http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r17070857 en Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:21:15 EDT Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:21:15 EDT http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,17071040 lutful : Ottawa's BelAir and Nortel has been selling "antenna switching" mesh nodes like Skypilot for some time now and there are a few local installations that I have been checking out.

My observation is that the smaller size of the individual antennas limit the backhaul range between nodes in rural areas, while the high cost limit the number of nodes that a small WISP can deploy.

IMHO off-the-shelf mesh firmware like WILI-MESH will allow me to build my own 4-radio node for a fraction of the cost and I can size (and aim) the 5Ghz backhaul antennas appropriately for my inter-node distances.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,17071040 Wed, 11 Oct 2006 22:00:13 EDT http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,17070857 dallash : I've now had my SkyPilot Network(s) up and running for quite a while. Many thanks goes to members of this forum; I learned a lot of what I know (but mostly how I think).

We also do quite a bit of work on the WLAN side of the house as well. We use primarily Deliberant for our 2.4 stuff, and we've become quite handy at making seamless "hot zones" (one that stretches over a square mile). We've got a lightning prone resort area by a lake :-), so we're good at "triage", and creating a redundant system that doesn't always require an immediate truck roll. Once again, much credit goes to the members of this forum.

In any event, I know some of you may be interested in SkyPilot. I know it's expensive, but so far, it scales pretty well. I would be happy to share my experiences for anyone who may have a question.

As you all know, stuff is going to break. It's just the law of nature. A self-healing mesh that is virtually transparent to the EU goes a long way toward providing carrier-class connectivity. It doesn't go all the way, but that's primarily because the equipment on the customer end isn't as simple as a dial-tone phone (CPE, Router, EU's computer).

Again, thanks to all who have helped over the years, and as long as I'm in the business I'll be watching this forum in some way.

Dallas]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,17070857 Wed, 11 Oct 2006 21:27:35 EDT