Re: [Bloat] [Starlink] [Rpm] On FiWi
I'm curious as to why the detectors have to be replaced every 10 years. Dust, grease from cooking oil vapors, insects, mold, etc. accumulate, and it's so expensive to clean those little sensors, and there is so much liability associated with them, that it's cheaper to replace the head every 10 years. Electrolytic capacitors have a limited lifetime and that is also a good reason to replace the device. The basic sensor architecture is photoelectric, the older ones used an americium pelllet that detected gas ionization which was changed by the presence of smoke. The half-life on the americium ones is at least 400 years (there is more than one isotope, that's the shortest-life one). Thanks for this. That makes sense. I do think the FiWi transceivers & sensors need to be pluggable & detect failures, particularly early on due to infant mortality. "Infant mortality is a special equipment failure mode that shows the probability of failure being highest when the equipment is first started, but reduces as time goes on. Eventually, the probability of failure levels off after time." https://www.upkeep.com/blog/infant-mortality-equipment-failure#:~:text=Infant%20mortality%20is%20a%20special,failure%20levels%20off%20after%20time. Also curious about thermal imaging inside a building - what sensor tech to use and at what cost? The Bronx fire occurred because poor people in public housing don't have access to electric heat pumps & used a space heater instead. It's very sad we as a society do this, i.e. make sure rich people can drive Teslas with heat pumps but only provide the worst type of heating to children from families that aren't so fortunate. https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/10/us/nyc-bronx-apartment-fire-monday/index.html "A malfunctioning electric space heater in a bedroom was the source of an apartment building fire Sunday in the Bronx that killed 17 people, including 8 children, making it one of the worst fires in the city’s history, New York Mayor Eric Adams said Monday." Bob ___ Bloat mailing list Bloat@lists.bufferbloat.net https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/bloat
Re: [Bloat] [Starlink] [Rpm] On FiWi
'can carry electric power' can also be a drawback, it provides a path for a problem in one piece of equipment to damage other equipment (power supply short to logic, lightning strike, ground loops, etc) David Lang On Fri, 17 Mar 2023, Sebastian Moeller via Bloat wrote: Hi Dave, On Mar 17, 2023, at 17:38, Dave Taht via Starlink wrote: This is a pretty neat box: https://mikrotik.com/product/netpower_lite_7r What are the compelling arguments for fiber vs copper, again? As far as I can tell: Copper: can carry electric power Fiber-PON: much farther reach even without amplifiers (10 Km, 20 Km, ... depending on loss budget) cheaper operation (less active power needed by the headend/OLT) less space need than all active alternatives (AON, copper ethernet) likely only robust passive components in the field Existing upgrade path for 25G and 50G is on the horizon over the same PON infrastructure mostly resistant to RF ingress along the path (as long as a direct lightning hit does not melt the glas ;) ) Fiber-Ethernet: like fiber-PON but no density advantage (needs 1 port per end device) even wider upgrade paths I guess it really depends on how important "carry electric power" is to you ;) feeding these from the client side is pretty cool for consenting adults, but I would prefer not having to pay the electric bill for my ISPs active gear in the field outside the CPE/ONT... Regards Sebastian On Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 4:10 AM Mike Puchol via Rpm wrote: Hi Bob, You hit on a set of very valid points, which I'll complement with my views on where the industry (the bit of it that affects WISPs) is heading, and what I saw at the MWC in Barcelona. Love the FiWi term :-) I have seen the vendors that supply WISPs, such as Ubiquiti, Cambium, and Mimosa, but also newer entrants such as Tarana, increase the performance and on-paper specs of their equipment. My examples below are centered on the African market, if you operate in Europe or the US, where you can charge customers a higher install fee, or even charge them a break-up fee if they don't return equipment, the economics work. Where currently a ~$500 sector radio could serve ~60 endpoints, at a cost of ~$50 per endpoint (I use this term in place of ODU/CPE, the antenna that you mount on the roof), and supply ~2.5 Mbps CIR per endpoint, the evolution is now a ~$2,000+ sector radio, a $200 endpoint, capability for ~150 endpoints per sector, and ~25 Mbps CIR per endpoint. If every customer a WISP installs represents, say, $100 CAPEX at install time ($50 for the antenna + cabling, router, etc), and you charge a $30 install fee, you have $70 to recover, and you recover from the monthly contribution the customer makes. If the contribution after OPEX is, say, $10, it takes you 7 months to recover the full install cost. Not bad, doable even in low-income markets. Fast-forward to the next-generation version. Now, the CAPEX at install is $250, you need to recover $220, and it will take you 22 months, which is above the usual 18 months that investors look for. The focus, thereby, has to be the lever that has the largest effect on the unit economics - which is the per-customer cost. I have drawn what my ideal FiWi network would look like: Taking you through this - we start with a 1-port, low-cost EPON OLT (or you could go for 2, 4, 8 ports as you add capacity). This OLT has capacity for 64 ONUs on its single port. Instead of connecting the typical fiber infrastructure with kilometers of cables which break, require maintenance, etc. we insert an EPON to Ethernet converter (I added "magic" because these don't exist AFAIK). This converter allows us to connect our $2k sector radio, and serve the $200 endpoints (ODUs) over wireless point-to-multipoint up to 10km away. Each ODU then has a reverse converter, which gives us EPON again. Once we are back on EPON, we can insert splitters, for example, pre-connectorized outdoor 1:16 boxes. Every customer install now involves a 100 meter roll of pre-connectorized 2-core drop cable, and a $20 EPON ONU. Using this deployment method, we could connect up to 16 customers to a single $200 endpoint, so the enpoint CAPEX per customer is now $12.5. Add the ONU, cable, etc. and we have a per-install CAPEX of $82.5 (assuming the same $50 of extras we had before), and an even shorter break-even. In addition, as the endpoints support higher capacity, we can provision at least the same, if not more, capacity per customer. Other advantages: the $200 ODU is no longer customer equipment and CAPEX, but network equipment, and as such, can operate under a longer break-even timeline, and be financed by infrastructure PE funds, for example. As a result, churn has a much lower financial impact on the operator. The main reason why this wouldn't work today is that EPON, as we know, is synchronous,
Re: [Bloat] [Starlink] [Rpm] On FiWi
On Fri, Mar 17, 2023 at 1:57 PM rjmcmahon wrote: > I'm curious as to why the detectors have to be replaced every 10 years. Dust, grease from cooking oil vapors, insects, mold, etc. accumulate, and it's so expensive to clean those little sensors, and there is so much liability associated with them, that it's cheaper to replace the head every 10 years. Electrolytic capacitors have a limited lifetime and that is also a good reason to replace the device. The basic sensor architecture is photoelectric, the older ones used an americium pelllet that detected gas ionization which was changed by the presence of smoke. The half-life on the americium ones is at least 400 years (there is more than one isotope, that's the shortest-life one). ___ Bloat mailing list Bloat@lists.bufferbloat.net https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/bloat
Re: [Bloat] [Starlink] [Rpm] On FiWi
I'm curious as to why the detectors have to be replaced every 10 years. Regardless, modern sensors could give a thermal map of the entire complex 24x7x365. Fire officials would have a better set of eyes when they showed up as the sensor system & network could provide thermals as a time series. Also, another "killer app" for Boston is digital image correlation & the cameras monitor stresses and strains on historic buildings valued at about $10M each. And that's undervalued because they're really irreplaceable. Similar for some in the Netherladns. Monitoring the groundwater with samples every 4 mos is ok - better to monitor the structure itself 24x7x365. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/digital-image-correlation https://www.bostongroundwater.org/ Bob On 2023-03-17 13:37, Bruce Perens wrote: On Fri, Mar 17, 2023 at 12:19 PM rjmcmahon via Starlink wrote:You’ll hardly ever have to deal with the annoying “chirping” that occurs when a battery-powered smoke detector begins to go dead, and your entire family will be alerted in the event that a fire does occur since hardwire smoke detectors can be interconnected. Off-topic, but the sensors in these hardwired units expire after 10 years, and they start beeping. The batteries in modern battery-powered units with wireless links expire after 10 years, along with the rest of the unit, and they start beeping. There are exceptions, the first-generation Nest was pretty bad. ___ Bloat mailing list Bloat@lists.bufferbloat.net https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/bloat
Re: [Bloat] [Starlink] [Rpm] On FiWi
On Fri, Mar 17, 2023 at 12:19 PM rjmcmahon via Starlink < starl...@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:You’ll hardly ever have to deal with the annoying > “chirping” that occurs when a battery-powered smoke detector begins to > go dead, and your entire family will be alerted in the event that a fire > does occur since hardwire smoke detectors can be interconnected. > Off-topic, but the sensors in these hardwired units expire after 10 years, and they start beeping. The batteries in modern battery-powered units with wireless links expire after 10 years, along with the rest of the unit, and they start beeping. There are exceptions, the first-generation Nest was pretty bad. ___ Bloat mailing list Bloat@lists.bufferbloat.net https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/bloat
Re: [Bloat] [Starlink] [Rpm] On FiWi
Hi Dave, > On Mar 17, 2023, at 17:38, Dave Taht via Starlink > wrote: > > This is a pretty neat box: > > https://mikrotik.com/product/netpower_lite_7r > > What are the compelling arguments for fiber vs copper, again? As far as I can tell: Copper: can carry electric power Fiber-PON: much farther reach even without amplifiers (10 Km, 20 Km, ... depending on loss budget) cheaper operation (less active power needed by the headend/OLT) less space need than all active alternatives (AON, copper ethernet) likely only robust passive components in the field Existing upgrade path for 25G and 50G is on the horizon over the same PON infrastructure mostly resistant to RF ingress along the path (as long as a direct lightning hit does not melt the glas ;) ) Fiber-Ethernet: like fiber-PON but no density advantage (needs 1 port per end device) even wider upgrade paths I guess it really depends on how important "carry electric power" is to you ;) feeding these from the client side is pretty cool for consenting adults, but I would prefer not having to pay the electric bill for my ISPs active gear in the field outside the CPE/ONT... Regards Sebastian > > > On Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 4:10 AM Mike Puchol via Rpm > wrote: > Hi Bob, > > You hit on a set of very valid points, which I'll complement with my views on > where the industry (the bit of it that affects WISPs) is heading, and what I > saw at the MWC in Barcelona. Love the FiWi term :-) > > I have seen the vendors that supply WISPs, such as Ubiquiti, Cambium, and > Mimosa, but also newer entrants such as Tarana, increase the performance and > on-paper specs of their equipment. My examples below are centered on the > African market, if you operate in Europe or the US, where you can charge > customers a higher install fee, or even charge them a break-up fee if they > don't return equipment, the economics work. > > Where currently a ~$500 sector radio could serve ~60 endpoints, at a cost of > ~$50 per endpoint (I use this term in place of ODU/CPE, the antenna that you > mount on the roof), and supply ~2.5 Mbps CIR per endpoint, the evolution is > now a ~$2,000+ sector radio, a $200 endpoint, capability for ~150 endpoints > per sector, and ~25 Mbps CIR per endpoint. > > If every customer a WISP installs represents, say, $100 CAPEX at install time > ($50 for the antenna + cabling, router, etc), and you charge a $30 install > fee, you have $70 to recover, and you recover from the monthly contribution > the customer makes. If the contribution after OPEX is, say, $10, it takes you > 7 months to recover the full install cost. Not bad, doable even in low-income > markets. > > Fast-forward to the next-generation version. Now, the CAPEX at install is > $250, you need to recover $220, and it will take you 22 months, which is > above the usual 18 months that investors look for. > > The focus, thereby, has to be the lever that has the largest effect on the > unit economics - which is the per-customer cost. I have drawn what my ideal > FiWi network would look like: > > > > Taking you through this - we start with a 1-port, low-cost EPON OLT (or you > could go for 2, 4, 8 ports as you add capacity). This OLT has capacity for 64 > ONUs on its single port. Instead of connecting the typical fiber > infrastructure with kilometers of cables which break, require maintenance, > etc. we insert an EPON to Ethernet converter (I added "magic" because these > don't exist AFAIK). > > This converter allows us to connect our $2k sector radio, and serve the $200 > endpoints (ODUs) over wireless point-to-multipoint up to 10km away. Each ODU > then has a reverse converter, which gives us EPON again. > > Once we are back on EPON, we can insert splitters, for example, > pre-connectorized outdoor 1:16 boxes. Every customer install now involves a > 100 meter roll of pre-connectorized 2-core drop cable, and a $20 EPON ONU. > > Using this deployment method, we could connect up to 16 customers to a single > $200 endpoint, so the enpoint CAPEX per customer is now $12.5. Add the ONU, > cable, etc. and we have a per-install CAPEX of $82.5 (assuming the same $50 > of extras we had before), and an even shorter break-even. In addition, as the > endpoints support higher capacity, we can provision at least the same, if not > more, capacity per customer. > > Other advantages: the $200 ODU is no longer customer equipment and CAPEX, but > network equipment, and as such, can operate under a longer break-even > timeline, and be financed by infrastructure PE funds, for example. As a > result, churn has a much lower financial impact on the operator. > > The main reason why this wouldn't work today is that EPON, as we know, is > synchronous, and requires the OLT to orchestrate the amount of time each ONU > can transmit, and when. Having wireless hops and me
