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Neighborhood iSP

Hi, I am in the process of designing a network for providing Internet access to my neighborhood which has only dialup connections as we speak. The area comprises of large houses, each of them built on an average of

3 acre plot. Each house is surrounded by medium to dense foliage in the form of trees. There are about 100 houses in an area spanning 3 miles by 2 miles. Now the only ISP who is willing to provide a backhaul has a POP about 5 miles (aerial) away. He is willing to let me put up my radio and antenna on his tower and I will have to setup a WiPOP at a place near my community. Now, the question is "how do i get the bandwidth to the houses?" not everyone may go in for a subscription right away. i am looking at 50 houses to start with. i have considered the following options: - a) create a mesh network using either Firetide or Tropos eqpt but then the infrastructure cost might kill me. b) create a WiPOP (outdoor AP with Sectoral antenna- 14dbi) and set up wireless CPE ( wireless client with directional antenna 14 dbi) and then drop the connection inside the house by way of cat-5 or connect an access point if the house owner wants it. I would appreciate any advise on the matter; Thanks in advance.
Reply to
outbackwifi
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That is *not* a simple question. I went with something like your plan B using smartBridges equipment. I'd seriously consider using Tranzeo CPEs now as well. Take a look at

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and look into subscribing to the mail lists from
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and
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By the way, if your estimate of getting half the houses turns into reality, you could go on tour explaining to WISPs how to do it.

Reply to
Rôgêr

roger, thanks a ton. I did go and check out tranzeo. excellent value for money i must say. btw has anybody actually tried out the WISPer antenna from WiFi-plus

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They claim to use multi-polarized antennae which have higher penetrability and stuff

Reply to
outbackwifi

I think it's pure hype and baloney, but I'm not sure. He's been around for quite a few years pushing those antennas. I notice that he's finally gotten some photos and data sheets. However, no NEC2 pattern plots, no comparison field tests, little clue what's inside, and fairly expensive. This is the closest I can find that resembles a test:

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I can't understand what they're doing or testing. Also, I consider the very mention of the term NLOS (non line of sight) to be poison and prima fascia evidence of baloney to come.

Searching Google, I find one distributor:

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a very large number of press releases.

My guess(tm) is that multi-polarized really means circularly polarized as in a CP patch antenna (used in GPS receivers) or a helical antenna. Probably helical with a triangular cross section instead of a circle. The omnis are probably discone's or perhaps conical spiral antennas. Dunno.

There are some real advantages to such a CP antenna:

  1. Polarization insensitivity which allows more reliable connection from arbitrarily polarized client radios (laptops and PDA's).
  2. Linear to CP polarization systems have far less Raleigh fades when moving.
  3. For point to point, cancellation of odd numbered reflections, which change the sense of the antenna from (for example) right hand circular to left hand circular on each reflection.
  4. Impressive bandwidth which reduces group delay at band edges.

The down side is the -3dB loss when going between CP and linear polarization (vertical or horizontal). That's not really that bad if you've got a good strong signal to work with, but that's usually not the case when you're trying to use this antenna to compensate for NLOS, severe fades, multipath, reflections, and cross polarization.

I've never used or even seen any of these antennas, so I can't be 100% sure that I'm correct. It might actually be something of value, but I can't tell from here. You might ask them how much better are their antennas as in real numbers that can be verified. When I tried that many years ago, I didn't get an answer.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

One word comes to mind, "snakeoil".

Reply to
Rôgêr

I did some more research on the WISPer line and found that the hermosa city, ca wifi project used these antennae. check out

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.. Now is there anybody from around that part of the country who can vouch/try out the performance?

Reply to
outbackwifi

You might want to ask that question in the Wifi-Plus "forum" at:

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existing users are sure to be found.

Also, note that these are from Dr Jack Nilsson of Nil-Jon antennas for lower frequencies:

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The patents on related antennas are: 6,806,841 6,496,152 and can be found at:
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There are patent application (pending status): 20040164917 20040164918 20040164919 20040164920 which can be found at:
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

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