Matt,
I agree. We are looking at the same thing... putting up some 3.65ghz
AP's on our "bigger" towers and moving heavy usage customers to that.
However, until base stations are less than $8k, the WiMax people can
keep spending money on advertising, trade-shows, etc. telling us how
great they are, I'm not going to buy.
When you can buy a licensed microwave radio link for $8k (less
antennas), and you know the company is making money, there is no reason
3.65ghz base stations have to be $8k+.
Hopefully at some point, they will wake up and realize there is an
entire market they are missing.
Travis
Microserv
Matt Larsen - Lists wrote:
I'm with Travis on this, with the exception of using StarOS instead of
Mikrotik. It is nice to have a set of standard, mature tools such as
radius, cbq/iptable rules and standard, non-vendor specific hardware to
work with instead of having to use a limited, proprietary system limited
to a single vendor. I've deployed/consulted on 802.11 a/b/g networks
representing 8000+ CPE units and it can be made to work just fine as
long as it is managed properly. Travis is a pro, and he has the
experience to design his network in such a way as to maximize the
performance of his equipment. There are many others out there having
the same success.
FWIW, I believe the most logical next step is to start moving heavy
usage customers over to 3.65 WiMAX gear starting next spring. I think
we are near the threshold of what is going to be possible with
unlicensed equipment - barring some kind of amazing breakthrough. I
foresee a need to deploy smaller and smaller cells to maintain the
desired performance level. It helps to have 10mhz channel sizes
available to maximize the utilization of existing spectrum, but even
that is starting to get awfully crowded. Whitespaces sure would help.
I spent the last two years putting up 802.11a based APs across my entire
service area and migrating customers from 2.4 to them to get the higher
ARPU from faster speeds and VOIP service. I foresee spending the next
two years deploying licensed backhauls and 3.65 APs starting with the
high traffic areas and working out to the fringes. Its the neverending
story.
Matt Larsen
vistabeam.com
Travis Johnson wrote:
Hi,
We don't use DHCP. Every single customer gets a real, static IP address.
We also a assign a static IP address to every radio (for management).
When I posted the question a month ago about how to force an SM to
connect to a specific AP on a tower, the only answer was "color code".
This isn't really an option, as that means the installer has to change
the color code in the field. All of our current radios are setup and
ready to connect to ANY tower and ANY AP on that tower without the
installer doing anything in the field.
And how does first level tech support even find the correct radio in the
AP list for a customer on the phone? They have to scroll through 160
people to find them by MAC address?
Yes, Canopy is a slower radio in today's world. 14Mbps of total
throughput on a 20mhz channel is SLOW. Using Mikrotik I can get 30Mbps
(double the speed) on the same channel size. Or I can use a 10mhz
channel and get 15Mbps. And all these speeds can be delivered via upload
or download or any combination, I don't have to set a specific
percentage of up/down.
And how do you guarantee 7ms latency? What happens if a customer gets
8ms? And how do they test that measurement? And what happens when a
customer completely clobbers an AP and 160 customers are getting 20ms
latency? Or you have interference from a new provider and all those
people get 100ms latency?
Travis
Microserv
Chuck McCown - 3 wrote:
All of the complaints are easily overcome with the proper management software, DHCP reservations etc. You can easily force the SM to connect to the exact AP you want a couple different ways. And there are several non motorola software packages that do this kind of stuff. We have 5000 subs on it and we don't break a sweat in managing any of this.
We put 128-160 customers per AP and they all still get 10.2 Mbps burst. Slower radio? That seems pretty fast to me.
And we guarantee latency to 7 mS. Hmmm, that is pretty hard to do with anyone else.
----- Original Message -----
From: Travis Johnson
To: WISPA General List
Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2008 1:39 PM
Subject: Re: [WISPA] heavy usage customers
We've tried Canopy... twice in fact... once about 3 years ago, and once about a month ago. We just can't make it fit into our network management (IP database, Call tracking, customer management, etc.) system very well... having customer radios that change their LUID and IP address every time they register, having to set the bandwidth on each SM instead of the AP, having no security or ways to control which AP a customer connects to without having to buy their software, etc.
All that, plus paying MORE for a slower radio than what we are using just didn't make sense. I can put up an AP (2.4ghz, 5.3ghz, 5.4ghz, or 5.8ghz) for less than
$400 that will support 50 customers, using only 10mhz wide channels... and each CPE is less than $175 complete (including PoE, antenna).
Canopy seems to work well for many people... but I've never been one to follow the "norm". And I get to put $50 in my pocket on every install, and $1,000 for every AP we put up. ;)
Travis
Microserv
Chuck McCown - 3 wrote:
Well that is a testimony to your quality of service for sure.
Now, if you were using Canopy your customers would be even happier!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Travis Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "WISPA General List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2008 11:07 AM
Subject: Re: [WISPA] heavy usage customers
I have Qwest DSL, CableOne, another WISP (doing "up to 4meg" for $29.95
with Canopy), and a licensed WiMax (2.5ghz) provider (doing "up to
2meg", mobile, for $29.95). I have a lot of competition... and yet we
have no sales people, no real advertising campaign, and more installs
than we can keep up with each month.
Travis
Microserv
Chuck McCown - 3 wrote:
You must not have competitors. I have both Qwest and Comcast giving away
multi megabit starting at $15.95
----- Original Message -----
From: Travis Johnson
To: WISPA General List
Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2008 10:53 AM
Subject: Re: [WISPA] heavy usage customers
I guess that's my point... why offer more bandwidth than you have to?
Most people don't need more than 1meg, and that's our most popular
package for $39.95 per month (total, no modem rental fee, etc.). Why give
away the farm if you don't have to? :)
Travis
Microserv
RickG wrote:
Wow, with all that bandwidth, I'm surprised you dont offer higher speeds.
Technically speaking, the download & upload price is the same. From a
cost standpoint, I allocate the download & upload separately because I
am "forced" to pay dearly ($1200/month) to AT&T for my dual T1's which
are required for "decent" upload speeds. Right now, my traffic is
split so all port 80 traffic flows though the 4Mbps x 2Mbps connection
through Time Warner which runs over $500/month. This works fairly well
for now since about half the traffic is web browsing. When I bought
this WISP there was no management, monitoring or reporting. I took
care of the management & monitoring and I'm working on the reporting.
The best thing I've done is replace the StarOS firewall with Mikrotik
and set up traffic priority.
Whew! Lots of work. At any rate, I'm working on my upstream connection
next. I really need to get the cost down.
Thanks! -RickG
On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 12:08 PM, Travis Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Rick,
Yes, all of our packages are symmetrical speeds (same download and
upload).
So if they buy our 512k package, they get 512k down x 512k up all the
time.
They are not "dedicated" connections, but rather you get what you pay for
connections. We still oversubscribe users on an AP, but only to the point
where each AP is running around 60% capacity during peak times, thus
leaving
room for bursts, etc. We graph and monitor every single AP (over 200 of
them) and every single user (bandwidth, packets, RSSI, etc.) so we always
know what's happening on our network.
We currently have three full OC-3 (155Mbps) dedicated connections to the
backbone. On average, we pay $40/meg for bandwidth. Why is your upload
price
different than your download price?
Travis
Microserv
RickG wrote:
Travis,
Nice work! Therefore, you are selling dedicated bandwidth to all of
your customers. In other words, if all your customers run speed test
at the same time they will get what their plan allows. If you dont
mind, I have a few questions:
Is the above scenario true for upload speed as well as download speed?
What are you paying for your upstream connection?
What type of upstream connection do you have?
I'd like to be there and I keep hoping cheap bandwidth comes my way.
When you are paying $150/meg for download and $400/meg for upload, the
business model is tough.
-RickG
BTW: I'd take this offlist if you prefer but I think this is a problem
that many us us small WISP's face.
On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 9:30 PM, Travis Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Every customer can get the speed they are paying for ANY time they run a
speed test. We offer packages from 512k to 2.5meg for residential
customers
and they always get what they pay for (download AND upload, which is the
same for all of our packages).
Travis
Microserv
RickG wrote:
Travis,
If I understand this correctly, you have at least 1Mbps or higher of
bandwidth for every customer?
-RickG
On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 12:34 PM, Travis Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
We deliver what the customers pay for. If they purchase a 1Mbps package,
they get 1Mbps 24x7 (with no monthly bit caps). Personally I have never
liked the "up to" speed packages... it's like going to Walmart and
buying milk. You can pay $3 for a full 1 gallon, or you can pay $2 for
"up to" a gallon (without really knowing how much you are going to get,
but it will be somewhere between nothing and a full gallon).
Travis
Microserv
Kurt Fankhauser wrote:
Does anyone else here have customer/s that consume so much bandwidth that
you have to throttle them down after say 5 minutes of downloading. And
what
do you tell them when they start complaining about the throttled down
speed.
(they don't know your throttling them though)
Kurt Fankhauser
WAVELINC
P.O. Box 126
Bucyrus, OH 44820
419-562-6405
www.wavelinc.com
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