Tom, I have sat in on planning these networks with Time Warner and Comcast. The way they are building these versions they will work for their purposes. Trust me I have built a couple of large scale muni networks J In regards to the mounting issues, so long as they have above ground outside plant life will be good for them. These nodes mount on the suspended messenger wire, not the poles. That means they can just attach them to their existing lines. I'm not saying that it will be easy but it's much easier than someone else trying to build given the fact that they already occupy the space on said poles. They are also planning to ink deals with local businesses to mount nodes when necessary. Since they will be wiring every node to their network for backhaul, there is no requirement for any wireless meshing, just connectivity to the client device. They do not necessarily plan to have a contiguous network market wide, just where there are likely to be high concentrations of users. This also not meant to be a network that will hand off connections from node to node at highway speeds. They are assuming a relatively stationary user of the system.
This whole design philosophy is quite different from the muni Wi-Fi networks most of us think about. The real reason they are building these is to keep customer churn down by offering existing broadband and video customers a free mobility component in areas they are likely to need it. I would expect they will also later ink some roaming deals will cellular carriers but that is not on their initial radar as of now. They will be using nodes that have smart channel selection capability which will pick the quietest channel. In some cases there are also plans to include the 5 gig spectrum as consumer devices are now showing up on the market capable of using both bands. I would not be so quick to dismiss this iteration of outdoor Wi-Fi. It's coming; they have combined an extra 3.5 billion dollars they just received from selling spectrum to Verizon. They are hiring plenty of skill to build this properly and/or fix issues that arise. It's change and it's coming. There is enough at stake to have to make this work. Cellular needs a successful deployment strategy for outdoor Wi-Fi to work as well for their offload needs. The manufacturers have a lot of radios they want to sell so they have to make it work now. Outdoor Wi-Fi will not go away now, you can take that bet to the bank. You may not like or want that to happen but it's going to just the same. When people say it can't happen I just remind myself of how many times I have said that over my wireless career and how many times I was proven wrong. Heck just a few months ago people were complaining that the spectral mask in TVWS was not going to allow for any reasonable speed offerings, yet now all of the sudden we have manufacturers coming up with designs that work. Everything changes and they change faster when more money is at stake. Thank You, Brian Webster www.wirelessmapping.com www.Broadband-Mapping.com From: Tom DeReggi [mailto:wirelessn...@rapiddsl.net] Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 11:46 AM To: bwebs...@wirelessmapping.com; WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ericsson is buying BelAir, betting on Wi-Fi Yes, a typical tactic for the sole purpose to destroy the RF environment, and scare high ARPU businesses and investors from trusting third party unlicensed wireless providers solutions. Its all about fear factor. But Just like any other large scale MUNI network, it wont work, and will be to costly to maintain, and the bad press will incourage the Cable Cos to shut down the networks instead of continueing to damage their brand's reputation as a quality high speed resildential provider. They can plan to deploy 10,000 nodes, but planning has no value if there is no where to put/mount them. Maybe they could mount them inside people's homes :-) Surely, they aren't going to work mounted on their tiny green 2ft pedestals on every corner. Surely, they aren't going to pay landlords $200/month each to mount on 10,000 commercial building roofs. What they more likely would do is go put in Wifi access points into the communities that they do not want to dig up the streets and bring cable to, that the City/states are trying to force them to do with cable, leveraging the franchise agreement renegotiations. A attitude like, get off my back, why spend $5000 to dig, when I can spend $200 on an access point and pretend we serve everyone, and make it a play on all the lobbying WISPs did to say, "wireless is good enough" for WISPs, so it must also be good enough for Cable Cos. I could easilly see Comcast applying for USF, and using Wireless combined with Cable. >Time Warner is planning I believe around 10,000 node in the LA market this year and after they get that market proven, they plan on rolling out nationwide in their markets Except the market wont be proven successful. Funny how history repeats itself. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL & Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband ----- Original Message ----- From: Brian Webster <mailto:bwebs...@wirelessmapping.com> To: 'WISPA General List' <mailto:wireless@wispa.org> ; memb...@wispa.org Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2012 4:16 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Ericsson is buying BelAir, betting on Wi-Fi It's not just the cellular industry. Comcast is deploying 18,000 outdoor wi-fi nodes this year and giving that service for free to their customers to keep them happy in a mobile environment and reduce churn. Time Warner is planning I believe around 10,000 node in the LA market this year and after they get that market proven, they plan on rolling out nationwide in their markets. The networks are specifically being designed for tablets and wi-fi enabled phones in a nomadic but not seamless mobile environment. Being that the cable companies who sold spectrum to Verizon for 3.5 billion dollars, they are using some of that money for these deployments. For those in those metro markets, these carriers are planning both 2.4 and 5 GHz dual mode radios. Thank You, Brian Webster www.wirelessmapping.com www.Broadband-Mapping.com From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of Jack Unger Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2012 12:00 PM To: "memb...@wispa.org" w; WISPA General List Subject: [WISPA] Ericsson is buying BelAir, betting on Wi-Fi In a sure sign that the cellular industry is getting serious about Wi-Fi, telecom networking giant Ericsson is buying BelAir Networks, adding its high-performance outdoor hotspot technology to its portfolio, sources told GigaOM. The deal could signal a big shift in the mindset of the big wireless vendors, which have always favored their own specialized and expensive cellular technologies to meet growing mobile data demand rather than more generic but much cheaper Wi-Fi tech... <http://gigaom.com/broadband/ericsson-pursuing-wi-fi-with-belair-networks-bu y/> -- Jack Unger - President, Ask-Wi.Com, Inc. Author (2003) - "Deploying License-Free Wireless Wide-Area Networks" Serving the WISP Community since 1993 www.ask-wi.com 818-227-4220 jun...@ask-wi.com _____ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- 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/
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