I put myself in as being Tranzeo based, as that is the heavy majority of my CPE radios, although I have a fair amount of Ubiquiti, Telex, HighGain and a smattering of Mikrotik CPE as well. Chuck started the survey, and as a Canopy user he is more used to the idea of everything coming from the same vendor. With StarOS and Mikrotik, you can use one thing for your APs and backhauls, and another brand or multiple different brands for your CPE radios.
All of my APs and backhauls are on StarOS. I find that there are a lot of StarOS operators out there, but you don't hear from them because they tend to gather on the StarOS forums and don't get involved in list politics. Unfortunately, many of the discussions on this and other lists ends up focusing on Mikrotik and Canopy because there are more vendors pushing them, and users "evangelizing" them. I have plenty of experience with StarOS, Mikrotik and Tranzeo - and I have deployed Trango and Canopy as well. For the majority of the wireless applications I have been involved in, it was the most ubiquitous and best value of the platforms I have used. It is not a "brain-dead" deployment - if you want to run a bridged network, StarOS is definitely not for you. There is a little bit of a learning curve, and almost no available training resources for it beyond the StarOS forums. There are few vendors that sell it - FreeSpace and Streakwave are about the only two major ones that do much with Star. The developers are not exactly accessible and will become openly hostile if your choice of network topology doesn't fit their recommended way of doing things. These are all factors that limit the overall adoption of StarOS. However, at the core of StarOS is a set of world-class wireless drivers. StarOS was the first platform to have 20/10/5mhz channels with the Atheros chipsets. Their distance settings were a first, going back to their Orinoco drivers, and enabling WISPs to pick up customers beyond the 12mile wifi limit. I have many customers in the 15-25 mile range running on StarOS APs. I actually have one sub at 33 miles that runs 15-20gig of traffic a month - no complaints. With good bandwidth management profiles, you can get a lot of people on an AP. I have had 802.11b APs with 85-90 subs on them, and 802.11a APs with 100+. It is doable, and I have done it. StarOS is also great for backhauls, both half and full-duplex. I have a pair of WAR boards running in turbo mode that have been in the air for 2.5 years, and run 15-35 meg constantly. Haven't so much as changed the channel in that 2 year period. I have FDD links on $400 X4000 radios that will do 50meg throughput (10/40, 25/25, 40/10, whatever) over 20+ miles. I've watched StarOS backhauls kill Canopy backhauls on the same channels, and the signal squelch features allow backhauls to work in places where other stuff flat out will not work. I have 550+ miles of StarOS backhaul up, including a 65 mile shot and several more 35+ mile shots, and several of my consulting clients have just as many miles in the air. One pulled out all of their $5000-$9000 Motorola backhauls and replaced them with $900 StarOS FDD BH and saw huge improvements in performance. I've even mixed Star and Mikrotik backhauls with decent results. StarOS has also been a great platform to work with when it comes to building an integrated wireless platform. Radius auth of MAC addresses has been there from the start, and doesn't require any special servers beyond a radius server. Loading DHCP scripts, cbq rules and firewall settings is easily automated with shell scripts (much easier than Mikrotik). OSPF works great and does exactly what it is supposed to. SNMP is comprehensive and it's easy to track signal strength, link quality, # of associations, interface traffic and cpu load with commonly available tools. The "F1" associations list is by far the best troubleshooting tool I have used on any platform. There is good stuff in there. Best of all is not being beholden to any specific vendor for CPE radios. Over the years I've used radios from Tranzeo, Teletronics, Orinoco, SmartBridges, Senao, Linksys, D-link, Ubiquiti, Telex, HighGain, Mikrotik, eZY.net, Cisco, Ampwave and probably a few other brands that I don't recall. All different kinds of chipsets work with it, and without the dropped association issues that Mikrotik and other APs have had. One many of my 2.4ghz APs, there is a wide variety of chipsets in the CPE radios - zcom, prism, atheros, orinoco - and they all work fine with the AP. That there is flexibility. I'll get off the soapbox now, but I think you get the point. StarOS is a great platform, even if it doesn't get the attention of some of the other ones out there. Matt Larsen vistabeam.com Scottie Arnett wrote: > I can guess that many of the "other" are StarOS as Matt Larsen used, it > should have been included as MFG. I know of many WISP using it. If that > number gets large enough, it would be interesting to know what the makeup of > it is. > > Scottie > > ---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- > From: "Doug Ratcliffe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Reply-To: WISPA General List <wireless@wispa.org> > Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2008 14:21:39 -0500 > > >> Big question is though, the guys using Redline & Alvarion, is their monthly >> ARPU much higher than the Canopy/Others? >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Chuck McCown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> To: <wireless@wispa.org> >> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> Sent: Monday, December 08, 2008 1:56 PM >> Subject: [WISPA] Where is JAB when we need them >> >> >> >>> Redline 286 0.334058 >>> Alvarion 4027 4.70367 >>> Ubiquity 1728 2.018361 >>> Canopy 38583 45.06623 >>> Other 7816 9.129348 >>> Trango 11252 13.14271 >>> Tranzeo 10029 11.71421 >>> MT 11893 13.89142 >>> Total 85614 100 >>> >>> Responses 85 >>> >>> >>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> WISPA Wants You! Join today! >>> http://signup.wispa.org/ >>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> >>> WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org >>> >>> Subscribe/Unsubscribe: >>> http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless >>> >>> Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ >>> >>> >> >> >> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> WISPA Wants You! Join today! >> http://signup.wispa.org/ >> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org >> >> Subscribe/Unsubscribe: >> http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless >> >> Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ >> --- >> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus] >> >> >> > > Wireless High Speed Broadband service from Info-Ed, Inc. as low as $30.00/mth. > Check out www.info-ed.com/wireless.html for information. > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > WISPA Wants You! Join today! > http://signup.wispa.org/ > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org > > Subscribe/Unsubscribe: > http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless > > Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
