Industry Forums > Wireless Service Providers > New Wireless ISP?

New Wireless ISP?

You will need at least one router. A switch, maybe - depends how much gear you will have. And yes, at least one server, probably and preferably separate from your office PC.

A lot of people here use Mikrotik routers, whereas I myself have used Cisco in a previous life. There are plenty of low end routers that include a small switch, so may, to begin with, allow you to get away without having to buy a separate unit.

There is no one true rule for setting up your network, many people have many ways to do it that all seem to work well for them, or work well enough.

I used Cisco routers to accept PPPoE sessions from customers so I could authenticate them with a username and password before they could get Internet access. This also allows you to count their upload and download data, and turn their account off if they dont pay for example. Authentication was handled via a RADIUS server, which is essentially a database of users, passwords, and certain other settings related to their service. The settings can include bandwidth policing, QoS profile configuration, and many more.

Theres even one guy in here doing PPPoE, but using VPLS to backhaul customers ethernet traffic back to his central POP where he has a Mikrotik do authentication similar to above - pretty neat idea I thought.

Others use a simpler "routed" network where users obtain an IP via DHCP. This is certainly a simpler way to get started as you can leave out some complexities like RADIUS, but may have certain logistical issues associated with it IMO, in particular surrounding traffic counting, policing their speed, and enabling/disabling their account.

Most seem to prefer the one central POP method, so likely youd hear everyone telling you to backhaul your remote towers back to your house, or another location. Theres certainly nothing wrong with that, and is very typical even for the major players.

Another important topic is how you plan to handle IP allocations to your users. We assigned globally routable addresses to our users, but if you cant get these you will need to assign RFC1918 space (e.g. 10.x.x.x, 192.168.x.x) to your users and NAT them - this may or may not be an issue for your users... Certainly if you can get a block of globally routable addresses, you should. Your ISP should be able to provide these, pehaps at additional cost.

The last thing Ill say right now (because Im typing on an iPad and its only slightly awkward) is what you plan to run on your server. A lot of people are comfortable with Windows and tend to stick with this, I tend to believe that investing some time in Linux or FreeBSD is worth the effort - theres a ton of free software, and you dont have to worry about licensing costs.

But of course, each to their own, and its good to hear others oppinions aswell, so Ill open up the floor now.

reply to aip09
Aip09

Every single question you have asked(gear-wise) is already available in this forum. I will advise you to look them up for the only reason that it will give you a more balanced view of what is available.

Just a few points to think about:
Make sure you can resell the bandwidth, usually you are NOT allowed to resell residential lines
Be careful with the cost of the equipment, if everything goes well, you will be buying more and more as time goes. Personally, I've never heard of Cambium(I saw their flash intro and do recognize their "component" companies). Who will help you when the time comes (AND IT WILL!). It is good to get support(ie this forum) from sources other than the manufacturer.
Your target market will be fixed income families, how long will it take you to cover the expense of installing a new client? I have no idea what Cambium gear goes for, but I'm sure there are cheaper alternatives.

reply to aip09
WOW Great feed back so far.

Chele,
Cambium is what Motorola Canopy use to be. You said something about a cheaper alternative for equipment, what can you offer there?

TomS_,
I like the idea of being able to countrol user accounts the way you stated, not sure about the PPPoE. Will have to check out the Mikrotik routers. Could you use the Mac address of each client radio to connect to the network or do you still have to use an IP?
As far as Linux goes what distro seems to be the norm or is there such a thing.

The PPPoE method typically involves you placing a CPE router (a cheapie broadband router with an ethernet WAN port) along with the radio at the customer premesis. This router then initiates the PPPoE connection which is terminated by your router. However, most modern OS's include a built in PPPoE client, so this is not an absolute requirement. I would recommend it though, particularly where the customer wants to share Internet access among multiple computers.

Once the session is terminated (i.e. successfully authenticated), it is assigned an IP, and the customer may begin browsing the Internet.

This setup is very typical of DSL broadband ISPs, so if youve ever had to use this means to connect to the Internet, this is essentially how it works.

There are people here doing PPPoE with MT routers, so they can likely help you if you want to take that route. I personally have no experience with MT.

Im not sure exactly what you mean by using the MAC address to connect to the network. Can you clarify further? If you mean this in the sense of "do I actually need IP addresses?" then the answer is an emphatic NO. You must assign some form of IP to your customers, either globally routable so they can "directly" send/receive data to/from the Internet, or RFC1918 and you will NAT them.

Re Linux and which distribution, this is where it gets tricky. Everyone has their pet distribution, and its almost religious. You would be best to try out a couple and see which one you like best. Popular ones are Ubuntu and Fedora, but there are a myriad of them out there (and thats half the problem). I personally have started using Ubuntu instead of Fedora when I need Linux, but FreeBSD is still my *nix of choice. PC-BSD is a user-friendly distribution of FreeBSD. All of the above include the option to chose from and install one or more graphical interfaces, and include a kind of control panel for installing applications, so if youre not comfortable with the command line just yet you can still use a mouse to navigate your way around (and launch a terminal app to access the command line when you need to.)

Makes since. Just out of curiosity what are you running for equipment? Are you doing WISP?

reply to aip09
»wndw.net/download.html

Out of date, but good information,
»www.open.com.au/radiator/WISPCookbook.pdf

Another WISP forum,
»forum.ubnt.com/index.php

reply to aip09
I used to work for a wireless broadband provider, but not any more.

We were using primarily Cisco 2800 and 3700 series routers at our tower sites, a small number of 7200VXR routers in some more major sites, and our two core POPs each had a 7300.

The major sites were typically linked to the core POPs via STM-1, or OC3 to you guys.

Here are some threads I posted here detailing some of the builds I was involved in, just to whet your appetite:

»One down, 3 to go
»Microwave hub site
»Microwave big iron
»Staging a new network
»Hut fitout in time lapse
»2 up, 2 to go
»LSY space diversity equalisation
»One of our WiMAX deployments
»Network testing/staging

There ahould be abfew more floating around, Ill try and find them.

edit: others:

»More network staging photos
»Microwave repeater/add/drop site
»My first attempt at cable "lacing"
»New PoP install (more cable tieing)
»"My first 6 footer"
»Waveguide termination video

reply to TomS_

reply to aip09
WISP business threads goign back three years here,
»forum.ubnt.com/forumdisplay.php?f=14

My take on PPPoE,
»forum.ubnt.com/showpost.php?p=24···count=56

reply to aip09
Joe is right about pppoe stay way from it as possible and as justin aka pointed out on my post on ubnt fourm about edge routers pppoe is noting but asking for major trouble down the road if you dont have it configured correctly. Because I dealt with that crap for 2 years at my formal job as a local tech support for a local ISP and it was pita to figure out what was causing the pppoe disconnects.

Again stay way from pppoe as much as you can.

reply to WHT
What is meant by doing a full site analysis? So setting up a Linux box seems to be in the future for me aswell, its been ten years since I have messed with Linux. It does seem that people around my area seem to shying away from 2.4ghz and going with something else. To much interference I'm guessing.

reply to jcremin
Sure if your wireless CPE can do PPPoE, why not, I would probably go for this option if it were available. But if its not an option you have little option but to use a separate router.

If youre worried about a separate router going bad and bridging your core network through to a customer LAN, the same thing could potentially happen with an integrated CPE too...

But ideally, you should be able to separate the management interfaces of your equipment from customer data using VLANs. Where possible we always did this, and at least since I joined the company, I always hounded new/potential vendors for this feature, and strongly voiced my disapproval for any that could no do it (even if it always seemed to go on deaf ears).

We typically had one VLAN at each tower where all management interfaces lived, and customers lived in other VLANs (generally one per technology). Inter-POP links where also in their own individual VLANs. Really I dont think there was a better way to do it (perhaps short of dedicated physical interfaces for each.)

And if youre using PPPoE, then the router interface (VLAN or physical) doesnt need an IP on it anyway because PPPoE operates entirely at layer 2, so theres practically no way to gain access to anything anyway, unless you cant segregate the management interface and it has to mix in (hello, looking at you, Canopy...)

With customers separated from the core network, theres nothing to be concerned about. Just make sure you have appropriate firewall rules that only allow your NOC subnet(s) to talk to your management subnets and youre golden.

But our primary reason for using a separate router was the built in wireless AP that the customer could use to share Internet wirelessly through their house, and the VoIP ATA if they were also buying a voice service from us. Sure, these could also be done with a box or two sitting behind a wireless CPE that was acting as the router, but we didnt have that option.

reply to treichhart

reply to aip09
Well TomS_ you can disagree all you want I am just stating what I have seen while I was working at a local ISP as a local call tech.

Because as I stated I worked with the crap little over 2 years and took over hundreds of calls of customers complaning of disconnects etc....

Very well as that may be, I have done the same. And what was the issue that caused the disconnects in the end?

Most calls that I took when working on a helpdesk had an underlying fault unrelated to PPPoE. Typically a poor line which had to be fixed in the field.

Maybe I evangelise PPPoE, but it is solely from my good experiences with it. Just like you are demonising it from your bad experiences. So I wont say any more on it, because Im dragging this thread wayyyyy O/T.

reply to aip09
like I said there is so many reason why pppoe could disconnect that is why i said pppoe is pita to tech.

reply to aip09
OK NOW that the worms have all got away. LOL let's get back to the subject. So I'm going to need a server to regulate speeds and for billing etc. Well Motorola canopy systems are expensive, what might be some other alternatives for equipment?

reply to aip09
For equipment use Ubiquiti/Mikrotik and billing and stuff you can use powercode or you can use freshbooks.