New to Wireless-Can't I Buy My Own Equip?

I need some hand holding :o I live in a rural area where cable and dsl are not available. Satellite is available but very expensive startup and from what I read, not too stable. I've been waiting for over a year on a company to put up a wireless tower. Just found out last week that they've shelved the plan for this tower because someone has installed a tower and "the two towers would cause interference and both companies would have problems". Really? So in large metropolitan areas there's only one wireless company?? I've been given a price of $597 startup cost (hardware/install and setup) and $49 a month (no contract and I purchase the equipment from them). This gets me 512K download. The owner went on to explain I *could* go to Best Buy and buy my equipment but it isn't very good quality (and of course, his is). I have no idea what GOOD wireless hardware costs or what is considered good quality or what I need. As well versed in computers as I am, I'm that clueless to anything wireless :o This is a lot of money and I know the fact that there is no competition in the area is why it's so expensive. If I can get the price down by buying my own equipment, I really need to. I don't know if this will help or not but he did say that some companies install a tower at your house but he doesn't. He installs some kind of (box?) on an existing structure such as a TV tower. Any info, tips, advice you can offer would be much appreciated. Oh, my Dell computer is P4 3.2ghz, 1GB ram. Looking under Network Adapters in Device Manager, I have a 1394 Net Adapter and Broadcom NetXtreme 57xx GB Net Controller...just in case any of that matters

Thanks, Monica

Reply to
Monica
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Reply to
Monica

I'm afraid I can't give you any specific help, Monica - I'm kind of newbie, too. But I think the WiFi gurus who hang out here would require a bit more detail about your situation before they could help much.

For example, could you tell us the name and location of the company who is proposing to mount HIS equipment on YOUR tower, and the approximate distance between you and him? Are there hills/mountains/trees/lakes between his access point and your home?

Part of the outrageous startup cost could be due to a complicated link design because of geography and distance. And don't pay a penny until you've tested it in a rainstorm!

- Jeff

Reply to
jschall

"Monica" hath wroth:

Bummer.

I don't know what you mean by "not too stable". I have customers using DirecWay and it works well enough. The major complaints are that uploads are incredibly slow, download preformance is awful during peak hours, latency causes VoIP and VPN's to be useless, and weather has a big effect on everything. Personally, I would suggest satellite internet as the last resort, when nothing else is available.

Really. Interference among WISP (wireless ISP) installations is a common and serious problem. Add a few municipal networks and usual clueless individual with an RF power amplifier, and nobody communicates. The WISP's solve such problems by coordinating frequencies (there's really only 3 channels available), elaborate antenna patterns, or just fighting it out. It's no fun.

The way large metro areas are handled is to use small "cells" for covering the city. No WISP tries to cover the entire city from one location. That's not because of interference, but because the number of clients per access point and backhaul bandwidth are often limited. More access points simply means more customers. If your small town has a limited number of potential customers, then a WISP might elect to start with a single central wireless access point, and grow from there. Starting out with an elaborate system of access points, backhauls, routers, and towers is expensive for the WISP.

That's about typical. Figure on 2 hours install and setup for about $150-$200. That leaves $400 for the hardware. If you bought your own, my guess is your cash expenditures would be:

  1. 24dBi dish $ 70
  2. Pole mounted PoE client bridge (Tranzeo TR-CPE90-Nf) 0
  3. Rooftop mounting hardware $ 40
  4. CAT5 and misc network wiring. $ 10 ============================================================= Total 0

You probably cut the $220 for the radio down by using a commodity wireless indoor client bridge (WET54G, WAP54G, etc), repackaging it for outdoor use, and adding a PoE adapter. At best, you'll save about $100.

Also note that if you have more than one computer, you *MAY* need to purchase an ethernet router. This will vary by WISP depending on how they deliver their IP addresses. If they issue one IP address per computer, you can live without the added router. If they deliver only one, you have another $70 expense. This will probably be in addition to either the $600 package deal, or your do-it-thyself conglomeration.

If you have a particularly good location with a view, you might be able to get away with an indoor client bridge, a few feet of LMR-400 caox cable, and a rooftop antenna. 25ft of LMR-400 with "N" connectors will cost about $40. You'll also need a "pigtail" to go from whatever client bridge radio uses to "N" for about $15. The cable is very lossy and will have lousy performance compared to an antenna mounted radio.

There's a big difference between something that's meant to operate indoors and what will survive outdoors. For typical outdoor client radios, see:

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Do the math. $600 installed is about the vendors cost. That's also about what a satellite internet setup costs except that these tend to be partially subsidized by Direcway. The actual cost of the hardware and installers time is much more.

It's difficult to pass judgement on a prospective installation without knowing what the vendor is going to supply. As you noted, it's also not just for the radio and antenna. You MUST have line of sight to wherever he's locating his access point. Without line of sight, it won't work. If you're fairly close, you might be able to get a connection, but it will vary and fade when the wind blows through the trees, when the obstructions move around, and when the leaves re-appear in the summer. The tower, pole, pipe, or mounting should be part of the installation but is difficult to estimate without a "site survey". That's where they come out to your house and try to guess what it will take to provide service. Add that to the cost.

Well, you have an ethernet port, which is all that's necessary.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Jeff, thank you so much for you detailed answer :)

"not too stable" was just my way of saying what you said about satellite

I was taken aback by the startup price because the provider I've been waiting on for over a year has a startup fee of $189 but I don't know if that is leasing or owning the equipment and perhaps his equipment isn't the quality as the other provider's is.

We only have one computer in the house. The house is brick, single story. The tv tower that the outside equipment will attach to (DirecTV dish is on it as well) is on one end of the house and the computer is at the other...house is 50 feet long. I'm about 2 miles from the tower in town. It's on the town's water tower. I live in an elevated area that is free of trees. Of course there are trees between me and the tower but I'm sure it's not going to be a problem. The line of sight should be quite good.

One more thing. Would you mind looking at this thread concerning WISPs speed, service price, and location?

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vast majority of the speeds are soooooo much faster than what I'm being offered (and often less spendy). I'm told the connect speed will be

512kbps (I think) and when I'm downloading, I can expect 64KB/sec. A lot of these folks are getting >1MB/second downloads. That's why this is such a hard decision. The price sounds high and the service sounds really slow (compared to what I'm reading).

Thanks once again for your time and advice :)

Monica

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Reply to
Monica

"Monica" hath wroth:

Well, there's not much that I can tell you about the quality of their equipment. Most WISP's don't want to be in the loan business and prefer that the customer owns their equipment. Since the price includes installation, I suspect that it's a sale, not a lease or rental.

The installation inside the house will probably we wired, not wireless. If possible, run CAT5 cable from wherever the radio will be located to the computer.

That sounds perfect. 2 miles is no problem with a big antenna. Think of a 3ft by 2ft barbeque grill dish antenna on your roof. There are some potential problems that I didn't mention.

  1. You need more than just line of sight. You need what's called Fresnel Zone clearance. At 2 miles, you need about 25-30ft radius clearance at midpoint of the path. That includes trees, building, and the ground. You can live with slightly less, but you'll experience some path loss problems.
  2. Interference from other 2.4Ghz system is always a problem. Someone should do a "site survey" with a spectrum analyzer and Kismet on a laptop along the path (and beyond) to make sure there are no suprises. Fortunately, a highly directional dish antenna will be a big help in reducing interference, but if there is a large office or apartment building, or leaky microwave oven, or railroad wireless system, or whatever, along the path, there will be problems.

Sigh. I looked at the reports and they are a mixture of actual performance tests and advertised speeds. I cannot see any pattern between the results and price. Having been involved in a wireless ISP, I can assure you that speed is dependent on literally everything and can be almost any number. WISP's all throttle the bandwidth delivered to users in order to prevent one user from hogging the entire bandwidth. They also use it offer various performance and price levels.

Perhaps it would be best if I could offer some questions to ask your prospective WISP vendor. Standard system loading for residential customers is about 10:1. That means that they will advertise 10 times as much aggregate bandwidth as their backhaul allows. For example, if an access point has a T1 (1.5Mbits/sec) backhaul, the ISP could connect 15 customers and offer 1Mbit/sec service, without much difficulty. Or, they could connect 45 customers and offer each

500Kbits/sec service. Any more than 10:1 and customers will probably complain. So, the first question is: How fast is the backhaul per access point? That's what really limits your performance. It's also one of the most expensive parts of the WISP business.

Next is the 512Kbits/sec peak, average, or "up to" speeds? Is it symmetrical (512Kbit/sec in both directions)? Can you get more speed if you pay more? For how long can you sustain 512Kbits/sec before the ISP's router QoS throttles the speed? Can you do streaming video? What's the latency (ping time) to the internet. This will affect VoIP. As you may notice, there are many ways to define and deliver

512Kbits/sec. The question is how does your prospective ISP do it.

As for price, please realize that your prospective WISP probably pays good money to the city for space on the water tower. He's also probably required to carry enough insurance to cover anything that can go wrong. If he has an estabilished wired ISP business, he probably has all the necessary staff and hardware to properly support the customer base. If he's just getting started, he'll need to build a support and services structure, which are not cheap. If he has to compete against cable modem and DSL vendors, that are offering internet access at what I suspect might be below cost levels, he'll be out of business rather quickly. There is no way that a newly minted WISP can offer service at DSL or cable modem starting prices.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

You're talking about commodity 2.4GHz wireless. Since this ISP said something about buying equipment at Best Buy, that's a good guess.

What about licensed WISPs?

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in Lake County provides something that is not 802.11. They have towers that cover a few miles, so the coverage is limited.

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offers wDSL from
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That is also not 802.11.

Other thoughts would include Verizon cellular wireless, at higher speeds and about the same cost, if cellular coverage is available.

Cingluar has cellular EGPRS, offering about 150kbps for $60. That's available almost anywhere that Cingular has signal.

Reply to
dold

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