Mike, It's apparent to me that you have not demoed or had physical Calix products in your hand before. What you just proposed requires much more hands-on setup and support than Calix which is all handled by them with a technical team to back it up. Your solution requires you to deploy one or more servers, set them up, make sure they don't go down, then pray that you or the vendor can help fix an issue when it shows up. I guarantee that all costs much more money than what we pay Calix in terms of actual license costs and labor savings.
Plus I'm positive Calix hardware performs better than any other router you find like Comtrend and the mesh solution won't be as pretty or seamless either. Probably not one-touch like Calix is. You think you're going to save money with your own solution but all you'll do is spend more time and money than I do and have a worse platform. There's a reason why so many telcos deploy Calix and it's because it's cheaper in the long run from labor efficiencies and better customer experience. I keep preaching to WISP's that doing everything yourself is hurting your business. Outsource what doesn't make you money. Managing servers and playing with Linux, etc does NOT make you money. Adding new customer revenue does that for you so deploy solutions that require as little of your time as possible so you can focus on selling and increasing revenue. Calix allows us to do that as well as Preseem & Azotel. If we tried to do what you're doing, we would be stuck in the mud messing around and not making as much money. On Fri, Jan 24, 2020 at 8:45 AM Mike Hammett <af...@ics-il.net> wrote: > The road we're going down is likely Comtrend routers with a Finepoint ACS. > > The Calix system is just a fork of an earlier Finepoint product. > > TR-069 and TR-143 manage most of the fancy features people that love Calix > love to boast about. > > The advantage of something like this is that there is no vendor lock-in. > One dashboard to support any device in the field, though the capabilities > of that management would depend on what the device manufacturer has decided > to implement. > > There are standards such as IEEE 1905 and the WiFi Alliance's Easy Mesh > that intelligently handle cross-vendor meshing, so nothing special about > the Calix meshing either. > > > > ----- > Mike Hammett > Intelligent Computing Solutions <http://www.ics-il.com/> > <https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL> > <https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb> > <https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions> > <https://twitter.com/ICSIL> > Midwest Internet Exchange <http://www.midwest-ix.com/> > <https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix> > <https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange> > <https://twitter.com/mdwestix> > The Brothers WISP <http://www.thebrotherswisp.com/> > <https://www.facebook.com/thebrotherswisp> > > > <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSdfxQv7SpoRQYNyLwntZg> > ------------------------------ > *From: *"Tushar Patel" <tpa...@ecpi.com> > *To: *"AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group" <af@af.afmug.com> > *Sent: *Friday, January 24, 2020 8:32:59 AM > *Subject: *Re: [AFMUG] Google/Nest WiFi speedtest > > And the Alternatives are? > > > > Tushar > > > > *From:* AF [mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com] *On Behalf Of *Mike Hammett > *Sent:* Friday, January 24, 2020 8:31 AM > *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <af@af.afmug.com> > *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Google/Nest WiFi speedtest > > > > There's no way Calix will get a dime from me. Everything is so expensive > compared to alternatives. > > > > ----- > Mike Hammett > Intelligent Computing Solutions <http://www.ics-il.com/> > <https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL> > <https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb> > <https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions> > <https://twitter.com/ICSIL> > Midwest Internet Exchange <http://www.midwest-ix.com/> > <https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix> > <https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange> > <https://twitter.com/mdwestix> > The Brothers WISP <http://www.thebrotherswisp.com/> > <https://www.facebook.com/thebrotherswisp> > > > <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSdfxQv7SpoRQYNyLwntZg> > ------------------------------ > > *From: *"Jason McKemie" <j.mcke...@veloxinetbroadband.com> > *To: *"AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group" <af@af.afmug.com> > *Sent: *Thursday, January 23, 2020 12:29:01 PM > *Subject: *Re: [AFMUG] Google/Nest WiFi speedtest > > What does Calix get you for on the management? I've been looking into > some options for managed routers, and I like the 844E, but Calix is pretty > proud of their management platform and it just doesn't make a lot of sense > for the number of managed routers we would be deploying right now. > > > > I'm wondering if anyone out there has any experience with Ubiquiti's Dream > Machine (unfortunate name, since Sony has been using it for a couple of > decades). At least Ubiquiti has a management platform that I don't need to > sacrifice my firstborn for. > > > > On Thu, Jan 23, 2020 at 11:47 AM Darin Steffl <darin.ste...@mnwifi.com> > wrote: > > Guys, > > > > Start heavily pushing managed routers. We're all Calix with 804mesh and we > include the first router free in all our plans. > > > > Makes a huge difference. > > > > Google wifi is bad because there's no way to manually set the 5ghz channel > away from our radio. We have one customer we told this and that their > service will stink until they switch to our router or get a different mesh > system like orbi where you can still set the channel manually. > > > > We also do not support any speedtest except speedtest.net and selecting > one server we like. Also they have to be hardwired to the POE or we won't > respond to their tests. This eliminates much of the back and forth wifi > speedtests. > > > > On Thu, Jan 23, 2020, 11:34 AM Matt Hoppes < > mattli...@rivervalleyinternet.net> wrote: > > I've had a slew of wifi related calls this week. Plug in, no issue. > WiFi -- interference - customer needs to get a dual band router, or it's > so bad it's just not fixable. > > I really just want to tell folks "WiFi is not supported on our service, > use at your own risk"... but of course, I can't do that. > > On 1/23/20 11:54 AM, Ken Hohhof wrote: > > Anybody know if the speedtest built into the Google and Nest WiFi mesh > > routers use the same M-Lab speedtest as the one a Google search sends > > you to? Their FAQ seems to indicate it is different and tests to > > Youtube servers. > > > > Apparently they have a feature where customers can set it up to > > periodically test their speed, and now I have customers calling in to > > report that their router says they aren’t getting the speed they’re > > paying for. We burn a bunch of time checking all the stats, including > > Preseem which shows no problems at all and actual traffic consistently > > to the speed plan they’re on. When asked what they were trying to do > > that was slow or when they ran the speedtest, they can’t cite any > > problems and the speedtests were done days ago and they are just > > reviewing the Google report. > > > > One guy said the Google report indicated his dish moved in a windstorm > > so we needed to come out and fix it. We have all sorts of graphs on his > > signal, SNR, etc. and his dish had not moved. We had however moved this > > tower onto Preseem for bandwidth management around that time. Everyone > > else is seeing better performance as a result, video streaming, gaming > > and web browsing now play nice together. I’m wondering if somehow the > > Google speedtest doesn’t like the Preseem algorithms (FQ-CODEL + AQM), > > or if their speedtest is just flakey. > > > > I don’t have a Google or Nest WiFi to test with. We have a whole list > > of other reasons why we hate them. Generally we tell customers not to > > buy them unless they are on a 3.65 GHz AP, but customers like to say > > screw you and then still expect you to be responsible for their bad > > decisions. (Like the customers who select the cheap plan despite being > > told it is too slow to watch streaming video, and then call to complain > > about streaming video.) > > > > Other reasons we hate them: > > > > - no dedicated backhaul channel, compared to (for example) Netgear Orbi > > > > - only 1 or 2 Ethernet ports > > > > - requires Google account and app > > > > - requires cloud > > > > - uses Google DNS by default > > > > - tell me they’re not doing data mining > > > > - puck and point terminology is goofy, reminiscent of Apple and their > > airports and time capsules > > > > > > -- > AF mailing list > AF@af.afmug.com > http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com > > -- > AF mailing list > AF@af.afmug.com > http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com > > > -- > AF mailing list > AF@af.afmug.com > http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com > > > > -- > AF mailing list > AF@af.afmug.com > http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com > > -- > AF mailing list > AF@af.afmug.com > http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com > -- Darin Steffl Minnesota WiFi www.mnwifi.com 507-634-WiFi <http://www.facebook.com/minnesotawifi> Like us on Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/minnesotawifi>
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