korym
Go Wisp's
ExMod 1999-03
join:1999-12-23
Richmond, VA
clubs:
| reply to dongato17
Re: More CPE stuff
Actually, Hal, that's what the guy I've been working with is looking to do. I think it would be cheap too, to look into that solution with the boxes Ken recommended.
And you're right. It would be a cool way to expand the network by offering free service to someone in a strategically located spot in exchange for allowing an additional POP on their roof to serve their immediate area.
My partner and I did some "war driving" today and decided that DSSS just won't work in the city. We picked up too many AP's on NetStumbler (and we didn't even have an external antenna!!) So, we're thinking of sticking with FHSS in the city and deploying DSSS in the suburbs. We drove a five mile perimeter around the tower and could see it just about the whole time. We didn't pick up any 2.4GHz on the frequency scanner we used nor any AP's on NetStumbler in the vicinity of the tower.
Anyway, thx much for the thought, Hal. I'm going to look more into this! 
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cmaenginsb
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-19
Palmdale, CA
| reply to gmracing
Kory, I'm now working with a wireless ISP just North of LA now and I have to say DSSS can have major problems in areas with a lot of 2.4Ghz traffic. (This does not neccessarily mean Metro areas alone, as we've found intermittant 2.4 Ghz signals on almost every military base.)
The current network is all DSSS and works well most of the time, we have to use a lot of highly directional antennas to miss the radio farms which teem with 2.4Ghz.
I'm not sure given a large amount of 2.4 GHz noise that even a FH unit will work in all cases.
As to CPE while it's expensive, we are using Cisco workgroup bridges for our customers (most of them are businesses and can afford the cost.) We've been looking at single board computers running BSD or Linux as replacements which can offer everything that Karlnet does for less.
We figure we could have a working CPE for about $350 to $400 including radio.
I use a Cisco aironet Access point as a poor mans spectrum analyzer (you can put it in a mode where it gives your carrier busy and noise levels for every DSSS channel) and we've got an area with high noise on all channels. |
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superdog
I Need A Drink
Premium,MVM
join:2001-07-13
Lebanon, PA
|  reply to korym
Kory,Sorry!,I guess I went off on a tangent there for a moment!.I guess what I mean is this:Everyone here is putting a lot of time and effort into a CPE solution and I feel that my Raylink gear is great after reading the problems everyone is having and the price I pay for the USB and PCI adapters.The only problem that Raylink has is not being able to run 2 AP's as a bridge(old style AP's which is what I am using) and that will make problems for me in a business install but I can overcome that by using an old 486 box and a linux router.My thoughts before my IT guys(good ole' Ben and Dustin)told me what to do was that I would have to use Breezecom stuff to get back to ethernet when I needed to install more than 1 computer at any given location.My other thought was that everyone seems to be worried about the speed of the equipment when most of us here are only running 1 or maybe 2 T1's?.11Mb(802.11b DSSS)stuff is really not an issue when You only have 1.5Mb backbone to support it?.I think the speed issue causes a lot of us to overlook the benefits of 802.11(FHSS)gear and after You spend a couple of thousand $$$$ on Your infrastructre it is almost to late to go back and re-tool?,Tim
P.S.Sorry-just had to get that off my mind-I wont rant and rave for awhile!!;)
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tenspeed
join:2001-12-15
Harrington, DE | Superdog1,
what are you paying for CPE equipment? and is it FSSS equipment?
Tenspeed
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korym
Go Wisp's
ExMod 1999-03
join:1999-12-23
Richmond, VA
clubs:
| reply to cmaenginsb
Very cool input, cmaenginsb. Thx much!
We'd probably be okay deploying DSSS in the city, but I'd be concerned about having the network go down from time to time due to all the other 2.4GHz AP's in the area. I'd hate to invest a lot of money into a DSSS infrastructure only to find it wouldn't perform as we needed it to.
I actually started researching Cisco because I'm impressed with their 100mW bridges and AP's. But, yeah, residential subs couldn't afford the CPE.
As far as the single board computers, I'd like to consider doing the same thing and run Mikrotik or something. That way we could include not only Windows users but Linux and Mac's too; something you can't do with Karlnet, unfortunately.
Is the solution you're thinking of utilize power over Ethernet in a NEMA box? Would it include the antenna and cabling?
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korym
Go Wisp's
ExMod 1999-03
join:1999-12-23
Richmond, VA
clubs:
| reply to superdog
Ahhh...thx much for clarifying, Tim. It's very much appreciated. 
And, you're totally right about the backhaul. One's network is only going to be as fast as their backhaul, at best. That's why I've figured on putting in a 10Mbps WMUX Tsunami for our backhaul out to the tower instead of a 45Mbps for now. Saves about $6k. And, if we're running DSSS out there, we'll never use the whole 10Mbps. We'll upgrade as we grow, of course, since we're tapped into two T3's right now as it is.
As far as using Raylink for a business install, you could probably save yourself some support costs and headaches by running a Netgear router or something. Just an idea. Either way is certainly cheaper than going with Breezecom (which you'd only see 1Mbps of throughput anyway instead of 2Mbps of throughput with an all Raylink solution)
Actually, I might just consider using Raylink in town!  (hint, hint, Tim!)
Thx again for the input!
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superdog
I Need A Drink
Premium,MVM
join:2001-07-13
Lebanon, PA
|  reply to tenspeed
Hi!,I am now an authorized Raylink reseller and I can buy the new Raylink USB adapter(really cool stuff,a 1 piece unit with no cards to plug in and a female N adapter right on it!)for $189 each,and when You buy Your antennas from Superpass for $55 each and You make Your own cables and buy all the connectors in quantity and the mounting hardware from Lowes or HomeDepot I can easily keep my CPE costs under $300!!!!!!!,Tim
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dongato17
VIP
join:2000-07-28
Atlanta, GA
| reply to korym
said by korym:
As far as the single board computers, I'd like to consider doing the same thing and run Mikrotik or something. That way we could include not only Windows users but Linux and Mac's too; something you can't do with Karlnet, unfortunately.
Hey Kory,
What do you mean about not being able to support linux or macs with karlnet? wouldn't it just be an ethernet port if you used something like an rg1000 running karlnet?
Confused,
Hal |
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tenspeed
join:2001-12-15
Harrington, DE
| reply to superdog
Tim, is the Raylink equipment Fsss or Dsss. Where getting ready to deploy in a new area and I need distance in some cases?
Anyone else had good results with raylink?
Jay
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cmaenginsb
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-19
Palmdale, CA
| reply to gmracing
Kory: What we're looking at would be a low end single board computer with a PCMCIA slot and built in ethernet in a NEMA 3X or better box. By using PCMCIA we can choose any PCMCIA radio (FHSS or DSSS) as the situation requires.
Cisco boxes actually use a similiar design. The radio portion of their boxes are simply LMC350 PC cards (These cards have dual MMCX connectors).
We would use power over ethernet to get power up to the boxes with little fuss and then use voltage requlators to step power down to whatever voltage we need.
I feel we could get a sub $500 CPE cost including antenna and mounting hardware. This is still alot, but is lower than the solution we are using now. Since we target mostly businesses they are willing to pay for the higher CPE cost. |
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superdog
I Need A Drink
Premium,MVM
join:2001-07-13
Lebanon, PA | reply to tenspeed
Jay,Raylink is FHSS and the distance is all in the antenna and the radio power.A five mile link is about the most I can get out of a Raylink AP(they are only 100 Mw radios-both AP's and the PCMCIA cards),Tim
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MSITHero
join:2001-12-06
Parker, CO
clubs: 
| reply to korym
said by korym:
And, you're totally right about the backhaul. One's network is only going to be as fast as their backhaul, at best. That's why I've figured on putting in a 10Mbps WMUX Tsunami for our backhaul out to the tower instead of a 45Mbps for now. Saves about $6k. And, if we're running DSSS out there, we'll never use the whole 10Mbps. We'll upgrade as we grow, of course, since we're tapped into two T3's right now as it is.
About ruffly what are you spending for your backhaul?
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Jeeze ok I have Comcast@HOME, Comcast sold my market to ATT now I have ATT@HOME. Ok now @HOME drops ATT. Now I have ATTBI. Nope Comcast buys ATTBI! Now I have Comcast again. What is this a joke! |
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korym
Go Wisp's
ExMod 1999-03
join:1999-12-23
Richmond, VA
clubs:
| reply to dongato17
said by dongato17:
Hey Kory,
What do you mean about not being able to support linux or macs with karlnet? wouldn't it just be an ethernet port if you used something like an rg1000 running karlnet?
Confused,
Hal
Actually, Hal, I just got word today that Karlnet will support Macs and Linux via Ethernet! I think I was getting confused about a USB port (been a long week already!)
Later!
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korym
Go Wisp's
ExMod 1999-03
join:1999-12-23
Richmond, VA
clubs: | reply to cmaenginsb
Sounds very similar to what we're looking at, cmaenginsb. Excellent info! Thx much!
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korym
Go Wisp's
ExMod 1999-03
join:1999-12-23
Richmond, VA
clubs:
| reply to MSITHero
I got kind of lucky, GPrix2K. We're playing $250 per month for a port right on a Cisco switch that's connected directly to a Cisco router with a T3 backed up by another T3 for redundancy and load balancing. We're paying an additional $5 per month per Gb.
HTH!
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odnc$
join:2002-01-08
Richmond, VA
| reply to gmracing
On the single board computer question.
Has any one considered QNX or EmbeddedLinux?
With an off the shelf pc, packed into a weather tight enclosure, you must deal with a floppy or hard drive, which is another point of failure.
Intel has a specification called PXE where the bios boots from the network using dhcp and grabs the OS from a boot server.
»www.linuxdevices.com describes a diskless wan router |
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korym
Go Wisp's
ExMod 1999-03
join:1999-12-23
Richmond, VA
clubs:
| Howdy, odnc! Good to see you! You Richmonder's are really coming out of the woodwork!
Actually, I've considered taking a look at QNX. Thought it would be cool to run the OS off a flash card or something, if possible. Perhaps use one PCMCIA slot for the radio card and the other slot for the flash card. I wouldn't want too many moving pieces in the CPE as, you're right, it creates another point of failure.
But PXE sounds pretty cool too. I might have to check that out!
(don't want to wait too long...would like to start putting some installers to work!)
Later!
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drjim
Premium,MVM
join:2000-06-13
Long Beach, CA
clubs:
| reply to odnc$
Actually, there's an adapter available which will let you plug Flash Memory cards directly into the IDE port. If your SBC has an IDE port, you're dancin'. Check out »www.tapr.org for more info. There may be other products like this, but I know these work. We use them in the Amateur Radio Packet Network, up on cold, nasty mountain tops, where you don't want electromechanical devices if you can avoid the.
drjim
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One man's Magic is another man's Engineering. |
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odnc$
join:2002-01-08
Richmond, VA
|  reply to gmracing
One more thing, environmental protection.
Since we're discussing some outdoor solutions, especially microprocessors mounted near antennae may, I humbly suggest a peek at the Bellcore 1089 standard for electrostatic discharge before a system wide roll-out. (The local WISP here, FrontierBroadBand takes earthing rather seriously, so I thought I'd mention it.) |
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odnc$
join:2002-01-08
Richmond, VA | reply to drjim
Tasty stuff, reminds me of alohanet in hawaii
and your correct, few things are worse than a 4am service call in freezing rain. |
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