Tom,
I have sat in on planning these networks with Time Warner
and Comcast. The way they are building these versions they will work for
their purposes. Trust me I have built a couple of large scale muni networks
J In regards to the mounting issues, so long as they have above ground
outside plant life will be good for them. These nodes mount on the suspended
messenger wire, not the poles. That means they can just attach them to their
existing lines. I'm not saying that it will be easy but it's much easier
than someone else trying to build given the fact that they already occupy
the space on said poles. They are also planning to ink deals with local
businesses to mount nodes when necessary. Since they will be wiring every
node to their network for backhaul, there is no requirement for any wireless
meshing, just connectivity to the client device. They do not necessarily
plan to have a contiguous network market wide, just where there are likely
to be high concentrations of users. This also not meant to be a network that
will hand off connections from node to node at highway speeds. They are
assuming a relatively stationary user of the system.
This whole design philosophy is quite different from the
muni Wi-Fi networks most of us think about. The real reason they are
building these is to keep customer churn down by offering existing broadband
and video customers a free mobility component in areas they are likely to
need it. I would expect they will also later ink some roaming deals will
cellular carriers but that is not on their initial radar as of now. They
will be using nodes that have smart channel selection capability which will
pick the quietest channel. In some cases there are also plans to include the
5 gig spectrum as consumer devices are now showing up on the market capable
of using both bands.
I would not be so quick to dismiss this iteration of outdoor
Wi-Fi. It's coming; they have combined an extra 3.5 billion dollars they
just received from selling spectrum to Verizon. They are hiring plenty of
skill to build this properly and/or fix issues that arise. It's change and
it's coming. There is enough at stake to have to make this work. Cellular
needs a successful deployment strategy for outdoor Wi-Fi to work as well for
their offload needs. The manufacturers have a lot of radios they want to
sell so they have to make it work now. Outdoor Wi-Fi will not go away now,
you can take that bet to the bank. You may not like or want that to happen
but it's going to just the same.
When people say it can't happen I just remind myself of how
many times I have said that over my wireless career and how many times I was
proven wrong. Heck just a few months ago people were complaining that the
spectral mask in TVWS was not going to allow for any reasonable speed
offerings, yet now all of the sudden we have manufacturers coming up with
designs that work. Everything changes and they change faster when more money
is at stake.
Thank You,
Brian Webster
www.wirelessmapping.com
www.Broadband-Mapping.com
From: Tom DeReggi [mailto:wirelessn...@rapiddsl.net]
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 11:46 AM
To: bwebs...@wirelessmapping.com; WISPA General List
Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ericsson is buying BelAir, betting on Wi-Fi
Yes, a typical tactic for the sole purpose to destroy the RF environment,
and scare high ARPU businesses and investors from trusting third party
unlicensed wireless providers solutions.
Its all about fear factor.
But Just like any other large scale MUNI network, it wont work, and will be
to costly to maintain, and the bad press will incourage the Cable Cos to
shut down the networks instead of continueing to damage their brand's
reputation as a quality high speed resildential provider. They can plan to
deploy 10,000 nodes, but planning has no value if there is no where to
put/mount them. Maybe they could mount them inside people's homes :-)
Surely, they aren't going to work mounted on their tiny green 2ft pedestals
on every corner. Surely, they aren't going to pay landlords $200/month each
to mount on 10,000 commercial building roofs. What they more likely would do
is go put in Wifi access points into the communities that they do not want
to dig up the streets and bring cable to, that the City/states are trying to
force them to do with cable, leveraging the franchise agreement
renegotiations. A attitude like, get off my back, why spend $5000 to dig,
when I can spend $200 on an access point and pretend we serve everyone, and
make it a play on all the lobbying WISPs did to say, "wireless is good
enough" for WISPs, so it must also be good enough for Cable Cos. I could
easilly see Comcast applying for USF, and using Wireless combined with
Cable.
>Time Warner is planning I believe around 10,000 node in the LA market this
year and after they get that market proven, they plan on rolling out
nationwide in their markets
Except the market wont be proven successful. Funny how history repeats
itself.
Tom DeReggi
RapidDSL & Wireless, Inc
IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband
----- Original Message -----
From: Brian Webster <mailto:bwebs...@wirelessmapping.com>
To: 'WISPA General List' <mailto:wireless@wispa.org> ; memb...@wispa.org
Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2012 4:16 PM
Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ericsson is buying BelAir, betting on Wi-Fi
It's not just the cellular industry. Comcast is deploying 18,000 outdoor
wi-fi nodes this year and giving that service for free to their customers to
keep them happy in a mobile environment and reduce churn. Time Warner is
planning I believe around 10,000 node in the LA market this year and after
they get that market proven, they plan on rolling out nationwide in their
markets. The networks are specifically being designed for tablets and wi-fi
enabled phones in a nomadic but not seamless mobile environment. Being that
the cable companies who sold spectrum to Verizon for 3.5 billion dollars,
they are using some of that money for these deployments.
For those in those metro markets, these carriers are planning both 2.4 and 5
GHz dual mode radios.
Thank You,
Brian Webster
www.wirelessmapping.com
www.Broadband-Mapping.com
From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On
Behalf Of Jack Unger
Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2012 12:00 PM
To: "memb...@wispa.org" w; WISPA General List
Subject: [WISPA] Ericsson is buying BelAir, betting on Wi-Fi
In a sure sign that the cellular industry is getting serious about Wi-Fi,
telecom networking giant Ericsson is buying BelAir Networks, adding its
high-performance outdoor hotspot technology to its portfolio, sources told
GigaOM. The deal could signal a big shift in the mindset of the big wireless
vendors, which have always favored their own specialized and expensive
cellular technologies to meet growing mobile data demand rather than more
generic but much cheaper Wi-Fi tech...
<http://gigaom.com/broadband/ericsson-pursuing-wi-fi-with-belair-networks-bu
y/>
--
Jack Unger - President, Ask-Wi.Com, Inc.
Author (2003) - "Deploying License-Free Wireless Wide-Area Networks"
Serving the WISP Community since 1993
www.ask-wi.com 818-227-4220 jun...@ask-wi.com
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