Re: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion
The Alvarion got temporarilly installed, towards the end. The time involved was not a fair comparison, because many things were already done like dishes already aligned. But it took us all of 15 minutes, to install and run the tests with the Alvarion gear. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Butch Evans [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 10:12 PM Subject: RE: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Brad Larson wrote: Butch, I don't believe Tom spent 2 days installing the Alvarion linkBrad Nope. If I implied that, I apologize. He spent 2 days installing _A_ link. Part of the time was with Trango and the final (and current) link was StarOS. As I understand it, the Alvarion never got installed, or if it did, it was replaced with the StarOS for reasons which he detailed in the original post in this thread. -- Butch Evans Network Engineering and Security Consulting 573-276-2879 http://www.butchevans.com/ Mikrotik Certified Consultant (http://www.mikrotik.com/consultants.html) -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.12.8/455 - Release Date: 9/22/2006 -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion
Lonnie Nunweiler wrote: especially when we are a 6 person company Ahhh,, so there is 4 more of you besides Tony and yourself that we could be giving a hard time to? George -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
RE: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion
Thanks Tom, Your findings are in line with what many Alvarion operators also enjoy. Ease of installs and low operational costs. Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 3:28 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion The link: 4.5 miles, 1 Big fat building in the way, barely unable to clear the roof. Noise floor high. Limits: Noise Floor to high for PtMP Trango, based on obstruction. Stats: rssi -75 -78, noise -79 or worse on Horiz, Vert worse, RSSI almost 15db below calculations due to NLOS ) Solution: Install PTP to get more gain on AP side, Add OFDM to help with obstruction. Trango 5830 was invaluable to determine what was going on. It's built-in survey command was able to determine the noise floor on all channels accurately, and home in on the fact that the link was marginal because of gear that used a 20Mhz channel half way between Trango's channels. StarOS w/ 28 dbi PAcwireless on both sides- Got -55 -60 rssi. Good link, but it was not perfect, with 1 out of 20 large ping packets with high latency. It would regularly negotiate down to 36mbps or 18 mbps on one side. StarOS w/ 28db on one side, and 23dbi on other side- Got -60 -65 rssi. Excellent / Perfect link. Stayed constant at 54 mbps, with a very rare negotiation down to 48mbps or 36mbps. We believe this is becaue one of two reasons, reflections off the building right back at us, or the wide beamwidth of lower gain antenna to help use multi-path to optimize OFDM. We often felt 19-23 dbi antenna ideal for OFDM. This put us above the noise of most of the channels, and narrowed our beam compared to PtMP to reduce noise. OFDM clearly helped to not lose rssi due to the building obstruction, and gain was not received solely from higher gain of PTP antennas. The problem with STAROS-V3... We ran survey, and picked up ZERO interference or devices, but yet we know that there is lots of interfering devices out there. The Quality reading was pointless at either 100% or 13% with very little correlation to what the link actual performance was. Hard setting modulation, to 24mbps, left the link unusable, even when Quality of 100 was shown. When we put modulation on auto, every thing worked well. SNR was only available on client side, and not accurate, reading only a -95 (which may have been average, but not peak noise, based on Trango scans). Basically, with the STAROS box, we were left totally in the dark, on what the noise environment was. We really missed the detail of the Trango tools, and not sure what we would have done, if we had not had a Trango on site simultaneously gathering test results. We learned via the Trango, that we could have survived the noise with a 10 Mhz channel, that the StarOS allowed, but we would not have known where that was without the Trango test results. We relied on End to End large pings to determine link state during tests, and were glad to see the addition of Iperf embedded in StarOS for more strenuous testing afterwords. The end result... We left the StarOS installed for a perfect link, and defined many possible options should interference need to be battled in the future. We saved a bunch on hardware, costing us under $1000 in equipment for the link, and delivered the highest quality link, as any gear could offer. But this brings me to my point of this post. What was the true cost of this job? I spent a day installing Trango PTMP. I spent a day isntalling StarOS, both with two engineers. I lost a months revenue, delaying my trips between upgrades and tests. At a price, All these headaches could have been avoided. Most likely Trango Atlas PTP would have solved the problem and given us the benefits of Trango testing tools, and OFDM, and price under $3000. But there was some risk in trying that solution. In the past we've had difficulty in high noise environments, and/or to high of RSSI. We did not have an Atlas on hand to test. We took the time to do a test with Alvarion B40 that we had on hand. The Alvarion picked up the noise in its survey. The Alvarion gave us accurate SNR readings that we could use to best plan the link configuration. And the link quality was perfect as well using the 28dbi and 23 dbi antennas. So had I used the Alvarion VL to begin with, I would have saved our company two days in labor, and would have had all the tools that I needed to install the link easilly the first time and to adapt in the future. Alvarion clearly would have been the winning choice. It gave me confidence that in future jobs IF I had to design a link in advance blind, I could order an Alvarion, and it likely would best be qualified to complete the job successfuly. I ended up keeping the StarOS in place. The reason was two fold. 1) I already spent the time, so why not save the money on equipment. And secondly, at the AP side, I
RE: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion
I don't know, I like Alvarion EQ, but I'm sure that the gist I got from Tom's post was that the only vendor he could trust to get the job done right because of the available test tools was Trango. Am I off base there, Tom ? -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brad Larson Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 10:47 AM To: 'WISPA General List' Subject: RE: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion Thanks Tom, Your findings are in line with what many Alvarion operators also enjoy. Ease of installs and low operational costs. Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 3:28 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion The link: 4.5 miles, 1 Big fat building in the way, barely unable to clear the roof. Noise floor high. Limits: Noise Floor to high for PtMP Trango, based on obstruction. Stats: rssi -75 -78, noise -79 or worse on Horiz, Vert worse, RSSI almost 15db below calculations due to NLOS ) Solution: Install PTP to get more gain on AP side, Add OFDM to help with obstruction. Trango 5830 was invaluable to determine what was going on. It's built-in survey command was able to determine the noise floor on all channels accurately, and home in on the fact that the link was marginal because of gear that used a 20Mhz channel half way between Trango's channels. StarOS w/ 28 dbi PAcwireless on both sides- Got -55 -60 rssi. Good link, but it was not perfect, with 1 out of 20 large ping packets with high latency. It would regularly negotiate down to 36mbps or 18 mbps on one side. StarOS w/ 28db on one side, and 23dbi on other side- Got -60 -65 rssi. Excellent / Perfect link. Stayed constant at 54 mbps, with a very rare negotiation down to 48mbps or 36mbps. We believe this is becaue one of two reasons, reflections off the building right back at us, or the wide beamwidth of lower gain antenna to help use multi-path to optimize OFDM. We often felt 19-23 dbi antenna ideal for OFDM. This put us above the noise of most of the channels, and narrowed our beam compared to PtMP to reduce noise. OFDM clearly helped to not lose rssi due to the building obstruction, and gain was not received solely from higher gain of PTP antennas. The problem with STAROS-V3... We ran survey, and picked up ZERO interference or devices, but yet we know that there is lots of interfering devices out there. The Quality reading was pointless at either 100% or 13% with very little correlation to what the link actual performance was. Hard setting modulation, to 24mbps, left the link unusable, even when Quality of 100 was shown. When we put modulation on auto, every thing worked well. SNR was only available on client side, and not accurate, reading only a -95 (which may have been average, but not peak noise, based on Trango scans). Basically, with the STAROS box, we were left totally in the dark, on what the noise environment was. We really missed the detail of the Trango tools, and not sure what we would have done, if we had not had a Trango on site simultaneously gathering test results. We learned via the Trango, that we could have survived the noise with a 10 Mhz channel, that the StarOS allowed, but we would not have known where that was without the Trango test results. We relied on End to End large pings to determine link state during tests, and were glad to see the addition of Iperf embedded in StarOS for more strenuous testing afterwords. The end result... We left the StarOS installed for a perfect link, and defined many possible options should interference need to be battled in the future. We saved a bunch on hardware, costing us under $1000 in equipment for the link, and delivered the highest quality link, as any gear could offer. But this brings me to my point of this post. What was the true cost of this job? I spent a day installing Trango PTMP. I spent a day isntalling StarOS, both with two engineers. I lost a months revenue, delaying my trips between upgrades and tests. At a price, All these headaches could have been avoided. Most likely Trango Atlas PTP would have solved the problem and given us the benefits of Trango testing tools, and OFDM, and price under $3000. But there was some risk in trying that solution. In the past we've had difficulty in high noise environments, and/or to high of RSSI. We did not have an Atlas on hand to test. We took the time to do a test with Alvarion B40 that we had on hand. The Alvarion picked up the noise in its survey. The Alvarion gave us accurate SNR readings that we could use to best plan the link configuration. And the link quality was perfect as well using the 28dbi and 23 dbi antennas. So had I used the Alvarion VL to begin with, I would have saved our company two days in labor, and would have had all the tools that I needed to install the link easilly the first time and to adapt
Re: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion
I agree that Tom's findings are accurate and mirror the real world, even to the conclusion -- they use our gear at the end of the exercise. It just means we'll have to work on our installation and troubleshooting tools. Lonnie On 9/27/06, Brad Larson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thanks Tom, Your findings are in line with what many Alvarion operators also enjoy. Ease of installs and low operational costs. Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 3:28 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion The link: 4.5 miles, 1 Big fat building in the way, barely unable to clear the roof. Noise floor high. Limits: Noise Floor to high for PtMP Trango, based on obstruction. Stats: rssi -75 -78, noise -79 or worse on Horiz, Vert worse, RSSI almost 15db below calculations due to NLOS ) Solution: Install PTP to get more gain on AP side, Add OFDM to help with obstruction. Trango 5830 was invaluable to determine what was going on. It's built-in survey command was able to determine the noise floor on all channels accurately, and home in on the fact that the link was marginal because of gear that used a 20Mhz channel half way between Trango's channels. StarOS w/ 28 dbi PAcwireless on both sides- Got -55 -60 rssi. Good link, but it was not perfect, with 1 out of 20 large ping packets with high latency. It would regularly negotiate down to 36mbps or 18 mbps on one side. StarOS w/ 28db on one side, and 23dbi on other side- Got -60 -65 rssi. Excellent / Perfect link. Stayed constant at 54 mbps, with a very rare negotiation down to 48mbps or 36mbps. We believe this is becaue one of two reasons, reflections off the building right back at us, or the wide beamwidth of lower gain antenna to help use multi-path to optimize OFDM. We often felt 19-23 dbi antenna ideal for OFDM. This put us above the noise of most of the channels, and narrowed our beam compared to PtMP to reduce noise. OFDM clearly helped to not lose rssi due to the building obstruction, and gain was not received solely from higher gain of PTP antennas. The problem with STAROS-V3... We ran survey, and picked up ZERO interference or devices, but yet we know that there is lots of interfering devices out there. The Quality reading was pointless at either 100% or 13% with very little correlation to what the link actual performance was. Hard setting modulation, to 24mbps, left the link unusable, even when Quality of 100 was shown. When we put modulation on auto, every thing worked well. SNR was only available on client side, and not accurate, reading only a -95 (which may have been average, but not peak noise, based on Trango scans). Basically, with the STAROS box, we were left totally in the dark, on what the noise environment was. We really missed the detail of the Trango tools, and not sure what we would have done, if we had not had a Trango on site simultaneously gathering test results. We learned via the Trango, that we could have survived the noise with a 10 Mhz channel, that the StarOS allowed, but we would not have known where that was without the Trango test results. We relied on End to End large pings to determine link state during tests, and were glad to see the addition of Iperf embedded in StarOS for more strenuous testing afterwords. The end result... We left the StarOS installed for a perfect link, and defined many possible options should interference need to be battled in the future. We saved a bunch on hardware, costing us under $1000 in equipment for the link, and delivered the highest quality link, as any gear could offer. But this brings me to my point of this post. What was the true cost of this job? I spent a day installing Trango PTMP. I spent a day isntalling StarOS, both with two engineers. I lost a months revenue, delaying my trips between upgrades and tests. At a price, All these headaches could have been avoided. Most likely Trango Atlas PTP would have solved the problem and given us the benefits of Trango testing tools, and OFDM, and price under $3000. But there was some risk in trying that solution. In the past we've had difficulty in high noise environments, and/or to high of RSSI. We did not have an Atlas on hand to test. We took the time to do a test with Alvarion B40 that we had on hand. The Alvarion picked up the noise in its survey. The Alvarion gave us accurate SNR readings that we could use to best plan the link configuration. And the link quality was perfect as well using the 28dbi and 23 dbi antennas. So had I used the Alvarion VL to begin with, I would have saved our company two days in labor, and would have had all the tools that I needed to install the link easilly the first time and to adapt in the future. Alvarion clearly would have been the winning choice. It gave me confidence that in future jobs IF I had to design a link in advance blind, I could order an Alvarion, and it
Re: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion
My conclusion was that Alvarion was the safest bet. (award winning caliber) They could provide performance, time efficiency, and capable to gather equivellent accurate realtime testing data, via Alvarion EQ and SNR readings. However, there are many factors in selecting a radio, and safest bet, is not always the true need. Sometimes its the best compromise to meet multiple needs. What can't you do without? I currently have more Trango and StarOS backhauls on my network, for what ever reason. My point in the post is that, if a provider realizes the true characteristics of the various products, and is honest with themselves on what the true need/value of a specific link is, or true need of the provider, they can make the best choice for each case. Every product has its value, or it would be discontinued. I will clarify further... In this particular case, StarOS won. And I see that there will be many cases in the future where StarOS will win again. But it brought forward a limitation, that will likely influence me not to use it for many cases where it is not apppropraite to take the risk of using it. In this particular case, the Atlas PTP was least attractive, as it does not have real-time SNR capabilty, which is a valuable tool, and this particular case Dual-Polarity had no additional value, since the noise floor on the other pol (verticle) was way to high and consistent. The original AP link actually had been in place as a PTMP for several years, and we knew the Verticle Pol competitors were there first, so I had no intentions of wanting to step on their links. In the future, I know there will be links, that I will not justify doing without real-time SNR statistics. But these comments do not negate the value of Trango PTPs. There are many cases where Trango Atlas, will likely be the best compromise to meet all needs. Trango still delivers best value per mb (price), with Dual-Polarity flexibilty, and best of class testing tools. The other issue, that comes up is channel center freqs. The Atlas PtPs fits nicely into my existing network, because they operate at full capacity on the same channel options, as my Trango PtMPs. But will Trango PtMP, stay my primary PtMP, for new deployments? That has not been determined. If I chose an alternate PtMP solution based on Atheros, that uses different channel center freqs, the Alvarion(Atheros) PTPs may better fit, into the network. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Rick Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'WISPA General List' wireless@wispa.org Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 11:18 AM Subject: RE: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion I don't know, I like Alvarion EQ, but I'm sure that the gist I got from Tom's post was that the only vendor he could trust to get the job done right because of the available test tools was Trango. Am I off base there, Tom ? -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brad Larson Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 10:47 AM To: 'WISPA General List' Subject: RE: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion Thanks Tom, Your findings are in line with what many Alvarion operators also enjoy. Ease of installs and low operational costs. Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 3:28 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion The link: 4.5 miles, 1 Big fat building in the way, barely unable to clear the roof. Noise floor high. Limits: Noise Floor to high for PtMP Trango, based on obstruction. Stats: rssi -75 -78, noise -79 or worse on Horiz, Vert worse, RSSI almost 15db below calculations due to NLOS ) Solution: Install PTP to get more gain on AP side, Add OFDM to help with obstruction. Trango 5830 was invaluable to determine what was going on. It's built-in survey command was able to determine the noise floor on all channels accurately, and home in on the fact that the link was marginal because of gear that used a 20Mhz channel half way between Trango's channels. StarOS w/ 28 dbi PAcwireless on both sides- Got -55 -60 rssi. Good link, but it was not perfect, with 1 out of 20 large ping packets with high latency. It would regularly negotiate down to 36mbps or 18 mbps on one side. StarOS w/ 28db on one side, and 23dbi on other side- Got -60 -65 rssi. Excellent / Perfect link. Stayed constant at 54 mbps, with a very rare negotiation down to 48mbps or 36mbps. We believe this is becaue one of two reasons, reflections off the building right back at us, or the wide beamwidth of lower gain antenna to help use multi-path to optimize OFDM. We often felt 19-23 dbi antenna ideal for OFDM. This put us above the noise of most of the channels, and narrowed our beam compared to PtMP to reduce noise. OFDM clearly
RE: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion
All are respectable products, all intending to serve the market need at their intended value proposition. WHAT I REALLY took from your detailed post Tom and the posts of many others these past few days is that, quite simply, Alvarion is doing an inadequate job of showing our value to WISPs. While we often might yield the best total result (very time-saving ergo cost justifying installation and solid performance with top set'n'forget reliability), we are often the last thing tried by many WISPs. In other words, other things get in the way of our getting a shot at the business from the start. That's the thing I am working to solve. Patrick Leary AVP WISP Markets Alvarion, Inc. o: 650.314.2628 c: 760.580.0080 Vonage: 650.641.1243 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom DeReggi Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 12:15 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion My conclusion was that Alvarion was the safest bet. (award winning caliber) They could provide performance, time efficiency, and capable to gather equivellent accurate realtime testing data, via Alvarion EQ and SNR readings. However, there are many factors in selecting a radio, and safest bet, is not always the true need. Sometimes its the best compromise to meet multiple needs. What can't you do without? I currently have more Trango and StarOS backhauls on my network, for what ever reason. My point in the post is that, if a provider realizes the true characteristics of the various products, and is honest with themselves on what the true need/value of a specific link is, or true need of the provider, they can make the best choice for each case. Every product has its value, or it would be discontinued. I will clarify further... In this particular case, StarOS won. And I see that there will be many cases in the future where StarOS will win again. But it brought forward a limitation, that will likely influence me not to use it for many cases where it is not apppropraite to take the risk of using it. In this particular case, the Atlas PTP was least attractive, as it does not have real-time SNR capabilty, which is a valuable tool, and this particular case Dual-Polarity had no additional value, since the noise floor on the other pol (verticle) was way to high and consistent. The original AP link actually had been in place as a PTMP for several years, and we knew the Verticle Pol competitors were there first, so I had no intentions of wanting to step on their links. In the future, I know there will be links, that I will not justify doing without real-time SNR statistics. But these comments do not negate the value of Trango PTPs. There are many cases where Trango Atlas, will likely be the best compromise to meet all needs. Trango still delivers best value per mb (price), with Dual-Polarity flexibilty, and best of class testing tools. The other issue, that comes up is channel center freqs. The Atlas PtPs fits nicely into my existing network, because they operate at full capacity on the same channel options, as my Trango PtMPs. But will Trango PtMP, stay my primary PtMP, for new deployments? That has not been determined. If I chose an alternate PtMP solution based on Atheros, that uses different channel center freqs, the Alvarion(Atheros) PTPs may better fit, into the network. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Rick Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'WISPA General List' wireless@wispa.org Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 11:18 AM Subject: RE: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion I don't know, I like Alvarion EQ, but I'm sure that the gist I got from Tom's post was that the only vendor he could trust to get the job done right because of the available test tools was Trango. Am I off base there, Tom ? -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brad Larson Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 10:47 AM To: 'WISPA General List' Subject: RE: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion Thanks Tom, Your findings are in line with what many Alvarion operators also enjoy. Ease of installs and low operational costs. Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 3:28 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion The link: 4.5 miles, 1 Big fat building in the way, barely unable to clear the roof. Noise floor high. Limits: Noise Floor to high for PtMP Trango, based on obstruction. Stats: rssi -75 -78, noise -79 or worse on Horiz, Vert worse, RSSI almost 15db below calculations due to NLOS ) Solution: Install PTP to get more gain on AP side, Add OFDM to help with obstruction. Trango 5830 was invaluable
RE: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion
On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Patrick Leary wrote: WHAT I REALLY took from your detailed post Tom and the posts of many others these past few days is that, quite simply, Alvarion is doing an inadequate job of showing our value to WISPs. While we often might yield the best total result (very time-saving ergo cost justifying installation and solid performance with top set'n'forget reliability), we are often the last thing tried by many WISPs. I think this is because there are a great many WISPs out there who use the following equation: COST = VALUE Instead of taking into account that cost is only a portion of the value proposition. I think that Alvarion's gear is (in many cases) the best solution for many things. I can't say that it is ALWAYS the best choice. I think that if you want to change the impression that WISPs have of Alvarion, you need to continue where you started a LONG time ago (before you left this market place) and help them understand that cost and value are NOT equivalent. I think, also, that you (as a manufacturer) need to understand that, while it is true that you offer a HUGE number of features, many people simply don't need all the stuff you offer. In those cases, the cost of your equipment is much too high for the value that they provide. I think that Tom's original post pointed this out very well. I don't know what the cost of the Alvarion gear Tom mentioned goes for, but even if we assume that the link was a $4000 cost. He spent 2 days installing and tweaking this link. What he ended up with is a perfect link with less than $1k in hard equipment cost. This includes the AP that he needs for that location. You have $3k to make up in value in that case. I know that SOME of that (maybe half) would be made up by saving him 1 day's time. Either way, the raw cost of the Alvarion solution would be still about $1k higher. Having said it this way, would Alvarion be able to offer $1k in value above what he already has in place now? Especially considering that he has what he already needs, I doubt that you can. Please don't take this the wrong way, because it is not intended as a bash. I am no longer a WISP, but I DO offer advice to WISPs on equipment selections and have (on several occasions) recommended Alvarion as a potential solution. I will continue to do this when I see it as an appropriate place in the network. -- Butch Evans Network Engineering and Security Consulting 573-276-2879 http://www.butchevans.com/ Mikrotik Certified Consultant (http://www.mikrotik.com/consultants.html) -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
RE: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion
I really appreciate the post Butch. Know that I have been reading (and re-reading) and soaking up all this stuff. I WILL convert on a number of these things (i.e. performing actions that directly address many of the issues presented). By the way, why are you not a WISP anymore? Doesn't being out of the business feel like you lost a limb? I fear I'm a lifer. For sure not on this end of the business forever, but in it in some way. Hell, maybe I'll write a novel where the central characters are WISPs. Probably also a great TV sitcom somewhere in this business. First frame of the pilot has Marlon riding his combine with his tie dye and wig with a tower in the background. Closing scene cuts to Stu leaving a limo with heavily tinted windows. As he steps out he takes a bit out of an apple. :) Patrick Leary AVP WISP Markets Alvarion, Inc. o: 650.314.2628 c: 760.580.0080 Vonage: 650.641.1243 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Butch Evans Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 3:28 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: RE: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Patrick Leary wrote: WHAT I REALLY took from your detailed post Tom and the posts of many others these past few days is that, quite simply, Alvarion is doing an inadequate job of showing our value to WISPs. While we often might yield the best total result (very time-saving ergo cost justifying installation and solid performance with top set'n'forget reliability), we are often the last thing tried by many WISPs. I think this is because there are a great many WISPs out there who use the following equation: COST = VALUE Instead of taking into account that cost is only a portion of the value proposition. I think that Alvarion's gear is (in many cases) the best solution for many things. I can't say that it is ALWAYS the best choice. I think that if you want to change the impression that WISPs have of Alvarion, you need to continue where you started a LONG time ago (before you left this market place) and help them understand that cost and value are NOT equivalent. I think, also, that you (as a manufacturer) need to understand that, while it is true that you offer a HUGE number of features, many people simply don't need all the stuff you offer. In those cases, the cost of your equipment is much too high for the value that they provide. I think that Tom's original post pointed this out very well. I don't know what the cost of the Alvarion gear Tom mentioned goes for, but even if we assume that the link was a $4000 cost. He spent 2 days installing and tweaking this link. What he ended up with is a perfect link with less than $1k in hard equipment cost. This includes the AP that he needs for that location. You have $3k to make up in value in that case. I know that SOME of that (maybe half) would be made up by saving him 1 day's time. Either way, the raw cost of the Alvarion solution would be still about $1k higher. Having said it this way, would Alvarion be able to offer $1k in value above what he already has in place now? Especially considering that he has what he already needs, I doubt that you can. Please don't take this the wrong way, because it is not intended as a bash. I am no longer a WISP, but I DO offer advice to WISPs on equipment selections and have (on several occasions) recommended Alvarion as a potential solution. I will continue to do this when I see it as an appropriate place in the network. -- Butch Evans Network Engineering and Security Consulting 573-276-2879 http://www.butchevans.com/ Mikrotik Certified Consultant (http://www.mikrotik.com/consultants.html) -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses(191). This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses(43). This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses. -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http
RE: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion
On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Patrick Leary wrote: I really appreciate the post Butch. Know that I have been reading (and re-reading) and soaking up all this stuff. I WILL convert on a number of these things (i.e. performing actions that directly address many of the issues presented). Looking forward to it. By the way, why are you not a WISP anymore? Doesn't being out of the business feel like you lost a limb? I fear I'm a lifer. For I've had to move on to bigger (and better?) things. I am still in the industry. I just do network consulting now. Almost half of my customers are WISPs. I had to make a choice and the consulting won. -- Butch Evans Network Engineering and Security Consulting 573-276-2879 http://www.butchevans.com/ Mikrotik Certified Consultant (http://www.mikrotik.com/consultants.html) -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
RE: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion
Butch, I don't believe Tom spent 2 days installing the Alvarion linkBrad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 6:28 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: RE: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Patrick Leary wrote: WHAT I REALLY took from your detailed post Tom and the posts of many others these past few days is that, quite simply, Alvarion is doing an inadequate job of showing our value to WISPs. While we often might yield the best total result (very time-saving ergo cost justifying installation and solid performance with top set'n'forget reliability), we are often the last thing tried by many WISPs. I think this is because there are a great many WISPs out there who use the following equation: COST = VALUE Instead of taking into account that cost is only a portion of the value proposition. I think that Alvarion's gear is (in many cases) the best solution for many things. I can't say that it is ALWAYS the best choice. I think that if you want to change the impression that WISPs have of Alvarion, you need to continue where you started a LONG time ago (before you left this market place) and help them understand that cost and value are NOT equivalent. I think, also, that you (as a manufacturer) need to understand that, while it is true that you offer a HUGE number of features, many people simply don't need all the stuff you offer. In those cases, the cost of your equipment is much too high for the value that they provide. I think that Tom's original post pointed this out very well. I don't know what the cost of the Alvarion gear Tom mentioned goes for, but even if we assume that the link was a $4000 cost. He spent 2 days installing and tweaking this link. What he ended up with is a perfect link with less than $1k in hard equipment cost. This includes the AP that he needs for that location. You have $3k to make up in value in that case. I know that SOME of that (maybe half) would be made up by saving him 1 day's time. Either way, the raw cost of the Alvarion solution would be still about $1k higher. Having said it this way, would Alvarion be able to offer $1k in value above what he already has in place now? Especially considering that he has what he already needs, I doubt that you can. Please don't take this the wrong way, because it is not intended as a bash. I am no longer a WISP, but I DO offer advice to WISPs on equipment selections and have (on several occasions) recommended Alvarion as a potential solution. I will continue to do this when I see it as an appropriate place in the network. -- Butch Evans Network Engineering and Security Consulting 573-276-2879 http://www.butchevans.com/ Mikrotik Certified Consultant (http://www.mikrotik.com/consultants.html) -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses(192). This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses(43). -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
RE: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion
On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Brad Larson wrote: Butch, I don't believe Tom spent 2 days installing the Alvarion linkBrad Nope. If I implied that, I apologize. He spent 2 days installing _A_ link. Part of the time was with Trango and the final (and current) link was StarOS. As I understand it, the Alvarion never got installed, or if it did, it was replaced with the StarOS for reasons which he detailed in the original post in this thread. -- Butch Evans Network Engineering and Security Consulting 573-276-2879 http://www.butchevans.com/ Mikrotik Certified Consultant (http://www.mikrotik.com/consultants.html) -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion
BLUSH. Thanks Patrick. Lifestyle has not elevated at all. That is why I moved to the sticks so I could avoid the pressures of keeping up with the other Yups. We live very simply. I bought a new Corolla last year. My '89 Landcruiser has a few more years left in her. One thing for sure is that we are known in the Valley. It makes it more difficult to get your mail (at the Post Office) and checkouts at the grocery store take longer. It is quite a change when the bank teller pumps you for a few answers while you are doing the banking. We are in the final stages of building 5 new towers. When they come on line we'll have an area that extends 150 km along the Valley floor and have almost perfect coverage to the people living along the Valley. This is how we perfect our code and I'm the guy they all call and talk to when it is not done right. We like reliable first, performance second and price third. It is fun and I was finally able to justify and buy a Bobcat. I have wanted one of those since forever. We are doing quite OK and having the most fun we have all ever had. It is fun to match the big boys almost feature for feature, especially when we are a 6 person company doing RD, building and shipping product and running the local WISP. Rarely are we bored. I can also say that Valemount has the highest population density of Linux kernel and driver hackers, with three of us in a town of 1,100. Lonnie On 9/27/06, Patrick Leary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Lonnie, I think you've done a great job with StarOS. You found a need and went after it with true entrepreneurial zeal. And you've done it all from that remote slice of mountain paradise. I bet your town is proud of you too, since you are a great local success story and a perfect example of the possibilities for smart people in small towns in a global marketplace. I suspect your lifestyle has been majorly elevated since you launched it and that's all well-earned! I remember you pre-StarOS! You got nothing but my respect. Patrick Leary AVP WISP Markets Alvarion, Inc. o: 650.314.2628 c: 760.580.0080 Vonage: 650.641.1243 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Lonnie Nunweiler Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 8:40 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion I agree that Tom's findings are accurate and mirror the real world, even to the conclusion -- they use our gear at the end of the exercise. It just means we'll have to work on our installation and troubleshooting tools. Lonnie On 9/27/06, Brad Larson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thanks Tom, Your findings are in line with what many Alvarion operators also enjoy. Ease of installs and low operational costs. Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 3:28 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion The link: 4.5 miles, 1 Big fat building in the way, barely unable to clear the roof. Noise floor high. Limits: Noise Floor to high for PtMP Trango, based on obstruction. Stats: rssi -75 -78, noise -79 or worse on Horiz, Vert worse, RSSI almost 15db below calculations due to NLOS ) Solution: Install PTP to get more gain on AP side, Add OFDM to help with obstruction. Trango 5830 was invaluable to determine what was going on. It's built-in survey command was able to determine the noise floor on all channels accurately, and home in on the fact that the link was marginal because of gear that used a 20Mhz channel half way between Trango's channels. StarOS w/ 28 dbi PAcwireless on both sides- Got -55 -60 rssi. Good link, but it was not perfect, with 1 out of 20 large ping packets with high latency. It would regularly negotiate down to 36mbps or 18 mbps on one side. StarOS w/ 28db on one side, and 23dbi on other side- Got -60 -65 rssi. Excellent / Perfect link. Stayed constant at 54 mbps, with a very rare negotiation down to 48mbps or 36mbps. We believe this is becaue one of two reasons, reflections off the building right back at us, or the wide beamwidth of lower gain antenna to help use multi-path to optimize OFDM. We often felt 19-23 dbi antenna ideal for OFDM. This put us above the noise of most of the channels, and narrowed our beam compared to PtMP to reduce noise. OFDM clearly helped to not lose rssi due to the building obstruction, and gain was not received solely from higher gain of PTP antennas. The problem with STAROS-V3... We ran survey, and picked up ZERO interference or devices, but yet we know that there is lots of interfering devices out there. The Quality reading was pointless at either 100% or 13% with very little correlation to what the link actual performance was. Hard setting modulation, to 24mbps, left the link unusable, even when Quality of 100 was shown. When we put modulation on auto, every
RE: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion
Here is what he said (which led to my post about ours being the last choice to try, but it would been the most cost effective overall had we been able to get him to do it first. By the time he tried Alvarion, he had already spent 2 days getting the StarOS up using the Trango tools. Anyway, here is Tom's exact comments on the subject, unedited: We took the time to do a test with Alvarion B40 that we had on hand. The Alvarion picked up the noise in its survey. The Alvarion gave us accurate SNR readings that we could use to best plan the link configuration. And the link quality was perfect as well using the 28dbi and 23 dbi antennas. So had I used the Alvarion VL to begin with, I would have saved our company two days in labor, and would have had all the tools that I needed to install the link easilly the first time and to adapt in the future. Alvarion clearly would have been the winning choice. It gave me confidence that in future jobs IF I had to design a link in advance blind, I could order an Alvarion, and it likely would best be qualified to complete the job, Patrick Leary AVP WISP Markets Alvarion, Inc. o: 650.314.2628 c: 760.580.0080 Vonage: 650.641.1243 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Butch Evans Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 7:13 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: RE: [WISPA] Real World comparison of Trango-staros-Alvarion On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, Brad Larson wrote: Butch, I don't believe Tom spent 2 days installing the Alvarion linkBrad Nope. If I implied that, I apologize. He spent 2 days installing _A_ link. Part of the time was with Trango and the final (and current) link was StarOS. As I understand it, the Alvarion never got installed, or if it did, it was replaced with the StarOS for reasons which he detailed in the original post in this thread. -- Butch Evans Network Engineering and Security Consulting 573-276-2879 http://www.butchevans.com/ Mikrotik Certified Consultant (http://www.mikrotik.com/consultants.html) -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses(192). This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses(43). This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals computer viruses. -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
