Charles, I don't think that is the point that is being made. While you are correct with your this is a 'apples to oranges' comparison, it is hard to ignore the very fact that when folks such as Ubiquity enter the market place, they end up causing a 'shake down' for everyone, forcing the other mfg. to either really raise the bar (Product performance / pricing) or move down.
We have seen this many a times in the last 15 years, such things do not happen overnight and do take time... Look at Linksys.... They challenged the 'incumbent' networking equipment mfg. many don't exist any more, and today Linksys is owned and operated by Cisco.... Regardless of the fact that you like or dislike linksys products, it is impossible to deny the impact they have made in the networking equipment market place. Just like the opensource folks are doing to established software vendors.... So here is my prediction.... Mid-market (Price/performance) mfg. will have a tough time surviving in the wireless market place... The Current established High End players will have to decide either come down in their price preformance or go UP towards the High Price range... My guess is that the cost of Hardware mfg. is about the same for all (give or take), but it is the cost of development and QC that makes the difference...Time and Time again we have seen that folks are willing to put up with less quality when the cost comes down. Why should it be different this time ? It is interesting to see this conversation in a group of folks who came into being, because of 'innovative' low cost equipment mfg. One a separate note:- Looking at the Wireline Broadband industry's development..... The smaller operators demonstated a viable marketplace for Internet Access...using 'disruptive' gear... And afterwards, the larger operators stepped in the make things work at a whole different scale...I am not sure how many of us here realize that the equipment handling the wire line networks today (capacity wise) did not exist 10 years ago, some of the larger routers did not exist even 5 years ago..There are whole product lines (from Cisco/Nortel/Alcatel etc. which are custom built just for the Incumbents.....simply because there are no other large customers who could use these types of devices... Why should the Wirless industry be any different ? BTW.... Just 5 years ago, Motorola did not have a Reference customer with 5000 + subscribers...(they themselves did not know if the Canopy system was going to scale to that level)...But things change... Faisal Imtiaz Computer Office Solutions Inc. /SnappyDSL.net Ph: (305) 663-5518 x 232 -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Charles Wu Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 11:34 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Wimax gear >We have successfuly used ubiquiti nano and power stations as injection >radios for numerous tripod and cisco mesh systems. No problems. Of >course I have used canopy for it too- no real difference in the end >performance. But there's a huge difference between "using a few here and there" and "relying on things as a platform for wide-scale operations" Let's go back to the original thread -- we were talking about how Ubiquiti was "changing the game" with their new $75 AP that does 150 Mb or something (as compared to the Alvarion/Motorolas/WiMAX guys of the world who still don't "get it" with their $3/5/10k APs) -- up until now, it's been my experience that this is an "apples to oranges" debate (heck, couldn't I make the same argument that belkin or dlink has had a super-N mimo AP for $69 at Best Buy for some time now?) The last guy I know who tried this (actually a WISP with ~5k customers who might be reading this thread =) decided to go "all-out" with Mikrotik -- sure, the APs cost $200 or something, but he found that contention limited him to 20-30 customers / AP, while an "slower and 5x more expensive" Canopy system allowed him to put 100+ customer / AP -- in his case, one of the things that factored into the decision was tower rent Now, this was probably a year ago and things may have changed... I am not saying that ubiquity / mikrotik aren't good solutions -- we see nice applications for such units to "fill in gaps" or "extend the network" where terrain is challenging and there are "pockets" of small density (e.g., a neighborhood cul-de-sac or something similar with 3 or 4 additional people) -- and I'd probably wager that almost every WISP - Canopy/Alvarion/WiMAX/etc has deployed a few nanos/locos/etc in such a manner fashion, but that's a far different cry than using it as a primary platform of choice for delivering service to thousands of subscribers That being said, if someone has built such a system, please pipe up and share your experiences -- I'm always interested in learning how to do things better/faster/cheaper... -Charles On Dec 30, 2009, at 7:05 PM, Charles Wu <[email protected]> wrote: > I find these comparisons of products like Ubiquiti / Mikrotik vs. > Motorola / WiMAX products to be somewhat unrealistic -- it seems to me > that it's like comparing something that's hypothetical and "looks good > on paper" and "hoping" that it will actually work > > Here's my question; sure, on paper, the new Ubiquiti WHATEVER will > give me a Gazillion Mbps with Beamforming and everything for $10 -- > but has anyone actually made this stuff work and scaled it into a > profitable business? > > Many of the WISPs that I've talked to who gone down this path have had > to upgrade / replace / retool their networks due to the fact that > these systems don't scale > > The one WISP that I know using Ubiquiti / Mikrotik with several > thousand customers is only using them as endpoints on a Bel-Air > Network Mesh infrastructure that they spent almost $1 million building > out > > It reminds me of the Asterisk vs. Broadsoft / Metaswitch VoIP debates > from a couple of years back -- sure, Asterisk was "free" > while a Broadsoft platform had an entry cost of $250k, but I know of > tons of Broadsoft providers who support tens of thousands of customers > for hosted PBX, and the only guy I know doing it on Asterisk ended up > spending over $500k hiring a custom programming team in Russia to > rebuild the system for him from scratch (he was joking to me that in > hindsight, it would've been cheaper and a lot easier to just buy a > Broadsoft) > > I would like to be proven wrong here...so shoot =) > > -Charles > > > > --- > --- > --- > --- > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > WISPA Wants You! 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