Wireless / Mobile > Wireless Users Chat > Any experience with Open Range Communications

Any experience with Open Range Communications

I'm actually surprised at the lack of posts on Open Range, especially on DSLR; Everyone here has an opinion

There isn't much out there on Open Range. They've taken a boat load of loans from the government and they're rolling out WiMax service town by town.

We've plotted their towers over at 4G Insider. »4ginsider.com/page,openrange/ Come and take a look.

reply to papawjim
I saw they also have a tower in my town. I wonder if they ever offer service to anyone yet? my buddy wish they would offer this!

reply to papawjim
Open Range is using the free stimulus money (er, free? ask a taxpayer) to do rural broadband to eliminate the so-called digital divide.

It should be free since we paid for it.

reply to papawjim
Open Range WiMAX service has been rolled out in Lewisburg, PA (Bucknell University is here). They sent me a flyer saying they were so sure I would like the service that they were offering a 30-day no cost trial. So I signed up for 3mbit down and 1mbit up.

The box arrived in just a few days. I took it out of the box, plugged it into the power outlet then plugged my pc ethernet cable ito one of the two ports on the back. Wow, it just...worked. I have been online since the early 90's and so have seen it all but nothing this easy.

But unfortunately Open Range did the same thing I have seen time and time again: they oversubscribed their bandwidth/capacity. So the best I could get was .8 mbit downloads. The ping times were ~100 ms to Chicago. This is not nearly as good as my cable (~30ms) which I care about because of some gaming I do occasionally.

I called their tech support and talked to a nice but fairly clueless lady (in PA, which was a nice touch). She said they were having problems in Lewisburg. Yeah, I said, this is not impressing me at all (except for the set-up time!). Of course they knew they had the problem when they signed me up but did not say anything...

Long story short, they put my account on a payment hold, meaning no cost to me until they fix the problem. Great, when will that be, I asked? No clue. Will someone call me when it is fixed? No, probably not. Well, I am not going to test it every few days so I told her I would call once a month. When it is working correctly, I will start my 30 free trail period then. OK, she said.

So it is a new company, trying to suck in as many customers as it can even if it can't handle them all.

Once they fix the issues here it looks like it could be a nice service. Will the ping times drop a bit when the bandwidth is restored? I am not sure if this is a good choice for gaming, though with the current pings voice applications would still be OK.

reply to papawjim
May not be oversubscribed (yet) - may be either grade of service policy and/or the speeds the market exist only for an ideal signal strength situation. Also, I recall that they were not necessarily going to use all 802.16e WiMax - maybe a mix of 802.16d (old non-mobile WiMax) and proprietary (Alvarion).

If they are using '16e, and have only 5MHz channels, and use the default grade of service, it may well cap at 1Mbps down and about half that up. Depends on how the engineers setup the system which may well not match what marketing says in the brochures. And in some rural markets, they should be able to use 5 or 10MHz channels. But 10MHz is rare in urban/suburban due to the cost of spectrum. Rural spectrum was almost free because of the low subscribers per sq. mile problem.

As ever, in modern broadband, you need an idea signal strength - antenna, antenna, antenna. Location, location, location. Modem elevated, outside or in 2nd floor window facing cell site, cat5 long run to router.

It was the tech support person that told me the problem with Lewisburg was that there were too many users, that they needed to upgrade the capacity.

reply to papawjim
FWIW, from using Clear WiMAX, the gear that ORC is using *should* be capable of 3/1 easily. That said, if they have 10 mbps of capacity feeding everything the pipe is going to fill up quickly.

Hopefully they get their act together and start offering decent service where they have service deployed.

A few things though:

1. Latency is going to be high on their system as long as they're using WiMAX. No way around that unfortunately. 802.11-based techs have low latency...as long as you don't have a congested network. Proprietary 802.11-based (a la Ubiquiti AirMax) are better at handling load, at the cost of a *slight* throughput hit.
2. I wouldn't be surprised if Open Range was using 3.65 GHz WiMAX, which has 25MHz of spectrum to split among (potentially) multiple operators in a single area. 2500MHz spectrum is harder to find, mainly because Clearwire owns/is leasing most of it, however if Open Range is able to lease a license from an EDU entity, or if they bought a license on the cheap on their own, they probably have a halfway-decent amount of spectrum. How much, not sure, but I'd guess between 6 and 24 MHz in a given area.

802.11 doesn't have lower latency than 802.16e WiMax by nature. It's just that the low power short range WiFi means there is rare competition for air time. WiMax is based on TDMA - assigned time slots. WiFi is based on CSMA, no time slots, just listen before transmitting. Since WiMax uses 5+ mile base station radii, with good marketing, there can be a lot of subscribers in that circle. Whereas a WiFi radius of 300 ft., esp with indoor WiFi access devices is common, means a lot.

Because spectrum costs so much - as the US FCC rolls in the riches they get from spectrum auctions (well kept secret in Washington), we pay though the nose due to that spectrum costs, in carriers' fees. So adding capacity is costly, but less so in rural areas.

3.65GHz doesn't have much spectrum, but that's OK for rural. The duplex split for FDD in 3.65GHz is a real problem. So vendors like Alvarion use TDD/TDMA in 3.65GHz instead of duplex as WiMax is. With TDD, the upstream and downstream are in the same channel/frequency/carrier. Lots more load on the spectrum - upstream and downstream both there.

reply to Poor Richard
They have fixed the issues here in Lewisburg. I get 3+ mbit down and about 1 mbit upload, as advertised. The pings are about the same. I am now testing out some game servers. It seems like a very smooth, stable connection, if nothing else.

Thanks for the info, so far they have not offered it out my way yet at least according to their web site. More than likely they are concentrating on the more populated areas around town, which already have access to internet via Cable, DSL.

So guess i'll keep using millenicom until something better comes along, it seems to work ok for now.

reply to Poor Richard
Distance from base station? How non-line-of-sight is the path?

reply to papawjim
Looks like they open their site. What speeds do they offer just 3/1? or faster?

reply to papawjim
I hope I can save some time for folks wondering about Open Range Internet service (The Better Internet Is Here, 4G, etc.); particularly those who have a choice of internet connection (Wild Blue satellite, DSL, cable modem, etc.).

I got these results from plugging in one or the other internet cable into my computer.

From Speedtest.net: Cable modem – 18 msec ping, 19+ Mbps Down, 9+ Mbps Up.
Open Range – 98 msec ping, 2 Mbps Down, 0.9 Mbps Up.

In just 30 minutes “out of the box,” I got the above results; contacted Customer Service and was told 3 Down / 1 Up was what I should expect; requested account cancellation and a modem return kit.

re 3 down, 1 up with OpenRange wireless: what did you expect? And how far to their base station vs. your antenna kind?

OpenRange is all about Rural broadband, where 3 down and 1 up, for a farmer on the back 80 acres, is a big improvement over dial-up, and no DSL/cable modem.

reply to papawjim
this is one of many emails i have sent open range about their service.Well lets see here, you want money from me? well lets start from the beging and see if you might understand this. I called to order your internet/wifi and phone service. after finding a paper on my door when i came home one day. well I called the number on it, to ask questions turned out I thought it might be a good service to have from the one I already had. So I ordered it with the guy on the Phone who said he would have people in town to bring me a box and set it up by that wendsday. well wnesday came and went no box. Then i call him again we will be down by thrusday of the next week , well that came and went to then it was the next week mind you I had my other service cut off already you dont know what this cost me considering I was taking online classes and was unable to take them untill the lady next door gave me the password for her internet so i could run off hers. next time i called this guy he had me on the phone talking to me about how bad things were going that your company had alot of turn over right now and all kinds of changes blah blah blah, then i told him look you know what send me the box or im not going to try this service out. because what i have already been through. well he said I will send you a box through UPS. Well GEUSS what ?? the box never came. then a month later. Some lady from your company calls me to ask me How I am enjoying my service with you all.... Why in what was probaly very shity sounding voice I said to her. What are you fucking kidding be I dont even have a box to try it. well she was real nice to me so i agreed to give it another try. I asked her I said i will still get my 30 day free trial right she said YES I said im not going to have my card Charged from the other guy and box right? she said NO! Well I got the box finaly a couple of days before xmas set it up that night because i was leaving that next morning to vist family in OHIO, Well when i was up then visiting I was bragging about your service how i hooked it up and it was working right away and it seemed fast. Well what do you know I get back to Indiana go to get on the internet and I have to call coustmer service to get that and the phone working, then I go to check my mail and I got a letter from my bank saying I was over drawn. and a letter from UPS saying they had a pakage but it did not have an appartmet number so they could not deliver. Well I call you all up AGAIN very agravated!! and they say they will refund the money. and the over draft charges... blah blah blah they tell me to go to the bank and have them fax something showing the over draft and charges, So I DID well the monthly cost for you service was put back into my account but not the over drat charges. and now i have no phone and slow ass internet. well one of the times because there where many more not listed here that i have called because of the net not working or the phone not working. I was told I would have another month free because of all i have been through and now I am sitting here still with no phone and slow ass internet. Because you all did not stand by what you all said you would do Again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! well I call up again on this past friday or saturday I forget which one to set a block on my box because I found out i had people all around me running off my box. and help to set up the email and to help me set it up so i could us the manage my account service with you all and ask why i do still not have any phone service. and I tell the lady I was soppesed to get another 30 days free and she says that there was a $200.00 credit that was just approved and would post to my account on monday. and my service would be restored. well GEUSS what????????????? my phone is still not on AND I can not even call to coplain Because when I signed up for your service I reduced my cell phone mins alot. because I would have a home phone.. Well im out of mins and can not even use that to call and complain. well unless this Is fixied by the weekend I will use a friends phone and call and stop the service from you all and as im sure you know word of mouth is great for getting coustmers well I got a big mouth and It works both ways and can cause you all to lose a bunch too. Im tired of all this its not worth it so FIX IT OR IM GOING BACK TO MY OTHER COMPANY................................. OH and i want to over draft charges put back in my account.. that still are not....... Well thank you Sony
a Meadowcroft.

reply to sonya

Re: Any experience with Open Range Communications

reply to sonya

Re: Any experience with Open Range Communications