Hi Tom, Thanks for the great feedback. See comments below.
Tim On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 5:26 PM, Tom DeReggi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: > Tim, > > Now that you have made your shameless self promotion sales pitch :-) I > thought I'd scrutinize your comments, palying devils advocate :-) > > I have not looked at your BOSS software or Firmwre, so I am asking blind at > this point. But I am interested in your perspective, since you are > interested in WISP markets. > > AP and CPE devices will need to use our firmware but >> once installed can be managed from anywhere. We currently have our >> firmware >> ported to half a dozen devices and we're working on adding more ports all >> the time. >> > > The above was the key comment that got my attention, and how that would > reflect the reality of what could be a viable target market.. > > Is it really realistic to "use a BOSS provider's Firmware on APs and CPEs"? > Come on.... WISPs have graduated basic Wifi APs and CPEs. It has taken > almost a decade for the Firmware leaders of today to develop feature rich > products that WISPs can actually count on working well enough for commercial > deployment. (examples... Mikrotik, StarOS, Ligowave, etc). These are excellent products, we've deployed Mikrotik systems ourselves in the past, the only problem with these systems is that the know-how required to set them up creates a barrier to entry and increases the cost of management (ie trained staff) and therefore the cost to the subscriber. We've come at this from a different perspective; we've been rolling out hot spot systems which can be set-up and managed with a days worth of training (most of that covering RF theory). Most of our customers come from an IT support/sales background as opposed to a networking/comms role. Having to learn the basics of IP networks, firewalls, Radius authentication and etc required to deploy Mikrotik, stops many would-be WISPs in their tracks. Many on the list may think this is a good thing (keeping standards high) but it also means a lot of small communities go without wireless. We've tried to make our system as plug-and-play as possible. We do not offer all the features you could get writing custom scripts for Mikrotik but we allow WISPs to set up secure networks with billing, reporting, remote management and monitoring/alerting with little effort. > > Why would a WISP risk a tried and true solution to convert to something > new, just for integration into a BOSS system? Could they risk that? Thats > like going to a CLEC provider and saying... "We have this new BOSS system, > would you mind just throwing away all your CISCOs.". Generally what WISPs > would want more is a BOSS system that could integrate will all their > pre-eixsting diverse product lines. As a WISP, we all know there are a lot > of tools in the toolbox, and there is the right tool for each type of job. > Even the WISPs most religious to staying true to one brand have branched out > to use many different product lines, because technical reasons and > differences in their technology forced them to, if they wanted to stay > competitive. I would find it more viable to have a "agent" application that > could be integrated into pre-existing OS, to add compatibility. (although > that could also be a huge task technically, and politically also) I should have been clearer on one point... We're not trying to convert existing WISP installations to a new B/OSS system, we're working hard to take Hot Spot operators to the next level and give them the chance of expanding into covering neighbourhoods (ie become a small WISP). All of our customers so far have installed systems for less than 100 subscribers. I've not run a WISP myself but I bet it's not cost effective to do this using Mikrotik or Canopy. Using a plug-and-play Atheros based device with a web based B/OSS brings the cost right down. I know the reliability of such systems can be somewhat lacking but with the reduced cost it is possible to build in a great deal of redundancy and have the B/OSS manage failovers. When a BOSS requires its own Firmware for devices, it usually means that the > WISPs will now need two BOSS systems. One for their new proprietary system, > and one for all their other stuff. That means duplication of ALL costs. > Labor, hardware, CC processing, learning curve, documentation, etc, etc. So > teh service subscribption could no longer be justified as a time saver, as > it would be yet another application "added" to the list to manage. Also > note a platform change is not jsut a technology change, it is also a process > change. > > Do not misunderstand me, I am NOT Bashing your product. I'm just sharing > the first thoughts that came to my mind, when I don't yet understand your > product, and it would potentually be a thought likely to cross other WISP's > minds. Don't worry, I was expecting this, we knew we'd have problems selling to existing WISPs by offering yet another B/OSS. Hence the decision to target new WISPs and ambitious Hot Spots operators... How do you feel your product, will or could fit into an existing WISP's > operation? And what processes/features could be extended to pre-existing > models? Not sure we could extend too many features to pre-existing models but we're trying the next best thing. We've been porting our firmware to different platforms (x86, Atheros SoC, IXP425, ADM5120, RTL8186) so that WISPs can use existing hardware. I'd expect WISPs to deploy Avansu for new installations rather than upgrading existing (where the costs have already been sunk into the network) We're really focussed on cutting deployment and management costs (cheaper hardware and less experienced staff). This mainly makes sense on new deployments. > To be more politically correct, this is a question not necessarilly > directed specifically to your product, but any product that offers a more > narrow specialized management solution (such as HotSpot) to integrate into > an exist provider's network of any type. > > A trend I see is many vendors are providing RMS systems for their radio > firmware platforms. (I'll spare you the list, but atleast 10 I could name > off teh top of my head). However, most are jsut compatible with their own > product, which takes away a large part of the value proposition for many > WISPs. I personally, see 2009 and 2010 being about increasing BOSS's > compatibilty to encompass a much larger models and products. The analogy I > like to use is looking at a company like at Comcast or a Verizon. Would > they give their support staff 5 different OSS platforms to manage all the > peices of their network? WISPS are growing, and there is a dream for one > platform that does it all, and it will be even more importnat as teh roll > ups occur. Or will it be a technical impossibilty? The main difficulty with integrating B/OSS systems with existing firmware is that you're only able to offer a subset of the features you could offer with your own firmware. We have toyed with adding hooks for Radius and SNMP so that existing devices can be used with our B/OSS, the only problem is that customers could end up with less features than the one they are replacing. Something as simple as a remote reboot can be a nightmare to implement for example. Of course it is possible to have the B/OSS interact with deployed units remotely via the web interface or telnet/ssh but that's not a simple solution to implement and would require a lot of maintenance. The only way to integrate different B/OSS systems and devices would be to implement some standards based translation layer between the device and the B/OSS. I'm not aware of any proposed implementations for this. Vendors of course, also have little interest in allowing customers to use different a B/OSS. Integration will only likely come when one B/OSS system becomes somewhat of a standard (open source?) and many hardware vendors choose to support it. > > > Tom DeReggi > RapidDSL & Wireless, Inc > IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband > > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tim Barker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org> > Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 5:40 PM > Subject: Re: [WISPA] Billing and process management system > > > While you guys are on the topic could I also ask you to look at our >> offering? >> >> We've been selling hot spot systems for the hospitality industry since >> 2004 >> but over the past year have started putting together a package for WISPs. >> We've branded the WISP solution Avansu (http://www.avansu.com). >> >> Avansu is a B/OSS provided entirely as a service (via the browser), no >> software to install. AP and CPE devices will need to use our firmware but >> once installed can be managed from anywhere. We currently have our >> firmware >> ported to half a dozen devices and we're working on adding more ports all >> the time. >> >> Avansu offers the following: >> - Billing (subscriptions, credit card payments, scratch cards etc) >> - Remote management, configuration and reboot of APs and CPEs >> - Monitoring and alerting via SMS and email (with automated failover if >> available) >> - Fully customizable login pages for CPEs and APs (including own domain) >> - Fully customizable credit card billing and subscription pages (including >> own domain) >> - Reports on usage and revenue for single nodes, groups of nodes or the >> whole system >> >> The main advantage of Avansu is that APs and CPEs work the same no matter >> what hardware (vendor) is used. Once the Avansu firmware is installed >> nodes >> can be deployed by simply copying configuration parameters from one unit >> to >> another via the server. >> >> We're still in beta for WISPs, we'll be launching fully in January 2009. >> Until launch we're offering free accounts so let me know off list if you'd >> like to try our system. >> >> Sorry for the self promotion but you guys were discussing the topic, I >> couldn't help myself ;-) >> >> >> Tim Barker >> >> Fire4 Systems (UK) Ltd. >> Round Foundry Media Centre, >> Foundry Street, >> Leeds, >> LS11 5QP, >> UK >> >> Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> UK Tel: +44 (0)7976 122 191 >> US Tel: +1 305-914-0364 >> >> http://www.fire4.com >> http://www.avansu.com >> http://www.wispzone.com >> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! 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