I want to answer some of this from my perspective. Why is StarOS not used as much and not as widely available? SUPPORT!!! Valemont networks are hard people to deal with. You have to be immensely patient to get support and ignore some of what is stated by the support staff about how you are using their equipment. They have their way and that is what they support.
StarOS is a solid environment, but you have to commit yourself to making it work. Very hard for a startup company to just pick it up and install it. You have a huge learning curve. The other thing I saw was that version changes are huge. When going from a V2 OS setup to a V3, There were huge changes in the OS that took lots of testing and many adjustments to our system. IMHO if the StarOS environment wants to ever have the impact that it has the ability to have, they need to train people and setup user groups like MT has. They need to quit having programmers with no people skills answer support questions and they need to decide what their business model and plan for the future is. Without this in place why would a vendor want to carry their inventory and have to answer questions about something so poorly supported? As Matt stated once installed and setup it is ROCK SOLID stuff and very flexible (if you can figure out how.) Steve Barnes RCWiFi Wireless Internet Service -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Josh Luthman Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2008 1:21 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Where is StarOS? As I have said I have no experience with StarOS. I wish I had learned of this when I was first starting as I may have much of it in use now but I still may start using it if I ever dive into it. With the list of very impressive things you have seen and accomplished with it I can't help but ask the questions - why are there only two major vendors? Why aren't more WISPs using this product? What is the fault that makes it such a small part of the market - is it the marketing the company failed to do? Is there some major flaw everyone avoids? Thank you very much for sharing that information, Matt. I for one really enjoy reading these "soapbox articles" =) The bullet points of the epic above: *many customers in the 15-25 mile range running on StarOS APs *one sub at 33 miles that runs 15-20gig of traffic a month - no complaints (we all love that last part) *802.11b APs with 85-90 subs on them, and 802.11a APs with 100+ *One pulled out all of their $5000-$9000 Motorola backhauls and replaced them with $900 StarOS FDD BH and saw huge improvements in performance. *Several more but these are the real good ones with numbers =) Josh Luthman Office: 937-552-2340 Direct: 937-552-2343 1100 Wayne St Suite 1337 Troy, OH 45373 Those who don't understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. --- Henry Spencer On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 1:06 AM, Matt Larsen - Lists <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: > 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! 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