WiMax

Yes it is

for example.

Redline do a load of point to point stuff.

What are you trying to do, saturate 100 square miles?

David Taylor hath wroth:

I didn't see the original posting so I'll reply to the reply.

We have a local 2.4GHz WiMax system running Navini hardware:

nicely.

The former Fort Ord in Montery has a bunch of 5.7GHz WiMax nodes by Alvarion.

I have a list (somewhere) of other local WiMax deployments.

Also see:

the latest press releases and promises. Be careful with the frequency ranges as many vendors are shipping 3.65GHz (US), 700Mhz (US maybe) or 3.5GHz (EU) products, and NOT 2.4GHz or 5.7GHz products.

Oh-oh.

Not Wimax, but 802.11b that is several HUNDRED square miles.... I use it on my laptop and pda all over the northern idaho/eastern washington area...

(click on products and coverage map to see the area covered, uses 802.11b access points and microwave relays on various mountains to cover the area, was gonna be wimax but they decided to go with something standard that people already had in their machines)...

I have to wonder, it seems to do what you want, but it's stuff people already have in their pda's/laptops/etc, so why say wimax?

cost of equipment

Well, sounds like you're looking for a mesh network on par with Philadelphia at 135 sq miles.

are a few costs mentioned in the business plan:

factoid sheet mentions: * It can be deployed for $40,000 to $60,000/ sq. mile. * Wireless connectivity could be provided for the entire city for $7 to $10 million.

Of course, since the above was written, Philadelphia decided to dump the whole mess on Earthlink, who more accurately predicted initial costs to be about $20 to $22 million.

can't tell if this includes operating costs. My guess is that it doesn't. Since Wi-Fi hardware seems to last about 8 years before obsolescence, they'll be stuck with a $2 million per year expense for nothing more than replacement hardware. You might also find the RF study to be of interest: There are lots of other systems that can be disected at: Don't forget that 100 sq miles will have a sufficient number of users that you'll end up with all the overhead, facilities, and services normally provided by a wireline ISP, but with the added enjoyment of having one leaky microwave oven wipe out your entire network.

For additional clues, try the Wireless ISP mailing list at: