Wireless Service Providers → Green Field WISP

Very carefully considering starting a WISP. Been an ISP now for many years using other types of RF delivery so fully understand all the issues. Do plenty of of 802.11 inside buildings so well aware of all the RF headaches. In fact I've always avoided 802.11 like the plague and let plenty of work go by.

But times are a changing and the only way to keep up is to get fiber back haul in place and distribute via terrestrial radio.

So with all that out of the way, if you were to do it all over and starting from scratch, what equipment/freq's would you go for?

I need PtP back haul and PtMP. 18GHz spectrum is available where i am and we have been told we can apply for that if we want that for our PtP (we are a licensed ISP here which is mandatory to be able to license spectrum). Plus 2.4/5/8/24 is available unlicensed.

I've been reading and reading till i feel dizzy and it seems DragonWave is highly favored. They have 18GHz gear. What else should i look at/consider?

As for Ubnt/Cambium i guess there will be as many favor one as there are others who favor the opposite. Still, I'd be real interested in which one you'd go for and why/experiences.

My gut instinct is to go for higher end stuff simply because i have learnt the very hard way, cheap is expensive in the long run (and sometimes in the not so long run). Example - i deploy Ruckus for my 802.11 stuff. Expensive yes - but it just works and is absolutely brilliant RF. As an example, I had a Ruckus Mesh setup in a mining camp serving 400 miners and in 13 months i never had one single call out or complaint. It just worked the whole time. Sure it was an 8K setup - but it costs me a bit over a $1000 to drive up and down to the site (its remote) - it only takes a few call outs to go service/fix an error condition at those costs to go out the backdoor and lose your shirt. This is an example of where it pays to just pay upfront and get the good stuff.

Looking for similar insight on what you have deployed, why you like it and why you would/would not go that way again.

I'm about ready to hire a consultant to help me figure out a way forward, but would like to get some ideas from this rich resource of WISP talent that tends to congregate here.

Can anyone suggest a good knowledgeable consultant who knows the in's and out's of this trade?

Thanks

What is your business plan like? How much and where will you get investment CAPEX. What is your exit strategy?

Starting a WISP - Perceived Value
»community.ubnt.com/t5/Bu ··· p/352320

Is any of WISP 's here able to grow really quick? Like 50% per year from a decent base?
»community.ubnt.com/t5/Bu ··· 2#M25916

Were I to do it all again I would choose what I have now.... it's taken ~10 years and about $1.5M to get here.

So I'd choose proven, modular, scale-able, distributed computing power, and be prepared to put a lot of $ and effort into customization of open source platforms before I'd take a closed, centralized, 'turn key', new technology system. You get what you pay for, but you don't necessarily have to pay for it with ridiculous up front costs.

Frequency is to suite the topography and market you're in. Churn is your enemy but if you overbuild you're broke. This is not a static business. Continual re-investment is required. I budget ~7% of gross into continuous upgrades.

I had a background in related industries before I started but I would not choose ANY consultant that recommends themselves. I would seek out an industry peer who is not a competitor and operates in a similar demographic, and has a solid business, and grasp on that business and it's technologies and pay them to show you the ropes.

S

If its a greenfield subdivision, you should be talking to the developers about installing fiber.

They will be paying your local telco to install copper telephone lines (or fiber) already, so you might as well undercut the telco and install your own fiber.

The deal I present is
- Developer pays for the trenching when the power/water goes in (otherwise its only $2 a metre if you hire a landscaping company with a dingo)
- We pay "half" (actually none) of the fibre ducting, and fibre itself, pedestals etc
- We install a cabinet with a gepon head end at a place where we can get power and a roadside pole with a backhaul radio on it - in your case, a 18/24ghz gigabit link.

You then provide an internet connection over the fiber, and can either resell voip or just recommend a voip provider to anyone that wants a telephone service.

It also gives you a monopoly in the area, unless you have a cable provider in town.
If anyone else wants to come in, they have to pay for the cable laying, or whosale access to your fiber (at your prices) and do their own backhaul to the gepon cabinet.

You only need to ensure that your pricing for internet access is reasonable - eg. if you want to have caps, make them 200 or 400gb nice and large or whatever your incumbant would charge for their dsl or fiber service.

The benefit to installing the fibre is simply
- cheaper in the long run, trees wont grow in the line of sight paths
- you have the monopoly
- you wont need to install fiber later when trees grow or fixed wireless is too slow

The benefit to the developer
- high speed fibre access is a selling point
- the incumbant would probably only install copper and dsl
- you can still undercut the incumbant and save even more by sharing trenches
- the total cost is less because you are undercutting the local telco cost of installing lines in the subdivision build out

Our local incumbant will happily charge $50,000 to install copper plant into a subdivision of 10 houses. Thats even in a rural area outside of DSL coverage.
If the trenching was already done, I could do alot more with just $40k and by using fiber, the mains power trenching can be shared.

Back to your question, personally I use ubiquiti and would like to go cambium (i have an old canopy 5800 system in a small area which works real well) but as I understand, cambium is now using wifi chips like ubiquiti so I dont think there is much advantage in paying more for the cambium system (i could be wrong)

Business plan is to keep doing what we do today - just different delivery method. Capex is from accumulated earnings - so cash is in the bank.

Fiber is not realistic to us - this is a city area - an older city in a developing country. As you might imagine, everything is a mess. Certainly there is fiber going in everywhere, but its not something we want to mes with. The fiber in and going is not very reliable Its getting better but just the nature of this place dictates fiber will always be an "off and on" affair. Some of you might understand what i mean.

Semaphore, i do hear you - i am in a similar position - 8 years in and 700K invested. We have no exit strategy - its a family business with sons/daughters in the wings to take over and we think selling BW in the early 21st century is a good place to be. It certainly is a dynamic business!! with more then the odd challenge thrown at you most weeks. We've seen a lot of "stuff" over the years. As has been mentioned its a business where you can never stop installing - clients come and go for a variety of reasons. We still have a third of our original clients from the very earliest days but we see that our business is constantly up and down. Like most of you we are a smaller operator and have competed against the big guys head on based on SUPPORT available 24/7, lots of hand holding and digging into IT issues for our clients that have zero to do with us - they cant get that anywhere else. Its a grueling work week though.

So all the above is to give you the sense that we are not new to this, been at it a long time and have no illusions about what we are about to head into next - WISP.

I don't want bottom end gear. I have no desire to pay stupid amounts of money for a system either, but there is a reason why quality gear costs a good amount. For me the number one reason is SUPPORT. I don't care how great a system is, if the support is not great i don't want it.

I am not tying to put together a system on a low budget. We have some pretty good high end clients to service so i need enterprise gear. I "think" i am more interested in the Trangos, Alvarions, Dragon Wave's etc. Have to say i am intrigued with the new AirFiber from Ubnt. Rain fade is a serious issue though - this freq is basically Ka band. I keep having thoughts that perhaps, just perhaps we could do our backbone on this gear with 5.8 as fail over - pushes costs up to double up every hop but this is still under what dragonwave will be per hop. Then reality bites and i end up thinking you get what you pay for and 24GHz is unlicensed and one day not too far away it will probably be interference prone. That's why i am seriously considering going for licensed 18GHz. This pushes cost well into the hundreds of thousands to set up - painful upfront but in the long term it may be much better?

Certainly for PtP i think the higher end gear is going to serve us better (have i got this wrong?). Its the PtMP and CPE where i am scratching my head.

I want to do this right with a decent system as my backbone for high speed wireless. My idea is to build out a high speed wireless ring around the city and then shoot PtMP where it makes sense (business parks, office blocks, industrial areas).

We only do business links. Not sure if that will change in this market we are going to enter - there is a lot to think about.

Sure i can read. Been doing lots of that. But at the end of the day, nothing beats experience in the trenches. Hence asking here for input.

So which vendor would you use to build out a high speed backbone? Which vendor do you like for the PtMP? I think the general wisdom is to use a PtM/CPE "System" to make sure everything works in the last mile. From what i can see there really are only two PtMP/CPE systems to consider (please correct me and point me in the right direction if i am assuming wrong here).

I've never been a fan of Ubnt. No real reason why. I know it works and lots of people use it, I've just never taken to it. I was in this business when Ubnt first popped up on the Radar and to me it was super low end cheap gear. Time has proven that it does work, so i am willing to overlook my personal bias - if this is what we should be using, then so be it. However my gut instinct is to go for Cambium - it has a Motorola heritage and that cant be bad. Yes i know all about Motorola and its over priced ways. But it seems Cambium is taking a different approach? Perhaps Ubnt is OK after all and is the way to go? I have no real world experience on either systems and can only go by what i read on forums - its seems to be 6 to one and half a dozen to the other in popularity for either system, so no real clues to go on.

What i do know is once we pick a system we are going to have to stick with it for the long haul, so its critical to make a good decision.

I am really really interested in real world tales from the trenches - what worked/what didn't. Are you pissed with your supplier and why? If you were starting again, would you without hesitation use the same gear you have today? - what is that gear? For example, i can tell you in my area of this business i would never ever use Belcom Microwave again - absolute crap! I bought about 30 5W BUC's and so far 27 of them have failed in the field. They were $80 cheaper per unit then the New Japan Radio BUC's we have used for years and years. Thought we would save a little per radio - Ha - lost most of them as at today. I would never use Belcom ever again !! Now its that type of feed back that is invaluable and important to know. You only learn that sort of stuff the hardway - unless someone is willing to share these "secrets"

Thanks for any "heads up" you can provide.

I've been reading this forum for many years as I've always been interested in this side of the business, its just that we have been heavily involved in other areas. I really appreciate the information freely shared here. Thanks to you all.

Describe your topography. Describe the city in general (tall buildings, commercial, residential).

Do you intend to own/operate your own towers?

Where is your upstream access located relative to the distribution area?

Short answer:

One side of the city is flat - the other side has a ridge line and then a plateau beyond it for a 4 or 5 Klms then it dips down. Other parts are a little hilly. We pretty much have it all as far as terrain.

Fiber is in the building i want to set up a NOC in.

We have tall buildings on the main road of the CBD - that's pretty much it. We have commercial areas interspersed with residential. It's common here for a residential area close to town to used as office areas (an office made out of a house). The industrial area is out to one side of town and is flat.

Long winded answer ;

Upstream is available to the building where i want to build out a NOC. I can either add service to a cable already in place or bring my own in. This site is a 7-800 meters away from the National Telco's biggest site in the country. So fiber link from my site to the major peering point in the country is very close.

The building is smack bang in the middle of the CBD. So lots of tall buildings up and down this main road. I am getting the roof top of the building i am going into. Puts me at about 7 stories high. I need to get an earth station antenna of around 5.0m up there as well as a tower of some sort. I need to get an engineer to look at the building to see how big of a tower i can get up there. Ideally i would like to build out a 35m tower up there - but this all depends on what the engineer says. I am looking at carbon fiber towers to keep weight down - plus they look really nice ( ok so i know THAT will bring some comments here - but hey i like towers - I've wanted my own cell phone tower for years - it would so cool to have my own 45m high cell tower with a platform at the top so i could go up there and comfortably aim antennas to shoot links all over town)

The city is roughly divided in half by topography. Down in the CBD where i am putting up the earth station the terrain is flat. Out to the west half of the city from the CBD, its flat for miles and miles. Out to the east side from the CBD is a ridge line that rises up such that i dont have line of sight beyond the ridge. So that means a tower up on that ridge somewhere. I've already done some scouting for a site and found what i need. Getting permission for it is another story, but the site is prime. There is always more then one way but i need a spot where i can build my own tower. In some cases i will build my own towers, in other cases i will try getting on top of strategic buildings and there are one or two water towers around (but already bristling with antennas of all types - i'm a bit late to this game in this town!)

I guess the main thing i am throwing around in my mind is do i go unlicensed or licensed freq's and then to work out what i am going to do for PTP and what system to go with for PtMP/CPE.

Should i go Wimax?, or perhaps LTE? I have zero gear for this so starting at the very very beginning. I only get one chance to do this right. I can pretty much get what ever system i want. Just have to work out what makes the most sense.

I'd recommend doing a spectrum survey from the ridge to see what the RF environment looks like in the bands you're considering. It would give you some data and allow you to proceed on a rational, objective basis.

Given what we know about your area (thanks for that response), I'd beam up to the ridge from the NOC and use the height of the ridge to distribute to the other POPs. Height is costly and absolutely essential, especially for the longer shots.

You should be able to build the ridge node site (excluding equipment) for ~$25K or so...excluding land costs/lease. Spend the time and the money to build it right since it is a critical link and affects all of your subs.

I'd use a licensed link for the backbone and unlicensed for distribution to "regular" accounts, and licensed for "critical" accounts.

You might want to also take a look at Redline...they have been around for a long time and have many systems deployed in critical applications.

»www.rdlcom.com/

...... and thats pretty much the crux of it all in this business. Towers.

So i guess its down to making a list of possible suppliers for the PTP. Well i only need one kidney to survive - right?

1/Dragonwave - had a read through their site - as expected, pretty impressive stuff. Wonder what the price tag is?

2/Trango - their 24GHz sounds pretty good. They have ACM (adaptive coding and modulation) and this is critical in rain fade conditions. Their other gear equally impressive.

3/Redline - still to check it out

4/ others?

What sort of rain fade could we expect at 18GHz? Never having worked any link at 18GHz i have no experience with it at all. I am leaning towards 18GHz licensed links at this time - at least till i get the pricing on it - then it may be back to 5.8GHz , Our national authority has indicated they have spectrum available at 18 -20 GHz that we can have (didn't get into pricing so far) so this seems to be the way to go with licensed. They also have 10.5GHz as licensed but thats a little close to Ku band.

The rain fade characteristics will be waaaay better at 10.5GHz compared to 18GHz compared to 24GHz. I think it all comes down to the LBA and the supplier having ACM implemented on their gear. Trango have a nice graphic depicting how ACM works. Link can fall all the way back to QPSK under heavy fade. Sure - slow as molasses but at least the link stays up.

At this point i am favoring licensed on the PTP and unlicensed on the PtMP/CPE. I get the PTP story all the way, but really lost on the PtMP/CPE.

Does anyone know anything definitive on this? Sounds pretty crucial.

I have no reason to believe the following statement, just a "gut" feel, but here goes anyway......

It just feels right for some reason to look deeply into cambium over Ubnt. My bias is that i grew up with Motorola - it feels natural and right to use a Motorola product, even if it now has a different name. But it could be a big mistake to overlook the new kid on the block. I just don't know and wont know until i deploy a number of units, by which time its too late to change over......

And lets be honest.... its not likely that someone who has dropped 100K or more into a system is going to say its a dog and that they bought badly. I've got equipment and software systems that i have paid big money for and its been a disappointment, yet i constantly come up with ways to make myself believe i am getting value out of it, so i understand the reluctance to put it out there if your not happy with it.

Hmm Red line looks interesting.....

"Network design and logistics are simplified with Redline’s software-defined wireless systems. Each system is software-keyed for point-to-point (PTP) or point-to-multipoint (PMP)"

So this could mean only one radio to stock and to be used as PTP OR PtMP as needed. If a PTP radio goes down, pull a spare from stock and put the software key in to make it operate as PTP. if a PtMP goes down, pull that same radio from stock and enter the key to make it PtMP.

Hmmm.......

I've used some Proxim gear and it just plain works but would use any of the other recommendations as well.

Learning curve is beyond vertical.In my experience DW makes everyone else look inexpensive. I was quoted 38K for a PtP on licenced freq with 700Mbps throughput. Uhhh... riiight.

Gear is important but proper link engineering is moreso. As John said elevation and clearance are the most important part of your network. Understanding and adhering to Fresnel is paramount. No amount of wishful thinking will get around the laws of physics. Learning to use a radio planning tool like Radio Mobile is *very* important.

I left Moto when they sold out to Cambium. My only face to face with a Cambium's engineers and sales guys was not informative or confidence building.

I'm not a fan of any of the GUI-only systems. An API and a scripting engine are important to me. I don't want to be tied to a vendor's idea of a management system or limited to what I can see/do inside a GUI. I want to be able to have my guy script what we need as we need it and add it to our CRM as we go.I did spend ~$100K on a system that I have since 80% phased out. It was a mistake (for a number of reasons) and it was called Motorola Canopy.

Yep got it. Fresnel, elevation and clearance. Agree 100%. I have seen many wireless links locally that were not working (for obvious reasons) and the local tech just could not work it out. I have preached Fresnel clearance many many times and usually get a blank look.

Yeah RM..... i use it but only to look at clearance - all the other stuff to work out the actual sig strengths i have not bothered with. But up till now i never seriously wanted to put a terrestrial wireless network.

OK so your not a Cambium fan i take it. So then, Ubnt? What else should i be looking at?

Right so DW is OTT. As i feared. As you say, 38K for a PtP ?? yikes!!! not going there. I also see DW report they are not profitable - gotta wonder why at those sorts of prices and begs the question...how long can they stand to be in a no profit situation? Any chance of getting left without a vendor somewhere up the not too far away road maybe???

I am liking the Redline stuff. Looks to be a bit lower end then some of the others (only up to 64QAM for example)

I'd say your experience is a warning shot across my bow re the Motorola stuff. *Sigh* so what to do?

So, Red line then as they do PtMP/CPE ? Its not that i am a gear snob and want to go spend a lot of cash for fun - I worry about 802.11 not scaling and so worry about buying into that.

The Trango 24GHz reads good. I am a big fan of ACM. It works wonders on my network i broadcast today. A-TDMA is next up for us on our network - the next miracle worker. So to get ACM on a high freq network i would say is pretty important. Trango does this with its 24GHz stuff. Not sure how Ubnt handle this??? And really, is interference REALLY going to be a problem at 24GHz? I've not seen ANY 24GHz stuff around and i drive around with my head UP looking at antennas on rooftops / towers (my family ridicule me non stop for this habit i've had for many years)

Thanks to WHT i am having a lovely time READING.... some good links thrown up.

And here »[Equipment] Starting A WISP

»www.towerxchange.com/car ··· r-steel/

»www.entirenetworksolutio ··· uctures/

»www.geostrut.net/home/

»www.youtube.com/watch?v= ··· hjLO_aVI

»www.youtube.com/watch?v= ··· pcjAuw5U

Looked at those carbon fiber towers four years ago. You cannot climb them as per mfg.

/added
The guyed ones at least.

I've run through Tranzeo, Deliberant, Motorola, Trango, UBNT, LigoWave, and a few others. I ended up with Mikrotik.

With very few exceptions where I need a Cisco switch or router it's almost completely a Mikrotik Network. I like the modularity, API, scripting language, Crontab, CLI, and the skinability of the GUI so that the installer doesn't need to see things that they don't need to know. And for the rest of it I don't need someone to learn three or four different GUI's or CLI's

I know there are arguments for every vendor but after sampling several I haven't found one that suits my needs better.Possibly because no one can afford them ? It took me a week to get the coffee out of my nose. That was 3+ years ago and I've never called them again.I hear ya - I worked in big companies for many years and Motorola was my goto company until the Cambium experience.

I had tried RedLine (75Mbps) and their Latency and modulation was very good. I replaced that link with a Mikrotik DP setup and got another 40Mbps out of it with a couple ms more latency.

I'd say your biggest enemy on 24G is rain fade.

I never did try Alvarion but might get around to it some time this year. That's one you could explore for PtMP. Do you have 3.65Ghz light licencing available ? I *think* they have a 3.65 product.

I use Radio Mobile to sanity check everything, so not just clearance but azimuth, inclination, SNR and path loss. If I'm out by more than a couple db one way or the other I start looking for what I did wrong... 'cuz I know I did, and I know that it's gonna bite me in the ass at 3AM on a Sunday at -40C

S

I have to check out the GeoStrut towers - do you know the folks who installed that tower shown on the video?

I explored an ultra light composite tower system called ISOTruss 10 years ago but they were quite expensive at that time and did not seem to catch on. You will find more info and photos here:
»interest in new tower designs

I wouldn't bother with these lightweight towers...I don't think they will get the job done.

If your interest is in delivering high-capacity bandwidth, that means higher-order modulations, and to overcome the loss of receive sensitivity that is part-and-parcel of those modulations, you need to compensate by increasing gain with high performance antennas. High performance antennas are large, and present a larger wind load. This is a problem on the less robust towers.

This concern is exactly what I discussed back in 2003 with the senior engineer who developed IsoTruss. I have an old email somewhere with technical details. Some utility company was using their tower for a 5.8Ghz dish!

At that time I was only considering attaching a vertical array of 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz dipoles (as PtMP sector antennas) within such a tower - remember they are essentially transparent to RF below 6Ghz. The plan was to attach the dipoles and test the complete array BEFORE raising the tower since you can't climb afterwards.

Anyway 18-24Ghz and 60-80Ghz dishes are much lighter and 24-38Ghz sectors are feather-weight by comparison. But they have to be attached outside the tower frame.

You've done them all ! Out of that lot i would have been attracted to Trango and Motorola. What was it about them that made them a fail for you? Performance, quality, lack of modcods (at the time) ?

I've not looked extensively at Mikrotik. Had a quick peep yesterday and did see a switch that seems to be a no brainer - 24 port copper switch with 1 SFP port as well, built in fw/router for $180 !! Seems like a bargain to me and i am going to get one in to mess with because it seems to answer many issues at low cost. I get keep getting lightning strikes and it sometimes takes out the whole network behind the device hit (modem). If i go modem port -> ethernet/fiber converter - > Mikrotik SFP port then the energy cant get beyond the fiber converter. Don't need Mikrotik for this in particular of course, just that the fact it has that SFP port on board, along with 24 ports and the fw on-board, makes it seem ideal to me. But i digress.That's saying something right there ! Can Mikrotik do the backhaul at high speed? I really need Gigabit speeds around the back bone ring. Given the importance of the ring i need something high quality and reliable. Quite the balancing act - high speed, high quality, high reliability, reasonable cost. Probably does not exist!AMEN TO THAT !!!!!!!! We are suffering from dashboard overload here! There is a dashboard/GUI for everything - my poor old brain is finding it hard to keep up!In your opinion, what went wrong with them? Product gone down hill? Perhaps they are just moving in a direction that does not suit you and your setup?I get the sense that RedLine would be rock solid and highly dependable.And thats my point about Redline - they dont seem to be keeping up with latest modcods - i have read through their literature extensively and see the highest modulation was 64QAM - others are at 256QAM as a regular everyday modulation and others again (DW) go as high as 2048QAM (hmmm dont know if i would trust that if we had a minor rain event!). So i can see how Mikrotik could outperform them.

No, i dont know them - just found the youtube link on one of the websites i posted links too.

Dammm, these towers are sexy!!!

I wonder. My concern would be twist with weight load at the top. They are carbon fiber - but then again, yachts break carbon fiber booms all the time, so its not infallible.

Still, its hard to go past the weight savings. The knock on effect to lower weight is much smaller foundations. Cement is around $900 per Ton here! Thats just the cement in 50Kg sacks before you even load onto your truck to go to the site to mix it with sand/stones and place it. Funny how things work out - we have the worlds cheapest power (and greenest - its all hydro) and the worlds most expensive cement.yep.yep.This fact is chiseled in stone and cant be reversed or overcome. We have to deal with the implications. I am designing a new network right now for 1.2m antennas - if i design for 1.8m antennas (3.5dB in crease in Rx power) man the throughput really shoots up there, but the knock on's are i can get 120 x 1.2m in a 40ft container Vs 45 x 1.8m antennas in a 40ft container. The civil works for a 1.8 Vs a 1.2 are triple and so on. We wont even talk about 2.4m ants.

Nature played a cruel trick on RF !

Thing is, Carbon Fiber towers open up possibilities on roof tops that are closed to steel. I've never used a carbon fiber tower so don't know the real world performance. The real issues are stiffness and twist. Dont want those large antennas on it dancing in the breeze!

If that's still the case today then its a deal breaker. Also i sense something not quite right with these guys. We cant get a price out of them - called several times but just get the run around which i find odd for a US based company. They absolutely will not give out a price or information.

Maybe someone in the US can phone them and get a price - maybe they see our international number when calling in and they don't like dealing with remote parts of the world? No idea, but it's frustrating.

BTW since you are posting anonymously, DSLR shows your IP prefix ... which belong to Cobbett Hill Earth Station. You should register for full benefits of membership and a bit more privacy.

Anyway based on your many intriguing comments, I am guessing you are currently using iDirect or similar private hub and terminals for your ISP. There are many operators worldwide who are in same situation after operating profitably for 10 years.

Raw satellite bandwidth is still quite expensive and can't really compete with terrestrial fibre+wireless based delivery methods. Meanwhile even successful WISPs are looking into FTTN+DSL/Cable for the future.

*** If you settle on 2.4Ghz/5Ghz unlicensed frequencies for PtMP, Mikrotik provides the most flexibility in my opinion.

Curiously I started experimenting with Mikrotik in 2003 when they did not have their own hardware. They released first 233Mhz X86 routerboard just as my company finished designing a CPU board to host RouterOS.

Until middle of 2005, it was actually difficult to convince US/Canada WISPs to use Mikrotik-based solution because of Tranzeo, Deliberant and another vendor in the low end and Trango, Canopy, Alvarion at the high end. Mikrotik finally became desirable in early 2007 ... just as Ubiquiti started rising.

You can search WISP forum posts for lots of good information on Mikrotik. Use the ALL TIME button and sort from oldest date. Their on-line documentation is excellent, their forum is OK, they offer courses all over the world, and there are many Mikrotik consultants who are also active WISPs all over the world.

*** Just noticed you want to build a "wireless ring" with PtP links, it is also a good idea and can be done using high performance Mikrotik routers at each node with 18Ghz or even 5.8Ghz PtP radios.

I also gave AirSpan a kick - that was a total mess.
Moto and Trango were both very reliable but for the price I didn't get the performance and lacked an API. Moto's proprietary upgrade scheme turned me off pretty quick. For Trango on PtMP the latency at the time was ridiculous.Mikrotik is can be a little lacking in high end switching and routing. I hate the price but for pure performance you can't beat Cisco in routing and switching. (was a pure bread Cisco guy at one time)They are lacking in +150Mbps throughput, but because of the way my network is built and fed I don't need more than 150Mbps (yet) so all backhauls with only a couple exceptions are DualPol MT. For short shots at +200 I would consider the UBNT AirFiber units. I've seen a couple in the filed and they are pretty solid when deployed realistically. DW would be nice but I can buy another service van for what they seem to think a single link is worth.It also helps with bug hunting. I only have to test inter-op of a minimal versions of the newest code by a minimal number of manufacturers. Mind you a missed Bug has a much bigger impact than if we were more heterogeneous I guess.LOL... Their engineers knew far less about what their old (moto) product did than we did (you actually want us to support that?) And the new products were so immature it was embarrassing. At a meet and greet with them and 4 other wisps we had to 'argue' in favor of leveled privileges. Which I assume eventually made it into the product line - I dunno we left there that day and resolved to eliminate Moto-Cambium from our network.It was definitely set and forget. Never touched it after installation until we took it out and redeployed it.MT's not the fastest. They aren't the cheapest and they are definately not the most expensive. In my deployment it fits very well, but YMMV

I'll do just that. If i do go ahead and put up the wireless network i am thinking about, i may be spending a bit of time here, so.... yes. I uplink out of Cobbett Hill but that's not me per se so no privacy lost. I just rent a large antenna from them - there are many operators uplinking out of Cobbett Hill. Many. really? which ones?

Yeah i am a VSAT network operator. I own 3 iDirect systems - Full redundant VNO with 3 line cards, a redundant, unrestricted NMS, MESH capable Private HUB and a full 5IF HUB and buying another 5IF next week. The market is changing rapidly. VSAT is not going away anytime soon but we want to get into an area of the local market we currently dont/cant compete in. I am looking at O3b backhaul as well as some fiber to feed a wireless setup.

I've always had the most issues and problems with wireless links. VSAT just works. But man the price for sat space segment..... ouch! I find it amusing to see people on here complaining about high BW prices. You dont know the meaning of it. really. I just had a funny phone call with Powercode (looking at software for the back end of a WISP - so many aspects to this). Jake asked me if we were at 300M/bit, 500 M/bit or higher...hahahahahaha - i laughed and said we are on satellite.

So going wireless is full of pitfalls. Its just not easy to run a wireless network. Reading here i see the common advice is forget the equipment, that should be last. A business plan, marketing etc should all come first. However in our case we have all that down. My concern is getting the right platform. Once committed there is no going back to change it all out.

I've been reading this forum for years. There are some smart and savvy wireless folks on here. Hence asking the questions i have been asking. Dont get me wrong - i take none of it as gospel. I will do my own due diligence. But getting a heads up on whats worked/not worked is invaluable.

My thoughts are that a very high speed wireless ring around the best parts of the city on licensed freq's is not a bad investment. From that back bone there are many things we can do with it, not just Internet. In fact i see Internet as the lowest earning service to put up on the backbone - its needed, cant do without it, but there are better types of traffic to move. But thats more marketing and business plan stuff. Right now i am in heavy R&D on the right tech to deploy.

I know Mikrotik. A local WISP here uses it and gave it a very very bad name locally. Its sorted now but back in the day it was a woeful mess that they had setup. Back in 2005 i was looking at WISP and decided to mess with Locust World MESH instead of Mikrotik. We have only recently ditched LW MESH. I now use Ruckus for that sort of stuff. This experience has taught me volumes on wireless, equipment and *SUPPORT*....... nuff said. While messing with learning how to setup MESH networks i got a lot more involved in VSAT and we never looked back. Its been a great ride.

So now its on to the next challenge - because thats what wireless is. I have no illusinons this is going to be easy. I know we will be taking arrows in the back of the head weekly if not daily.

If i am not careful i will talk myself out of this

What do you consider "short shots" ?

I've stated a number of times I've never really liked Ubnt but the AF24 is a different paradigm. I DO like the looks of this one. 24GHz may become congested over time but in my area i don't see it. It will only be ISP's who put this stuff up. Its too much of a challenge for the average IT guy. Even if they manage to get it up, will they really be equipped to deal with the issues that you and I deal with every day? At 24GHz i don't think so.

But as you rightly state, the issue at 24GHz is rain fade. Hence short "shots", lower modcods deployed and backup links right alongside the 24GHz stuff. Its the only i would do it anyway.

Another issue to all this is owning Vs renting tower space. If i put up my own towers, hanging multiple radios off it is easy enough, so doubling up links is fine. If we have to rent tower space i think the economics off backed up links goes out the window. Thoughts?

I am in two schools of thought over all this. Go lower capex and use AF24 with 5.8GHz backup along side and put saved money on radios into towers and backup power gear at the towers.

or

Go high capex, get licensed freq's, put up the odd tower where there is no other choice and rent tower space in the main. This is the "safe" conservative approach. But its costly for the safety.

Re the CISCO. I agree, you cant beat it, but the cost is OTT. We successfully use Open source instead. We do have some Cisco but not much and not getting anymore in. Even Cisco are going SDN.Thats the bottom line.

Redline looks the most interesting to me so far. Trango second. DW is fantasy stuff - no mere mortal can afford it. But i keep fixating on PTP because thats what i understand. I am still no closer to a PtMP solution. I am finding it hard to trust either Cambium or Ubnt.

That is another example of your intriguing comments.

I have been following O3B since the beginning and have helped overseas ISPs work with VSAT since 1996. SCPC, Shiron, iDirect and others.

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