Re: [WISPA] Tranzeo WDS capacity, Mikrotik - problems

[George Rogato]

I dunno. I kinda disagree with those who think marginal is just fine.
I can tell they do not compete against Qwest DSL or Charter cable.
512k, will get you no where and service that is up down in speeds will 
not get you subs when the real competition shows up to play in your sandbox.

Party is over.

Real world kicks in and fantasy land  turns into a nightmare.
We've heard it on these lists in the past with wisps building a low 
speed network and the cable ops turning on and taking all their subs.
Remember Paul Farber?

Sure there are exceptions in markets that are not mature, but like I 
said, it will be a different story when the competition shows up, which 
is pretty darn soon if you don't have any at this time.

Build your network to it's highest performance and breath a little bit 
of relief. Build it right the first time and get the most out of your 
investment.

George

Carl A Jeptha wrote:
Yes Marlon, real world is different from the theory (yes, Lonnie I know 
you run your own ISP).
I quote "We endeavour to deliver 256kbps, but speed may be  up to  4.5 
mbps. No "Up Ito's", because you will never see it. Depending on who you 
ask the radios when they have perfect line of sight is actually capable 
of 11mbps. So I say again, we endeavour to deliver 256kbps, and if on 
the  day of the install we find for what ever reason that we cannot 
deliver our speed we will remove the equipment and leave, no charge."
Most customers' response is, "Okay so when will you be installing????". 
My response, "we have a two week backlog, we will see if we can fit you 
in."  Customer, "Great, I'll see you in two weeks time"

You have a Good Day now,


Carl A Jeptha
http://www.airnet.ca
office 905 349-2084
Emergency only Pager 905 377-6900
skype cajeptha



Marlon K. Schafer (509) 982-2181 wrote:
I'm gonna disagree with Lonnie here.  Kinda.  We agree on the -75 dB 
thing.

But on the number of customers I'm wayyyy on the other side of the 
fence. Probably on the other side of the pasture too.

Just in Odessa here we have something like 50 to 75 subs pulling from 
a single ap.  It's an OLD lucent ap1000.  Only an 11 meg radio.  It 
feeds two other repeater sites (those are included in the subscriber 
count).  You can run a speed test here at almost any time you want and 
my customers get 2 to 3 megs of actual speed out to the internet.  4x+ 
the actual speed of dsl in town for only $5 per month more.

I will agree that marginal links will slow the whole network down.  
But I try to look at things from a pragmatic standpoint.  Not just 
sales or techie view point.  The question for me is, are the customers 
happy?  Are they wanting/needing more?  Are the expectations properly 
set and met?

My fiber feed here is peaking at 3 megs today.  3.19 to be exact.  But 
the AVERAGE is only 640k.  This circuit feeds 24 pots lines and 150ish 
wireless subs.  NON of whom are on bandwidth shaped links.  It's wide 
open for all of them.  Some of the businesses get 8ish megs via a 
trango system in town too.

All systems and all customer bases are different.  Us "experts" in the 
industry are often very good at telling you how to run our networks.  
The hard part is that we're all correct :-P.

Here's MY rule of thumb for customers per ap.  When people start 
telling me that things aren't as fast as they used to be, I'll put in 
another one.  OR if *I* know I can do a much better job by splitting 
things off (gonna do that to one system today, only 10ish subs but 
it's never worked as well as it should so I'm gonna redesign things, 
again).  My one complaining customer on that tower complains about 
everything though.  When I go to his house to test the actual speed 
it's always good.  Maybe I'm working too hard for one squeaky wheel.  
Too bad he's not only a tech support guy but also a relative!  
hehehehehehe

Marlon
(509) 982-2181                                   Equipment sales
(408) 907-6910 (Vonage)                    Consulting services
42846865 (icq)                                    And I run my own wisp!
64.146.146.12 (net meeting)
www.odessaoffice.com/wireless
www.odessaoffice.com/marlon/cam



----- Original Message ----- From: "Lonnie Nunweiler" 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2006 1:37 PM
Subject: Re: [WISPA] Tranzeo WDS capacity, Mikrotik - problems


As a general rule you should not consider any customer if the cannot
achieve at least a 5.5 mbps connection.  Consider the numbers below
and then make your decision.

At 11 mbps link you can transfer between 5.2 mbps and 6 mbps depending
on a number of factors, so let's say 5 mbps for easy math.

At 5.5 mbps link you have about 2.5 mbps actual data transfer 
capability.

At 2 mbps link you have about 1.5 mbps data transfer capability.

At 1 mbps link you have about 700 kbps data transfer capability.

If you allow each customer to have a 1 mbps pipe you can support 5
users at 11 mbps link, each at full speed or most likely about 30 to
40 normal users with up to 5 real active at any one time.

You can support 2 users at 5.5 mbps link, each at full speed or most
likely about 10 to 20 normal users with up to 2 real active at any one
time.

You can support 1 users at 2 mbps link, at full speed or most likely
about 5 to 10 normal users with up to 1 real active at any one time.

You cannot support even 1 user at 1 mbps link, at full speed that you 
allow.

Be very aware that 1 user with a 1 mbps link that is allowed to have a
1 mbps pipe will consume EVERY BIT of airtime that you have available.
It is just the same as putting in a private link for them, except
that you have 20 to 40 other customers who just don't understand why
their Internet is so slow.

There are still a lot of guys who do not get this simple concept.
They want to be the hero and hook up everybody and not install better
gear or a tower to get above the trees or whatever.  They just want to
hook the guy up and rationalize that it is better than dialup.  Well
maybe it is, but it is a far cry from what you could do and what the
other users probably expect.  They don't understand why they have
sloppy service when they have a clear shot to your tower and you tell
them they have excellent signal readings.

We insist on each user being able to do at least 10 mbps of actual
data transfer.  Our pipe is currently a smal 4 mbps, so we are able to
have any user consume it all.  This makes sure that I do not get a
single user killing my wireless and thus leaving unused Internet speed
from the 4 mbps.  I want that 4 mbps to be available and actually
getting used.

Our clients are all using Atheros cards and that means we can achieve
the 10 mbps transfer with as little as -84 dB signal.  I strive to get
everybody to at least -75 dB signals and at that point they can can
usually do at least 25 mbps of transfer.  This is important to us
because in 2 weeks I get my 30 mbps FDX fibre feed.  The last thing I
want is to be paying for 30 mbps and using 4 mbps becasue I tried to
provide service when I should have walked away.

Lonnie




On 7/26/06, Jason Hensley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
So Marlon, using what I perceive to be your ideas below, it's not 
too bad of
a deal to put a "marginal" customer on (maybe not at -90, but maybe 
-80 or
even -85, or do you think -85 is not even good enough?) so long as 
we have a
clean link and we can make it with next to no packet loss?

In my situation, I'm selling mainly 512kbps connections.  I have a 
few that
want a full meg, and one that may be looking at 3meg shortly, but 
I've got
mainly resi customers at the moment.  I'm finding though, that I can 
beat up
on DSL pricing for businesses here so I'm starting to hit that market a
little more.  But, I need to be sure my system is stable before I 
really get
into this.

I appreciate everyone's feedback on this topic.  I haven't figured 
out my
issues completely from my original post, but they have actually 
cleared up
somewhat.  I'm starting to actually wonder if I have either a bad 
AP, or if
I have water issues as it seems like it was acting up in the middle 
of the
afternoon, and then again later at night.  Beyond that, we have good 
solid
consistent ping times (5ms or less) to all clients (yes, even the 
one with
a -90).  But, again, haven't had any problems in about a week.

Waiting for it to cool down a bit before we put in our backhaul 
(this POP is
on top of a water tower).

Which brings another question, how high from the top of a water 
tower would
you recommed mounting the antenna?  It's a PacWireless 13db 
Omni-horizontal.
It's a "cylinder" tower.  Right now the antenna is mounted directly 
onto the
ladder railing on top.  We're going to raise it up 5' or so when we 
put in
the backhaul too.  I'm thinking that may help keep things clean too, 
as well
as give me just a bit more range with it (one side is partially 
blocked by
the "dome" on the top middle of the tower).


----- Original Message -----
From: "Marlon K. Schafer (509) 982-2181" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2006 11:00 AM
Subject: Re: [WISPA] Tranzeo WDS capacity, Mikrotik - problems


> That's fine if you have enough potential customers to saturate 
your > ap's
> at the 11 meg speed.   Out here we'll take anything we can get.  
If it
> slows down to 1 meg for a customer that's still much better than his
> dialup was.
>
> We have VERY few customers that get less than 1 meg of actual 
speed. > Even
> in high interference zones that have 40ish users per ap.  Got some 
> folks
> in an area that are below the main omni beam that only get 600ish, 
but
> that same system will deliver 3+ megs further out or up a bit 
higher. > Go
> figure.
>
> As cheap as ap's are getting we just keep sectorizing out to 
smaller > and
> smaller customer groups.  That's helping a lot of things.
> Marlon
> (509) 982-2181                                   Equipment sales
> (408) 907-6910 (Vonage)                    Consulting services
> 42846865 (icq)                                    And I run my own 
> wisp!
> 64.146.146.12 (net meeting)
> www.odessaoffice.com/wireless
> www.odessaoffice.com/marlon/cam
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Chad Halsted" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2006 8:26 PM
> Subject: RE: [WISPA] Tranzeo WDS capacity, Mikrotik - problems
>
>
> The idea is to not do the install unless you can maintain a reliable
> 11mb connection (usually -75 or better) that passes the 0% loss rule.
> So, having done that, you shouldn't drop customers.
>
> Or at least that is what I have been taught, I could be 
misinformed. > :-)
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
> Behalf Of Marlon K. Schafer (509) 982-2181
> Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2006 12:23 PM
> To: WISPA General List
> Subject: Re: [WISPA] Tranzeo WDS capacity, Mikrotik - problems
>
> We almost never hard set any radios to any speed.  I'd rather have 
the
> system slow down than drop customers.
>
> Marlon
> (509) 982-2181                                   Equipment sales
> (408) 907-6910 (Vonage)                    Consulting services
> 42846865 (icq)                                    And I run my own 
> wisp!
> 64.146.146.12 (net meeting)
> www.odessaoffice.com/wireless
> www.odessaoffice.com/marlon/cam
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Chad Halsted" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 9:36 PM
> Subject: RE: [WISPA] Tranzeo WDS capacity, Mikrotik - problems
>
>
>
> If you haven't run a test with a spectrum analyzer, there really 
is no
> way to know for sure what is out there.  Harmful noise, as you 
probably
> know, can come from all sorts of devices, not just 802.x APs.
>
> Yes, -90 is bad for several reasons.
>
> 1.  That link is probably suffering from high packet loss.  This will
> not only cause problems for the customer's link, but will keep 
your AP
> busy resending dropped packets.  One customer isn't going to 
overload > an
> AP, but several could.
>
> 2.  -90 doesn't leave much room for fade.  Bad weather could, and 
most
> likely will, knock this link out in a heart beat.
>
> 3. The rate at which the client and AP talk at a -90 would be 1MB.
> Whenever the AP is "talking" to the client it will have to adjust its
> rate to match that of the client's.  When another client, let's 
say > it's
> connected at an 11mb rate, wants to talk the AP has to adjust its 
rate
> to 11mb, these constant adjustments can cause latency, dropped 
packets,
> and overload the CPU on the AP.  This is more evident with the more
> clients you have.
>
> Always set your AP rate to "auto", hard set all clients to 11MB.  
Just
> make sure you don't do the install unless it will support an 11MB 
rate.
> Lastly, I would suggest that you test each and every link for packet
> loss sending large packets, 0% or less and you'll be good to go.
>
> I could be way off; your -90 client may be working perfectly.  I just
> thought I would share some info that I had to learn the hard way.
>
> Good Luck!!
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
> Behalf Of Jason Hensley
> Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 4:34 PM
> To: WISPA General List
> Subject: Re: [WISPA] Tranzeo WDS capacity, Mikrotik - problems
>
> Interference really isn't much of an issue here.  There's one 
other > WISP
> and
> we work pretty closely together to stay out of each other's way.  
We've
> analyzed the area and nothing else is out there but us and the 
typical
> home
> APs.
>
> So -90 is that bad huh?  Guess I may need to rethink those two > 
installs.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Chad Halsted" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 3:46 PM
> Subject: RE: [WISPA] Tranzeo WDS capacity, Mikrotik - problems
>
>
> No personal experience on the X10, but from what I here, it will give
> you nightmares.
>
> Seems like I heard Marlon speak such wonderful things about the x10
> before, eh Marlon?
>
> -90 signal is never a good thing.  We won't do an install unless it's
> -75 or better.  Sometimes even a -75 isn't strong enough to combat 
all
> the interference we have in town.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
> Behalf Of Jason Hensley
> Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 1:36 PM
> To: WISPA General List
> Subject: [WISPA] Tranzeo WDS capacity, Mikrotik - problems
>
> I've got a two AP WDS setup with Tranzeo TR-6000's with 
PacWireless > 13db
> omni's on each.  They are less than a mile apart.  Any idea how many
> CPE's
> can run on each AP before it starts causing issues?  We're going 
to be
> replacing the WDS setup with an actual backhaul soon, but just 
haven't
> gotten it done yet.
>
> I'm having trouble with performance.  Works fine for awhile and 
then it
> seems to bog down, and then back to normal again.  I've got about 10
> clients
> (all  Tranzeo gear) on each of the AP's.  I wouldn't think that this
> would
> cause issues but I may be wrong.  Signal between the WDS 
connections is
> around the -65 mark so that's no problem.  I've got a couple of
> marginal
> clients (running -90 or so) so I'm wondering if these could 
possibly be
> causing it. Everything is horizontal pol.
>
> When the service completely drops out I can get to the AP's just fine
> from
> the client end, but can't get to the router (RB532).  I've 
switched out
> cabling, switches, etc with no luck.  Have a new 532 on the way so 
I'm
> going
> to switch it out as well and see what happens, but anyone have any 
> other
>
> thoughts?
>
> Also, anyone have experience with an X10 camera shutting down their
> network?
>
> Thanks!
>
>
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--
Lonnie Nunweiler
Valemount Networks Corporation
http://www.star-os.com/
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George Rogato

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