Indoor CPE (often called wireless modems) still is kind of the holy grail, except for the small matter of making it work.
Like DSL didn’t take off until they made it customer self-install and eliminated the truck roll. If you can mail the customer the device or have them pick it up at a storefront, you eliminate all the expense of installation. And one model is to sell them the modem and then the service is like a prepaid cellphone or a hotspot, you pay online for the coming month or visit the store and it’s like putting more minutes on your phone. You can see the appeal of the business model. If you can make the equipment work reliably indoors with a non professional setting it up. Right now the cellphone companies rule this part of the business with their mobile hotspots and Verizon’s “LTE home router with voice”. From: Hass, Douglas A. via Af Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2014 10:10 AM To: Ken Hohhof via Af Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Mimosa did it again An attorney letter isn't the first option. And recommending a meeting isn't good either, as you suggest. There are a world of options, none which involve losing a potential customer or delaying an install. ------ Original message ------ From: Ken Hohhof via Af Date: 11/12/2014 10:06 AM To: af@afmug.com; Subject:Re: [AFMUG] Mimosa did it again Understood. It’s the letter, not the lawsuit, that does the work. Oh crap, we got a letter from his lawyer, can we just settle this? Just like with Title II regulation, it’s the paperwork, not the actual rules, that would kill us. >From a practical standpoint though, many people decide one day to search for >Internet service, and start calling around. You may have been sending out >flyers for months, but this is your tiny window of opportunity to sell them >your service. The window may just be a few hours, we’ve all had the case where >you return voicemail in 30 minutes and the customer already ordered from the >next ISP they called and signed a 2 year contract, so you lost the sale. So I think the answer “let me meet with the landlord or HOA or city and tell them about OTARD” is not going to be a successful sales technique except in a few situations like: - You are truly the only game in town - There is a large potential customer base that you can open up going forward by overcoming one obstacle now (like a subdivision or apartment complex or even a whole city) - This is a high value (commercial) customer and they are willing to wait a few weeks or months to get your service From: Hass, Douglas A. via Af <mailto:af@afmug.com> Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2014 9:11 AM To: Rory Conaway via Af <mailto:af@afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Mimosa did it again Ken, The last thing I would advocate is for anyone to "lawyer up" against their neighbors. The overwhelming majority of these situations are resolved with only behind the scenes work by lawyers. There's a "go softly" way to do this. Rory, Depends on what exactly you mean by unreasonable. Again, some informed lobbying of the city often takes care of these issues. I've written (or rewritten) many ordinances and policies to help city attorneys get things right, as I'm sure Steve, Jonathan, Rebecca and many others have. ------ Original message ------ From: Rory Conaway via Af Date: 11/12/2014 9:00 AM To: af@afmug.com; Subject:Re: [AFMUG] Mimosa did it again But what do you do when the city has unreasonable restrictions and the buildings are company buildings on a property such as an RV park? Rory From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Ken Hohhof via Af Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2014 7:36 AM To: af@afmug.com<mailto:af@afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Mimosa did it again Well, Open Range has been gone for quite awhile. But people are not looking for us to help them lawyer up and fight their neighbors over an antenna. They are looking for us to fix the problem by providing them service without an outdoor antenna. This is probably more of an issue in town, we are more rural. But HOA covenants aside, many people will be on the opposite side of the building from the tower. And even OTARD doesn’t let you put an antenna on common areas, only the areas for your exclusive use like a balcony. So there will always be some demand for indoor CPE, probably not a ton though. And as people have noted, Mimosa seems optimistic about how well this will work. From: Hass, Douglas A. via Af <mailto:af@afmug.com> Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2014 8:27 AM To: mailto:af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Mimosa did it again ☺ While you certainly can contract away certain rights, this isn’t one of them. It’s like trying to contract with your employee that you will give him a 1099 or not pay him overtime. Your employee an sign it, but you can’t enforce it. OTARD trumps any contract laws that purport to force some other regime. There’s still quite a bit of confusion out there on this among HOAs, surprisingly. A local government, HOA, neighborhood association, etc. can’t enforce a covenant that impairs the installation, maintenance or use of antennas covered by OTARD (and yours are) in “exclusive use” areas. Many (most?) HOAs have long since fixed their covenants so that the restrictions apply only to common areas (like a roof of a multiunit condo building) or only when there’s some common antenna for use. You have to look at the covenant, but I would be very surprised if you couldn’t still service all of those customers who called. Ken—hit me up off list if you are still getting calls like these and we can look at what you have. Doug From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Mike Hammett via Af Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2014 7:55 AM To: af@afmug.com<mailto:af@afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Mimosa did it again Doug Haas's favorite example is that it's illegal to kill somebody. You can't sign a contract to kill somebody and make it legal. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com [http://www.ics-il.com/images/fbicon.png]<https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL>[http://www.ics-il.com/images/googleicon.png]<https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb>[http://www.ics-il.com/images/linkedinicon.png]<https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions>[http://www.ics-il.com/images/twittericon.png]<https://twitter.com/ICSIL> ________________________________ From: "Ken Hohhof via Af" <af@afmug.com<mailto:af@afmug.com>> To: af@afmug.com<mailto:af@afmug.com> Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2014 7:47:00 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Mimosa did it again When Open Range went poof, we got several calls from people in townhomes who really loved their indoor CPEs, their HOA didn’t allow outdoor antennas, and OTARD was no use because they had signed a covenant. From: Rory Conaway via Af <mailto:af@afmug.com> Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2014 7:34 AM To: af@afmug.com<mailto:af@afmug.com> <mailto:af@afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Mimosa did it again This is going to have limited use the U.S.. Unfortunately , with tax credits for certain type of windows and window films, most of our windows don’t work well with indoor radios. We did a test one day and found that it was easier to get the signal through red brick than the window it surrounded. However, we have been installing 2.4GHz radios in windows in pre-built homes very successfully since they don’t have tinting. On another note, it’s also why you don’t want to put your radar detector on the top of the windshield. Rory From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Mike Hammett via Af Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2014 6:17 AM To: af@afmug.com<mailto:af@afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Mimosa did it again This is better than previous attempts in that it's a beamforming antenna on the CPE. It shapes the beam to point at the best signal it sees. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com [http://www.ics-il.com/images/fbicon.png]<https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL>[http://www.ics-il.com/images/googleicon.png]<https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb>[http://www.ics-il.com/images/linkedinicon.png]<https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions>[http://www.ics-il.com/images/twittericon.png]<https://twitter.com/ICSIL> ________________________________ From: "Jason McKemie via Af" <af@afmug.com<mailto:af@afmug.com>> To: af@afmug.com<mailto:af@afmug.com> Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2014 2:25:25 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Mimosa did it again Allowing customers to install their own CPE is a bad idea in any unlicensed frequency, both for your network as well as the spectrum in general. On Wednesday, November 12, 2014, Stefan Englhardt via Af <af@afmug.com<mailto:af@afmug.com>> wrote: Now Mimosa announced an indoor window mountable CPE: „Mimosa's C5i just changed urban Internet forever! Never wait on your service provider install again. Self-install in seconds and experience 500+ Mbps!“ To the mimosa Fans: How they change physics to make 5GHz penetrate through windows. We have not much luck doing this with 3,5GHz licensed, beamforming and high power. Douglas A. Hass Associate 312.786.6502 d...@franczek.com<mailto:d...@franczek.com> Franczek Radelet P.C. Celebrating 20 Years | 1994-2014<http://www.franczek.com/20thAnniversary/> 300 South Wacker Drive Suite 3400 Chicago, IL 60606 312.986.0300 - Main 312.986.9192 - Fax www.franczek.com<http://www.franczek.com> www.wagehourinsights.com<http://www.wagehourinsights.com> Connect with me: <<http://linkedin.com/in/douglashass>> [linkedin] <<https://twitter.com/WageHourInsight>> [twitter] Circular 230 Disclosure: Under requirements imposed by the Internal Revenue Service, we inform you that, unless specifically stated otherwise, any federal tax advice contained in this communication (including any attachments) is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purposes of (i) avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or (ii) promoting, marketing or recommending to another party any transaction or tax-related matter herein. ________________________________ For more information about Franczek Radelet P.C., please visit franczek.com. 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