Topic 21 of 44: wireless Internet for Austin
Tue, Nov 25, 1997 (14:00) |
Paul Terry Walhus (terry)
Wireless Internet. The Spring is working on becoming
a provider and I'll be using some excerpts from discussion
on the WELl with Dave Hughes with his permission.
5 responses total.
Topic 21 of 44 [internet]: wireless Internet for Austin
Response 1 of 5: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Tue, Nov 25, 1997 (14:02) * 69 lines
Topic 15 [wireless]: Wireless IP: New alternatives to leased lines
#544 of 545: Paul Terry http://www.spring.com/yapp.html (terry) Tue
Nov 25 '97 (07:04) 3 lines
I'd be interested in more details on the waveland stuff Steve.
I'm still scratching my head on how to do a wireless setup for Austin
to my isp that others could share. Any more ideas Dave?
Topic 15 [wireless]: Wireless IP: New alternatives to leased lines
#545 of 545: Dave Hughes (dave) Tue Nov 25 '97 (08:31) 57 lines
Its really pretty basic terry. For the crudest rule of thumbm
assume that connecting up wirelessly anyone to your ISP system
who is 5 miles or less away is pretty easy, between 5 and 15,
harder, and over 15 hardest.
Then decide who are you trying to hook up at what (as an
acceptable minimum) throughput speeds. Knowing the cheapest
way for starters is to assume a base radio - at your ISP
location - will operate up to T-1 half duplex. Which could
handle 24 simultaneous 56kbps sessions.
So you then look at radios, like Breezecoms, where one 'Access
Point' at the base, connected into your system via an ethernet
connection (or thru a hub) can be connected to X number of
'Bridge' units - all acting like one big LAN.
And systematically after you connect up the Access Point to
as high gain an omni antenna as high as you can get it on
your roof above your system, take Brigde units to each
customer's premises and see if you can get a link, carrying
a small omni, or yagi, to point back to the AP as the case
may be. Knowing that the ethernet coming out the bcak of
the radio can run up to hundreds of feet without serious
loss.
So if you get 3 customers with Bridges, which cost you about
$1,800 apiece, the AP about $1,400 - their radios talking
to be base radio (little green link lights on all), then
all thats left is connecting them by their ethernet to their
radio, giving them IP addresses, and they are connected.
In this configuration with those radios, acting as extensions
to your LAN, each user will be able to use up to the highest
thruput of your radios, expecting at least 512kbps each.
Degrading only as more users share the same base radio
thruput. So figure out what to charge them since you
will not require phoneline at your end, serving them.
Alternatively, if where your system is is *not* central
enough to radiate out to your intended customers, then
you can find a tall building which is more central, and
between which you can see/reach by a pair of radios.
Then make a deal with the building management to put an
omni antenna on their roof, run the RF cable to the top
floor where, inside you can get wall power and put the
radio, put the *Access Point* radio there (one AP can
talke to many WBs), and connect up your Bridge radio
first to get a good link, and connected up as many
others at customers premises who can see/link to the
high antenna and access point. (no computer needed there,
for the AP just receives and relays traffic).
The effective throughput will be halved to maybe 512kbps,
but thats hardly a problem when its free secure, digital
communications unaffected by weather.
While the radios may differ, the principles I have laid
out above stay pretty much the same.
Topic 21 of 44 [internet]: wireless Internet for Austin
Response 2 of 5: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Wed, Nov 26, 1997 (10:52) * 26 lines
can you put repeaters in the get over the 15 mile being hard ?
Topic 15 [wireless]: Wireless IP: New alternatives to leased lines
#547 of 547: Dave Hughes (dave) Tue Nov 25 '97 (15:30) 22 lines
Yes, most of the radios can act as a relay - though you can get
slow downs from latency if you relay more than twice.
Usually the over 15 being hard is a matter of the difficulty
of getting a clean line of sight that far, and the farther
you go, with the 1 watt FCC limitations, the cleaner that
line must be. Now the BreezeCom units operate at only
50 milliwatts of power - 1/20th of a watt - because the Isralis
made them for the European market, which limits to 1 watt. So
they really don't operate well over 7 miles. While Solectek
makes a 2Mbps radio rated at 25 miles, 1 watt.
I'm trying to line up the Four Republican Horseman of the Senate's
Science & Technology Committee - Stevens of Alaska, Burns of
Montana, Dorgan of North Dakota, McCain of Arizona, all of
whom are from rural states where connectivity to small towns and
schools is costly by telcos - to ask the new FCC CHairman why
5 Watts is unacceptable for rural America. There is hardly a
case for excessive 'interference' for eskimo villages in the
north, served by a satellite internet feed, to reach the
50 mile surroundung area.
Topic 21 of 44 [internet]: wireless Internet for Austin
Response 3 of 5: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Wed, Nov 26, 1997 (17:26) * 12 lines
Dave Hughes (dave) Wed Nov 26 '97 (11:50) 9 lines
Yes, but the professional site-survey is critical. What you want
for any link that may turn out to be marginal, is a visit by
a radio enginner from Solectek, or a local reseller, using
a spectrum analyzer, to see whether, between these two points
(1) get a good link (2) how robust it will be (3) what potential
interference there might be. On such a long stretch you might
be paying for a one day survey that tells you it won't work
well enough to spend the money for the radios/antennas and
installation.
Topic 21 of 44 [internet]: wireless Internet for Austin
Response 4 of 5: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Fri, Jan 15, 1999 (06:56) * 11 lines
From Katie mailto://mirmir@well.com
here are some wireless services, you might show to your closest and
most entrepreneurial isp, for duplication or franchise/setup:
http://www.cyberhighway.net/news/wireless.html
http://www.wirelesstcp.net/fastest/wireless.htm
a great many wireline isps are adding a wireless service.
Topic 21 of 44 [internet]: wireless Internet for Austin
Response 5 of 5: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Tue, Jan 25, 2005 (09:17) * 1 lines
Open 24 hours. On the drag. Metro. No login, always on and always reliable wi fi. Highly recommended. I'm there now as we speak. The coffee and vibes are good too. Heidi is very helpful and friendly. I talked to a kid named Bobby this morning who invented the internet game http://runescape.com. He wants to be a cop. He's at a turning point in his life, shifting and figuring things out. I remember those days. I talked to another student and gave her Gordon Bagby's secret of how to get straight As (Gordon was my room mate and class valedictorian at the University of Illinois). His method works. It got me better grades.
internet conference 
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