Software NMS tells you the links are solid and > working. > > Laser certainly has it's place: you get no inteference and high 100Mbps > and > true Gigabit Ethernet throughput. > For short links, laser is currently cheaper than E-band MMW and (assuming > a > good product) no less reliable. > For the longer links, OFDM radios and licensed microwave (we make/sell > them > too) are the best options. > > </sales pitch> > Anyone who wants information or some real-world case studies, please don't > hesitate to ask - we have many, including WISPs. > Questions/comments welcome - > > Best regards > > Stephen Patrick > CableFree Solutions > www.cablefreesolutions.com > [mail sent in text format: advance apologies if it arrives in HTML, our > ISP/mail server is the culprit when this happens] > > -----Original Message----- > From: George Rogato [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: 16 March 2007 08:06 > To: WISPA General List > Subject: Re: [WISPA] PtP pricing > > Whats the reliability factor? > > I've been thinking of adding fso for a couple links now for a couple > years. > > Now I could put 100megs duplex to use rather than waste the spectrum. > But how well does this stuff stand up? > Haven't heard much about anyones experiences good or bad. > > is it 6 9's? > does the power supplies burn out or the units need to be repaired often? > Or are they switch em on and walk a way for a few years? > > George > > Marlon K. Schafer wrote: >> Hard to beat orthogon! >> >> And for a link that short I'd look REALLY hard at fso gear. >> >> http://www.plaintree.com/ >> >> Plaintree has some cool infrared systems. They handle dust and such >> better than lasers. >> >> If you want laser systems, EC has some that are pretty cool too. Not >> too expensive either. >> marlon >> >> ----- Original Message ----- From: "George Rogato" >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org> >> Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 9:13 PM >> Subject: Re: [WISPA] PtP pricing >> >> >>> Non set budget. >>> >>> >>> Marlon K. Schafer wrote: >>>> what's the budget? >>>> >>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "George Rogato" >>>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>>> To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org> >>>> Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 3:02 PM >>>> Subject: [WISPA] PtP pricing >>>> >>>> >>>>> I need a couple very short range PtP links. A few hundred feet at >>>>> most for each one. Something that did close to 50 or even 100 megs >>>>> duplex would be good >>>>> >>>>> Has anyone worked with Free Space Optics and can advice? >>>>> Also looking to be frugal. But don't want 5 gig. >>>>> -- >>>>> WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org >>>>> >>>>> Subscribe/Unsubscribe: >>>>> http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless >>>>> >>>>> Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ >>> >>> -- >>> 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/ >> > > -- > 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/ > > -- > This email has been verified as Virus free > Virus Protection and more available at http://www.plus.net > > > -- > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.11/722 - Release Date: > 14/03/2007 > 15:38 > > -- > 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/ -- This email has been verified as Virus free Virus Protection and more available at http://www.plus.net -- No virus found in this incoming message. 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