Industry Forums > Wireless Service Providers > Iphone range with 2.4

reply to viperm

Re: Iphone range with 2.4

reply to surfergeek
hahah Nice hahah well the best model we use is the pay as you go hotspot using mikrotik and wirelessorbit.com

I think that may be your least expensive solution IF you can get bandwidth to there and also are allowed to resell it?

I know up the coast in Encinitas there is Wifi in the area by I think a company called Cheeta networks if I am not mistaken. It shows on thier site locations they offer service in. I know they just bought a BUNCH of Tropos stuff from the old Anaheim network that was run by Earthlink (my frined just tore it all down for them (earthlink that is) and Cheetah bought it all up. According to them I think they are or were going to deploy in the city of Commerce

Edit... forgot to add the link
»www.cwti.us/cheeweb/homepage/

reply to cmaenginsb
Yeah, I'm just limited to the parabolic at the moment.
I'm just going to check the signal from the beach to the AP with 24dbi parabolic. I'll definitely take it up a notch, after I spend a little more time and do a real survey, etc...
I'd just like to see the capabilites of a mobile. The one guy mentioned he was able to get an Iphone to work between 2 AP's on 200 acres. That remains to be seen.

reply to viperm
Thanks Viperm,
So you're familar with the area I'm speaking of?

Not sure about kid-tracking, as iPhones tend not to be waterproof, and thus parents aren't gonna let them take their $200+ devices out on the water. in fact, I'm not sure how many people would take their smartphone out on the beach. Some of them, maybe...but not a ton.

About unlimited VoIP calling, pretty sure you can already do that with an iPhone app, over any WiFi connection. Also, $20 for unlimited VoIP over WiFi probably isn't a great enough deal for people to take it, especially when WiFi uses a LOT of energy on your phone, killing talk times with such a service.

On the other hand, if there are a lot of people at a relatively remote location, the cell network could be overloaded relatively easily. If you can get some decent connectivity on your WiFi network, people might switch to it for higher speeds. But speeds must be fast and latency must be low, otherwise they'll just stick to their unlimited data plans, which all iPhones (okay, 99.9% of them) have.

As to charging for access, not sure if you can do that unless you just go with $10 per month or $4 per day, or something similarly low. Maybe with a free 15-minute pass to see how the network does.

iPhones max out at about 4 Mbps over WiFi downstream, and 2 Mbps upstream, if I remember correctly. Ovver cellular, speeds are more in the 800 kbps range if I remember correctly, if yu're on 3G. Check to see whether AT&T has 3G coverage in the area. If not, iPhone users will be on EDGE, whose throughput varies from 70 to 250 kbps (usually around 150 kbps) depending on the area, with sky-high latency (okay, 400+ ms). Bottom line: if you can figure out how to get a 10 Mbps symmetric connection and WiFi all the way to the iphones, you may get some people on the network. If there's EDGE, a megabit or two would be sufficient. In any case, the WiFi experience must be significantly better than the cellular experience or people won't bite, due to the heavy toll WiFi takes on battery life.

You could mess around with ad-supported hotspot access, which may work in your situation. But the ROI may not be high enough, and more users would mean more toll on the network. There are ad injection systems specific to iPhones on hotspots I'm sure, but you'll have to look for them. Maybe WirelessOrbit has something...

Best of luck to ya, but don't expect people to flock to services just because you're there. And don't expec tthem to take their precious device with 'em into the water and sand...or, worse, let their kids do the same.

reply to surfergeek
I am a native I grew up in Poway used to spend tons of summer times out at the shores, Sawmis etc

Sounds like a fun project let me know if I can help in any way I am up in Temecula now which is not to long of a drive but have lunch will travel hahahah

I have lots of old stuf laying around that may work but we will see what your needs are

reply to iansltx
Geat reply Ian,
Very thorough! You've shed quite a bit of light.

reply to viperm
Another Native? Woa, there was a native sighting the other day but I may be mistaken. lol.
I'd love to chat with you, anytime. Cool let's talk!
Yeah, I've got a bit of WISP left in me. There's so much cool ultra small stuff now. I'm thinking about fiberglassing a mini client to my surfboard with an omni and streaming from the Surf!

reply to surfergeek
Eyefi would work over wireless, assuming it doesn't use a gateway page. If you have a gateway page, then I don't think it'll work. Or they have to be specially provisioned by MAC address/range by your equipment.

About the tracking bracelet/etc. I don't think RFIDs can determine location, just that they're there. More of an authentication thing than a location beacon. But something else might work...tricky stuff.

On bandwidth, not thinking so much about the wireless link as what you'll connect the link to. Do you have fiber to connect your wireless link to? If so, how much does that cost? Just asking the dumb questions here...

Yes I do believe EyeFi would be a mac id thing.

About triangulation, you need multiple APs for triangulation. It's a trig/geometry thing.

reply to viperm
Mooned you Viperm, Did you get it?.

reply to iansltx
Hey Iansltx,
Just an update. I was able to stream some video/flash to my little gateway tablet laptop with the standard intel centrino wifi b/g modem.
Bit more testing then a beness Model.