Why not just use more radios until the tech gets cheaper?
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Why not just use more radios until the tech gets cheaper?
Grant, I think Nokias Metro Hopper is faster, but not sure if the tech is applicable to rural or if it ever took off.
They do, but you start to run into issues of frequency allocation, synchronization, and the like. The tech isn't even that expensive, they are almost all chipset based radios with custom firmware and an external power amplifier and antenna connector. All the microwave I am installing right now is less than $200 per subscriber, and just over $600 for the AP.Quote:
Originally Posted by Irving
All of these WISPs are in ISM bands (stands for Industrial, Scientific, and Medical) which means they are license free as long as they follow certain rules. That's great, except that EVERYONE has something in the ISM band (every single WiFi AP, home or otherwise, is in the ISM band), so finding clean spectrum that you can use is hard. Once you find some, if you have more than 1 radio on a single tower, or more than 1 tower in a general area (if they can see each other) you have to synchronize them. This is done with GPS 1PPS signals, and there are only 2 vendors of WISP type radio gear that have successfully implemented GPS sync. Everyone else has struggled and is still trying.
You also run into tower space rental costs. Most of these radios use a 90° sector antenna, and they run 4 sectors. These sectors are at minimum 2-3' tall, and probably 10-20" wide, depending on make and model. Once you mount 4 of them on a tower at your rented RAD height, (generally) there isn't enough room for at the same elevation. This means additional rental agreements on the tower, which (depending on the company that owns the tower) runs $1000-2000/month (sometimes more depending on location, tower loading, demand for tower space, etc). Now, just to offset your cost of additional tower space, you have to have a whole bunch more customers. Even worse, some of the big tower rental companies want $1000+/month per antenna on their tower, which makes them a non-starter for most WISPs, hence why a lot of WISP towers are silo's, small inexpensive towers that can't handle a whole lot of weight, or even large barns and such.
Bottom line: Yes, more AP's allows for more traffic and better service to all customers. But the additional cost, effort, and equipment often makes it not worth it from a financial standpoint for the WISP company.
You are correct, it could be faster, but there are a lot of caveats with that kind of gear, some of which you pointed out. Rural is hard, it means "long" distances.Quote:
Originally Posted by Erni
1. They have only proven, that I have seen, ~8Mbps throughput. They are pretty sure they can get 3Gbps with OFDM modulation being implemented, but as of the last thing I saw on it, that wasn't done yet.
2. These ridiculous high frequency radios (24GHz, 58GHz - Nokia, 60GHz) and optical data systems are great for very short links. In the 58GHz band, you get about 1km, assuming no rain, fog, or weird atmospheric shenanigans. 24GHz is better, but the best I have seen there is 1Gbps from UBNT, and they are having a hard time with links much over ~3 miles when it's dry. If it rains a lot? They say maybe 1-1.5 miles. These data systems were really designed for building to building data transmission, not rural backhaul links for WISPs.
The licensed 11GHz band offers some great solutions for Point to point shots, but the idea of PTMP in 11GHz is less than ideal because of the licensing restrictions. So, the PTMP gear ends up in 2.4GHz, and 5.8GHz ISM bands. Some goes in 900MHz, but that is harder to get good enough SNR levels with, that most don't bother. The 3.65GHz band gets used where it's legal (sometimes when it's not, it's actually not legal for WISP use in CO). The products in these bands are what we get to use, and they are the limiting factor currently. The radios are technically capable of 200Mpbs over the air, but it all comes back to how crowded the AP's are, and how much service they really have.
How close are we to freeing up the original television broadcast frequencies for other uses now that everything is digital?
In theory, the bands that are set aside for TV could be broken up and the actual TV bands could be noticeably smaller with digital.Quote:
Originally Posted by Irving
In reality, I doubt we will ever see that happen. The FCC is a .gov circus, and if they ever re-purpose/reclassify those bands, they will probably fall into the same rules as the existing 400MHz licensed band, which is to say very limited usage, limited throughput, and people buying and sitting on licenses because "you never know when we might need it". Several of the railroads hold lots of licenses for frequencies that they haven't used in decades, but the cost to keep them is minimal, and should they ever come up with a good use (when I was working for one of the radio manufacturers, we built some test devices for UPRR) for radios, they have the channels. Not that long ago, mid 2000's, the FCC changed the rules to shrink the channels in the licensed bands of 150-174MHz and 450-470MHz from 25KHz to 12.5KHz.
Now, if the FCC does something totally astonishing, and we see the option of 20-40MHz license free channels in low frequency bands like that, it will revolutionize the WISP world. The lower the frequency, the better the signal propagation you get, hence my comments on 24,58, and 60GHz networks. This means that perfect line of sight and perfect fresnel zone clearance will be less critical for reliable and functional links, and the channel size would allow for the data traffic necessary for WISP or other wireless ethernet applications.
How realistic would it be for you to approach owners of unused bands to try and broker a deal to test stuff out? Perhaps the owners of those band licenses are in a great position to create a new market for WISPs. Or, is it all futile unless the FCC changes rules first?
If I were Comcast and had access to largely unused television bands, I think I'd lobby pretty hard to change their use to continue dominating the cable industry.
Great info Grant, very interesting.
Any guess at why Aerux failed to perform here? The tech just did a simple test but said he couldn't get beyond 3Mbps (he was only here about 20 minutes). We have clear line of sight, no trees or buildings and were pretty high up for the area. We're also supposed to be well within their coverage area even though we are a few miles from their tower.
The tech said he thought it was a Fresnel zone issue.
Anyone else you'd recommend in the castle rock area? I have 2 with Kellin and I've been pretty happy but I'd like to swap one out for redundancy.
It's possible, I've seen similar happen. DirecTV technically holds the license for a chunk of spectrum here in CO that one of the O/G producers I work for leased from them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Irving
The bigger problem is getting hardware manufacturers to produce gear for a band that isn't available to a wide portion of the wireless world. Yes, we can develop radios in house, but the cost and time requirements make it less than ideal for a company like mine. Getting a Ubiquiti or Cambium to build a radio for a band that some small subset of the wireless world gets to use is hard. Add into that the fact that receivers and transmitters for that frequency range are a lot more involved than chipset radios from china, and the cost for the radios becomes more expensive.
The other problem with trying to approach some of the spectrum holders is money. In 2014 there was a spectrum auction and big players like AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, etc payed out something like $45 Billion dollars to buy up the spectrum that was being offered. The most recent round in 2016 came in around $23 Billion for the first round of auctions. Selling spectrum off to big players is always much easier, and usually far more lucrative, than trying to develop something for that band. When I was working for a radio manufacturer, we developed and sold a radio that was specific to the 700MHz band that a company owned. Their plan was to be the single source for spectrum and radios for industrial communications in that band. It didn't work out that well. I believe they went bankrupt, due to lack of interest, and the 700MHz band is now partially cell networks.
With 5G rolling out soon, and the planned performance of it, the idea of using currently unavailable spectrum for something akin to a WISP is maybe plausible, but highly unlikely. In everything I have seen, 5G supports higher speed than WISPs usually provide for thousands of customers, not dozens or hundreds. The coverage will still be an issue, but in the past year I have watched even 4G coverage grow exponentially to cover some extremely remote areas. The down side is that the cell companies then get to set the pricing, which is usually outlandish. This means there will still be a market for WISPs, but they/we just don't have a chance at "new" spectrum.
Does the shot cross water? If you want, I can run a pathstudy for you and likely see what was causing the issues. I just need GPS coordinates of both ends (even rough google earth coordinates are fine for a guess at troubleshooting) and relative heights above ground level.Quote:
Originally Posted by th3w01f
In reality, the path determines the signal quality, and line of sight isn't the only issue. You can also experience multipath issues and many others. If you have them back to look again, have them try moving the radio/dish up and down by just a few feet. I have watched radio links with multipath issues go from barely working to over 100Mbps due to moving the dish up/down by as little as 6". Multipath is where there is a reflection of the signal off of something (even the earth if there is a gentle slope somewhere between you and the tower) that then arrives to the same tower just slightly out of phase. This then causes constructive/destructive wave interference, which turns the signal to gibberish. Changing the incident angle by raising/lowering the antenna just a little can sometimes clear this up.
Since you are saying there are no trees or buildings in the way, that makes me guess more of a multipath issue than fresnel zone issue. Fresnel zone issues are usually only apparent when you have "line of sight" but immediately below that line of sight is blocked by something.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...elSVG1.svg.png
The blimp shape needs to be as clear as possible. The higher the frequency of the radio being used, the smaller "r" gets, but it is important.
The other issue that you could be facing, since you said you are higher, is if you are outside of the useful patch of the antenna... In a given radio system, you only have so much signal. If you want to stretch that signal out in one direction, you lose signal in all the other directions, including up/down and left/right. Microwave dish solutions like WISPs use are extremely directional in that they usually have a 7° or narrower beamwidth (side to side) and usually 7-10° or narrower vertical span, which gives them a high gain value, probably 20-25dBi gain. The patch antenna for AP will be a 90°, or possibly 120°, horizontal shot, so they will design the antenna to limit the up/down so they can have more power across the horizontal beam. These patch antennas are usually only 12-15dBi gain, so noticeably lower when you know the rule that every 3dB up is double the power, and every 3dB down is half the power. So, if you are enough above their antenna, you might be in a "dead zone" for that antenna.
I don't spend a lot of time down south, so I don't know a whole lot about what is available for you, but I have heard/seen decent results from Kellin. If Aerux can't get it figured out, maybe see if Kellin has a second tower that could be an option for redundancy (make sure you explain the reasoning so that if their towers aren't redundant you don't switch for no reason).
Centurylink looted El Paso County Telco when they took over. Before Centurylink, the internet was on the same Battery backup system that powered the dial up phone lines. Power could go out - but if your modem was on a UPS you still had a net connection. May not seem important - but I remember laying on the floor in the dark with all the east facing windows and skylights smashed in, baseball sized hail ripping the linoleum floor to shreds, watching in realtime via internet the radar image of a tornado moving past my home about 1.1miles away. If its path had shifted we were going to have to risk the baseball sized hail to make a run for the well system pit. That storm did $80,000.00+ on my property.
Now - the net goes down every time the power fails or more often. I live in an area which is kinda like a black hole for cell service, so I am screwed either way.
I thought I'd re-open this old thread to see if there have been any improvements or new companies entering the market south of Denver. We're still on the same WISP as 2 years ago and no one at Aurex, including the CEO, would even take the time to call back. We offered to look at funding a separate antenna that could be aimed a bit higher as well as enter into a multi year contract for the neighborhood.
Once again I am searching for a better internet service than satellite. Our satellite data cap is exceeded in a week. Then it's just painfully slow and I'm better off using my cell phone as a mobile hot spot.
Has anyone used or heard of BroadbandQ Wireless? I just found them online. They use the cell network, which is viable for me since I do that myself with pretty good results with just my cell phone when my satellite data cap is reached.
What's interesting here to me is that this company claims unlimited steaming of Netflix, Amazon, etc. If this is true, I would ditch DirecTV, get the best plan available from BroadbandQ, and still be ahead.
I though someone here might have had an experience with them.
No experience with them.
Out here Viaero uses the cell system to provide wireless internet. About only game for those who live outside local rural telecom service area. Service cost same as local telecom. 15mbs service = $55/month.
Due to a dispute between two providers we lost our wireless broadband service and went with local telecom's internet service provided over fiber system. It is not as good or as reliable as our previous wireless service.
I have people that look at phone systems, and I can ask them to look at yours. It may be that you are already as good as you can do, but then again, maybe not.Quote:
Originally Posted by GilpinGuy
-John
Take a look at Ubifi too, I have been investigating them for my place.
If your cell service works why not just use it? Pretty much all the carriers have devices that will provide a cell hot spot vs using your phone.Quote:
Originally Posted by GilpinGuy
something like this:
https://www.verizonwireless.com/internet-devices/
Most of the cell company solutions have pretty strict data caps or very high pricing for unlimited data, Ubifi uses the AT&T network but is supposed to be unlimited data with no caps and no throttling.
I've been looking into the cell option. Service in the house is pretty bad, but up on the roof it's great. So I'd need an antenna up there and a router in the house. I'm learning a lot about this stuff. For what I'm considering here it would cost about $600 but it would pay for itself over time. And I have AT&T.
I finally found a solution: MOFI4500-4GXELTE-SIM4_COMBO
It' a cellular router and was $315. I took the SIM card from my tablet and upgraded the data package for it with AT&T for $20/month - our shitty satellite internet service was $70/month and we usually bought $20-$30 worth of additional data every month.
This thing is BAD ASS. We've been streaming movies, YT and the kids are online gaming without any issues for about two weeks now. Cell service is marginal at best at our house. 2 bars on the phone on a good day. You could get yagi antennas to mount on the roof if your signal is REAL bad. I thought I'd try the unit with the antennas it came with before getting the yagi's and we don't need them apparently.
If you have a cell signal at your rural/remote location, I highly recommend this.
Glad you found something that's working for you. I expect this type of solution to be more common as 5G is rolled out (probably in more urban areas).
I never considered this. I get about 2 bars on my cell with AT&T and currently use a Rise Broadband antenna getting about 3 Mb/s while paying $56 a month for 100 Mb/s because they have not upgraded their antenna out on Badger Mt. Fortunately, I don't game, but even HULU is often buffering.Quote:
Originally Posted by GilpinGuy
So, does AT&T just consider this another device on your plan and you pay for unlimited data for that device? Does AT&T throttle-back your data after a certain amount?
I haven't checked on speeds with this yet.
We're on the Unlimited Elite plan and the AT&T guy at the store today said that it is unlimited. The info online says they "may" slow you down after 100 gig during peak times if there's a lot of traffic. We've had this for about 2 weeks, been using it A LOT, and have noticed no slowdowns or buffering at all.
We've always dealt with the rural internet challenge. Now I'm dealing with it in rural OK. I was elated to get an AT&T plan (it's some type of hybrid between DSL and fiber) that's advertised at 18Mbps for $60 month. Actual speeds are right around 16. That's the best I've ever had. We'll see how it holds up during heavy storms this spring.
Internet is definitely like crack. The more you get, the more you want.
I thought I'd pick this one up again. I'm still looking for a good alliterative to the standard WISP services outside of Castle Rock.
At the moment we have two separate WISPs (Aerux and Xtreme), no real complaints about either (pretty solid from availability) but I'd love more speed and less latency if it can be accomplished for around the same price. We're getting about 30-40Mbps between the two on average for about $250 a month. Does anyone have any other ideas or work for a company that can do P2P for a reasonable price? I got a quote for 100Mbps but it was $1500 a month.
We download about 1.5TB a month and that's without streaming, mainly my work.