Re: [nycwireless] SF WiFi: BREAKING...
On Mon, Jul 03, 2006 at 11:29:19PM -0400, Bob Keyes mangled the electrons to say: While we're here, let me talk about some muni wifi things that I've figured out. While this post is long, please don't consider it a finished document. There's some wordsmithing, and documentation of some of the claims I make, which still needs to be done. This will happen. Eventually. Firstly, there is a big difference in service levels between different technology. Fiber is the most reliable, followed by coax, followed by 4-wire twisted pair circuits (T1), followed by DSL, followed by dialup, and WiFi brings up the rear ( I leave out cups and strings and its more problematic cousin BPL - Broadband over Power Lines). Consumers expect to pay more money for more reliable services, and LESS for LESS reliable services. But of course speed is an issue, and also availability. Many parts of the country are stuck with dial-up right now, which is more reliable than WiFi but also damned SLOW. You left out a major, but often silent player in the wireless space - Licensed microwave. Properly engineered links can deliver fiber reliability at T1 prices. Also, properly constructed licensed systems in the 2.5G space can deliver T1 reliability at cable modem prices. David Beery The complaints about WiFi relate to municipal/suburban systems, where there is a competing use of the 2.4 ghz band. Rural WiFi may work better because of less interference, but they also have greater distances to cover. As long as WiFi is stuck on the part 15 spectrum (2.4 ghz) there will always be the problem of interference with other part 15 users and the primary users of the space (Amateur radio, for example). While the U-NII 5 ghz band is a lot less crowded, it has problems related to its considerably higher frequency: namely, it is more dependany on line-of-sight to have good coverage. But I am going to ignore 802.11A for now. More on that later. So, wireless isn't that reliable. This isn't a huge problem for many people, if the service were CHEAP. But the $21.95 Earthlink is charging is just too much money, when there are advertised $15 rates for DSL from Verizon and the like. It sounds to me like anyone who is in a service area for for Verizon DSL would be more likely to go that route. So what if Earthlink dropped their prices? What level would be cheap enough? Perhaps $10 a month. But this might be too little for them to pay for the infrastructure they've built. Regardless if it is, or isn't economically viable to charge $10, there is the problem of customer expectations. Once a customer spends any money whatsoever, they have expectations that they will be able to call someone and get any problems they have fixed. Or at least they'll get put on hold for a while, and the bureaucracy will eventually creak along and fix the problem. This is the same, if someone spends $1 or $21.95 or $100. So, there's the expectation of some level of support, but this becomes particularly difficult when the system isn't particularly reliable. And, as mentioned before, WiFi is NOT particularly reliable. So, there are more disgrunteled customers sitting on hold, requiring more customer service respresentatives to tell them that the problem is being examined. Or to tell them to get close to a window and move around till the signal gets better. In addition, there is the increased percentage of the fee going to transaction costs, with a decrease in price. What I mean is that certain transaction costs are fixed. For instance, credit card processors typically charge a transaction fee of something like fifty cents, plus a 2% commission. When you're a merchant involved in large transactions (diamonds, a full tank of gas for a SUV) you are concerned more with the percentage, when you are a penny retailer (linux CDs on ebay), the fixed transaction fee is more important. WISPs start becoming more concerned with the transaction cost as their monthly rate is forced down. Besides credit card rates, there are issues like postage and paper costs when sending bills, labor costs for processing payments, etc. What if you were able to eliminate expectations and overhead and just make the service FREE and get money in another manner? This is the attraction of advertising supported Internet access. It's pretty tempting, but the returns from said advertising do not currently justify the cost of wifi infrastructure. This MAY be because many of the WiFi equipment vendors are still trying to market towards traditional WISPs that are still trying to compete with wired ISPs in regards to reliability. Another potential funding source is public coffers. Many people object to this usage of public funds, but we're already funding public radio TV, newspapers, bulletin boards, etc. In addition, by providing a public Internet service, other problems are addressed. One of these is the infamous issue of the Digital
Re: [nycwireless] Citywide WiFi Poll
On Wed, Jul 13, 2005 at 11:42:47AM -0400, Dustin Goodwin mangled the electrons to say: cost the city about $80 million to set up a system, with consumers paying about $20 a month to log onto the municipal Wi-Fi network, said Rasiej, who runs a technology-oriented educational organization, and based his model for NYC on the Philadelphia plan. Anyone know who Rasiej is or how he came up with this number? Andrew Rasiej He's a democratic candidate for Public Advocate. From his Bio: Seeing New York City children left out of the technology revolution, in 1997 Andrew founded MOUSE (Making Opportunities for Upgrading Schools and Education), a non-profit organization focused on integrating technology into teaching and learning in urban public schools. http://www.advocatesforrasiej.com/ The summary of his plan: http://www.advocatesforrasiej.com/files/wifi-summary.doc His plan for nyc wifi: http://www.advocatesforrasiej.com/files/wifi-plan.pdf David Beery - Dustin - Laura Forlano wrote: AM New York has a feature on citywide WiFi today. You can also take a poll on whether or not you support citywide WiFi at: http://www.nynewsday.com/other/special/amny/ Best, Laura -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/ -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/ -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
Re: [nycwireless] infos for wifi in community
On Sat, May 28, 2005 at 06:48:45PM +0800, BarangayWireless.Net mangled the electrons to say: Hi, im preparing for a casestudy proposal for a community wireless wifi. do you have any links or resources regarding wifi and its importance to community. any infos would be great help I would start at http://www.w2i.org It's an great site! David Beery -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
[nycwireless] West Virginia pro-muni broadband bill dies in committee
West Virginia pro-muni broadband bill dies in committee http://www.muniwireless.com/archives/000644.html Verizon proposed amendments that would have eliminated the authority of local governments to provide any technology infrastructure services other than through partnerships with private industry, and then only after there had been a determination by the Public Service Commission that private industry would not provide such services either currently or in the foreseeable future. David Beery -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
[nycwireless] Florida Senate reaches compromise on muni telecom nets
Interesting action on muni nets down in florida. David Beery http://telephonyonline.com/home/news/florida_senate_telecom_041405/ Florida Senate reaches compromise on muni telecom nets By Carol Wilson Apr 14, 2005 12:20 PM How Is VoIP Reshaping the Industry and Your Business Strategy? Telephony Wireless Review editors along with Infonetics Research explore VoIP technology and business strategies. View Webcast Now. Sponsored by Global Knowledge The Florida State Senate, one of several state legislative bodies considering a ban on municipal telecom projects, has instead adopted compromise legislation that allows cities and towns to build their own advanced telecom networks under certain circumstances. The measure, which must still pass the Florida House of Representatives, was the result of weeks of effort by people on both sides, and represents significant compromise by both the telephone and cable companies and the municipalities, said Barry Moline, executive director of the Florida Municipal Electric Association, which represents many smaller towns and cities. We don't necessarily consider it a victory--we got some things and we gave up some things, he said. I think, overall, it's good public policy. The compromise replaces legislation that would have prohibited municipalities from building telecom networks and required communities that had already built such networks to stop adding customers. Florida is one of several states pondering similar legislation this year. The compromise, reached with the assistance of Gov. Jeb Bush's office and State Sen. Lee Constantine, allows municipalities to build their own networks only after they have provided notice of their network requirements to private network operators and tried to get those requirements satisfied by those enterprises. The municipality must prepare a business plan that shows how its network operation would break even within four years, and conduct a series of public hearings explaining the plan to the public. If financing of the network will require more than 15 years, a public referendum is required. Moline admits that many of his organization's members are unhappy about having to consult the telephone and cable industry before building the networks they believe their municipalities need. A lot of cities have a philosophy that they should be able to provide for the comfort and convenience of their community, in whatever the community wants, he said. Given the highly competitive nature of the telecom business, however, it makes sense that existing service providers don't want more competition from a public entity with taxing authority. The reality is that in a competitive industry, the competitors can't serve everyone, he said. They have to pick and choose where they can make a profit. And they are skipping over small and rural communities. Representatives of both BellSouth and Florida's cable industry spoke in favor of the bill, Moline said, but he's waiting to see if new arguments arise in that body. -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
[nycwireless] November meeting followup - FCC Universal Licensing A/K/A Gulfross Vyyo
Good Afternoon, I was finally glad that I had a wed. night free to attend a nycwireless meeting, after being here in the city for almost 1 year. The Yellowarrow and presentation and Placelab presentations were wonderful! The discussions at the bar were great as well.. It was nice to meet everyone. Anyway, I finally had a chance to dig out my URL's and email the list regarding a number of the things that I discussed or brought up during the meeting. During the meeting, Ian mentioned the use of databases for determining the locations of signals. I said the FCC database was free and open to the public. I called it Gulfross. Gulfross was the old name of the system/server that they used. The database has now been simplified and renamed - it's now called the Universal Licensing System (ULS). http://wireless.fcc.gov/uls/ One of the basic uses of ULS is to determine the owner and location of a particular frequency. For example purposes, say that I am a MMDS frequency owner in Traverse City, MI and I am receiving interference on an adjacent channel. It looks like the transmitter on E1(2596-2602Mhz) is having problems and it's spraying all over adjacent channels, but I can not remember, because I have been up for 72 hours working on other problems, who the owner is and where their transmitter is.. I suspect that they pulled the output filters... so I use the uls system to look up the owner. Here's the results: http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/license.jsp?licKey=2587067 Ok, it's those guys Grand Wireless... that is enough of a kick to my mind that I recall who their RF engineer is and how to contact him. Problem solved. I am also including several additional links to the FCC that are relevant: ASR (Antenna Structure Registration) ASR allows you to search for information about an existing tower, you can use a number of search criteria to search, including lat and long. This is helpful if you know the loc of a site and want to determine who the tower owner is so you can inquire about attaching an antenna or determining who owns equipment that you suspect is interfering with you. http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/AsrSearch/asrRegistrationSearch.jsp Example search result showing old inaccurate data, ie. World Trade Center Tower 1. Building with Tower: http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/AsrSearch/asrRegistration.jsp?regKey=97472 ULS-GIS This shows you in a GIS view the locations of BTA's (Basic trading areas) and other forms of geographic based licensing, ie MTA's. http://wireless2.fcc.gov/ULSGis/ULSearchGis.jsp Example: http://wireless2.fcc.gov/ULSGis/ULSearchGis.jsp;jsessionid=BiGjPFQ6Tz2pGKCcz pR6PnO33cajTbjrlOEgmVp8Qx1aRQ0xeKyT!-1525260243 Near an Airport and need to determine if your tower / mast is too high? Does it need an FCC engineering study done? Etc.. TOWAIR (or Landing Slope Facility Calculator) http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/AsrSearch/towairSearch.jsp Who was that equipment manufacture that I use? It's Vyyo. A large majority of supercell MMDS/ITFS/MDS deployments in the Us all use this equipment. It's a system that is Docsis based. They made a few modifications to the standard to deal with the harsher RF conditions found in the wireless environment. You can take a standard docsis modem and it will work most of the time, but it will be more sensitive to the signal fades thus rebooting often. http://www.vyyo.com/ Btw, if you know anyone that is looking for a IP wireless guy or network admin please contact me. My resume can be found on my web site: http://www.dbeery.org/ -- David Beery -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
