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oppedahl
join:2001-09-23
Dillon, CO
| reply to korym
Re: Perhaps I'm biased but...
As a director of the Ruby Ranch Internet Cooperative Association, I was interested to read your posting. You saw what troubles we had with Qwest, and you wonder, why don't we simply go wireless.
There are several reasons.
First, we are wireless. As you will see if you look at our web site at »www.rric.net, we use point-to-point wireless links (802.11, but not 802.11b) and high-gain antennas to bring a T1 to our neighborhood. From there we will be using DSL to reach the various homes.
But no, to answer your question, wireless is not workable within our neighborhood.
First, the area where we are is very hilly and very forested. As a consequence, wireless is simply not workable. Line of sight is impossible for most homes in our neighborhood.
Second, we have a lot of lightning here. We have already lost two 802.11 transceivers to lightning over the past year, in the point-to-point links mentioned above. We have put in some extra lightning protection there. But if we were to add several dozen more transceivers and antennas, we would be much more exposed to lightning risk than we are now.
Third, there are a lot of problems with 802.11b. If you turn on a CB radio nowadays, it is a cesspool. Everybody uses it for everything. Turn to the 49MHz band that used to be used for cell phones and baby monitors. It is now filled with competing users. The same has happened in the 900-MHz unlicensed band. It is already happening in the 2.4 GHz band. Microwave ovens, cordless phones, Bluetooth, other competing 802.11b users, they all trip over each other, fighting to use this ever-more-crowded band.
In other words, a system that works on Monday might not work on Tuesday.
If we hop from house to house, as you suggest, then troubleshooting is a nightmare. If somebody's connectivity goes out, we then would have to go to the next house over to troubleshoot, where the person may be out of town for a few weeks or months. (Our neighborhood has some homes that are second homes and the owners are not there very often.)
No, wireless would not be a good solution for us.
Thanks for the suggestion though. | |
korym
Go Wisp's
ExMod 1999-03
join:1999-12-23
Richmond, VA
clubs:
| You're very welcome, oppedahl! Thx much for responding. I'm actually very impressed that you've taken the time to share in the discussion here. I'm pulling for you guys, knowing what it's like to be in a broadband deprived area. Seeing your community pull together to try to deploy a network on your own is certainly commendable and an inspiration!
Congrats in using a PtP 802.11b bridge to bring the T1 to your neighborhood. I was only half-joking when I mentioned before a PtP to your neighborhood would be cool. I obviously don't know about your topology but am very glad to hear, of course, that the PtP is working out for you!
Here are some additional ideas which might be beneficial to you (yeah, I'm stubborn!  ):
802.11b certainly does have its limitations, especially if there are plenty of 2.4GHz gear in the area. There are ways around this, of course, but it might be an idea to consider 802.11 (not 802.11b) FHSS gear like something from Raylink. Because FHSS basically hops through about 80 "micro-slivers" of the spectrum vs. 802.11b (DSSS) hopping through about three "macroslivers", the hopping sequence occurs much more frequently, thus allowing in lower interference issues. But, the caveat is that 802.11 isn't as fast as 802.11b, being 2Mbps raw data vs. 11Mbps raw data throughput.
Also, there are many 5.8GHz manufacturers coming out (i.e. Motorola's Canopy, for example) that'll eliminate the 2.4GHz spectrum saturation entirely as there aren't any cordless phones or baby monitors on the market that are within the 5.8GHz band (at least, none that I know of, FWIW!)
The lightning issue may be taken care of with a $30 to $40 unit called a Polyphaser LSX that sits in between the antenna and radio. I have a couple radios that have taken a few hits and stayed up (the antennas fried, though, but they're much cheaper than the radio; Alvarion BAII; long story!) without problems.
I understand your point about mesh. While it's certainly feasible (we're looking to create a wireless network for a small, rural town using mesh technologies; heavy trees there), our questions is, as you mentioned, how to ensure the radio stays on to allow traffic to flow to subs beyond the unit?
How Nokia did it with their Rooftop line is they built redundancy into the network which means if a subscriber unit goes down, the packets find the next available wireless connection to the next subscriber unit and adjusts the link automatically. The larger the deployment, the more redundant the network and the less problems that occur should a few homeowners turn their SU's off.
Whew!! Hope this might help shed some light on wireless.
Thx again! 
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Dirk Daring
join:2000-08-03
Ashburn, VA
|  reply to oppedahl
That's too bad wireless will not work for you all. I've been out to Colorado a few times, and yes I can believe that LOS can be a problem for a community.
You might want to look at the Nokia Rooftop for the heck of it anyhow, it's some pretty amazing stuff.
Good luck!
Dirk | |
korym
Go Wisp's
ExMod 1999-03
join:1999-12-23
Richmond, VA
clubs:
| How's it going, Dirk?
Hey, Dirk, have y'all deployed Rooftop in your community? Been some time since we've heard about your efforts. I'd enjoy hearing how it's going for you!
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Dirk Daring
join:2000-08-03
Ashburn, VA
| You know, I don't know how I missed this post. I read every day here, must have slid right past it. Found it on a search while looking for another posting.
We decided not to go the rooftop way at all actually, with any gear whatsoever.
Our HOA board (the Web Committee Broadband team that I'm leading acutally) wrote and issued an RFP to all the local service providers to come in and give us service. We got a bunch of responses back, mostly all from WISP startups. We selected 3 responses to the RFP (and man were they all good! Some very well written) and voted and selected a winner.
The WISP selected is going to deploy a mesh network of routers strategically placed around the community. Everyone will be able to access these routers with 100mw wireless gear (or 30mw, depending on how far you are from the local CAN router). Anyone on the outer fringes will have to buy a small antenna. With this system anyone can surf the web at the pool, park bench, school, soccer game, etc with a laptop.
CPE costs are going to run about $120 for a 100mw pcmcia card. I'm not sure about other hardware yet, like PCI. We're looking (well I am anyhow) at the Linksys WET11 as a ethernet bridge solution for easy home networking. With a pigtail and antenna thats looking to run about $250.
Dirk
»hoa.broadlands.org | |
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