Wireless Internet Service Provider News - WISPNews

Alvarion Webinar Impressions

Here are some very raw, very initial, very incomplete impressions from today's Alvarion "What's New, What's Different" WISP Webinar from 12:00 - 13:15 Pacific. I took some notes for a future, comprehensive article about what Alvarion revealed and I hope to do an interview with presenter Patrick Leary, get a copy of the presentation and listen to the replay (very cool if they provide it as a MP3 / podcast). Only then would I have a prayer of doing justice to all of what Alvarion presented.

The Webinar should have been a three-hour seminar, distilled down to its essence to fit into a one-hour timeslot. Leary delivered a solid, but rapid-fire presentation describing numerous product improvements, new product announcements, solid  background information about Alvarion's technological choices, and "sneak peaks".

Leary led off the presentation by talking about Alvarion's corporate strengths, including that it's a publicly traded company, and thus offering a high degree of transparency with which to judge their overall corporate "stability" (my words, not Leary's). Alvarion has offered products specifically designed and built for the WISP market since before there has been a widely-recognized WISP market. (I've been watching the WISP market since late 1996, and Alvarion [then BreezeCOM] was a major vendor before then.)

Stroh Publications LLC Joins WISPA

Posting to WISPA public and WISPA Members lists:

New WISPA Member - Steve Stroh
From: John Scrivner    
To: WISPA, members
10/9/2007, 8:17 pm

It brings me great joy to introduce one of WISPA's newest members. Steve Stroh is much more than a journalist of our industry. He is a pundit, a visionary and a true friend to WISPs. I have been very fortunate to be able to get to know him well enough to call him a friend of mine personally. If ever there was a true litmus test for WISPA to be fully vested and entrenched in the culture of this industry this day surely marks it with this introduction of Steve Stroh as an Associate Member of our association. Welcome Steve!

Here is a bit of information about Steve in his own words:

I started writing about WISPs and what I now call the Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) industry in April, 1997 with a column in Boardwatch Magazine called Wireless Data Developments. The column explored the (then) odd concept of ISPs using wireless instead of dialup, ISDN, or the brand new technology of DSL. In the following years I ended up writing about BWIA for a number of magazines such as Broadband Wireless Business Magazine. The writing looked sufficiently promising that in 2000, I quit my day job as a System Administrator for a large company to write full time. But within a year, the dot-com crash hit, and all the freelance writing jobs evaporated. So I started a newsletter, FOCUS On Broadband Wireless Internet Access so I could continue to tell interesting stories about BWIA vendors, technology, and service providers. About the same time I started dabbling in writing a blog, sometimes independently, other times for another company (which was a really disappointing experience). Eventually I started my BWIA News blog, which I've really enjoyed doing. In 2004, my friend Marlon Schafer recommended me as a co-host for a new web-based talk radio show being produced by Jim Sutton called Wireless Tech Radio. Marlon, Jim, and I had a lot of fun with WTR and we kept it going for about year and a half, but eventually the financial and editorial overhead got to be a bit much and Jim had to focus on finding a full-time job.

I'd always done some consulting, and in late 2005 and all of 2006, I landed a couple of long-consulting jobs which prevented me from writing very much about BWIA. While I was doing the consulting work, I saw a new opportunity to write about BWIA in a more powerful way. Blogs had gone mainstream - when they're done right, blogs now filled the role previously occupied by newsletters, and the new revenue model was advertising and sponsorships. Using blogs made it possible to build a much bigger audience, but you had to "open source your content", not try to restrict it only to subscribers. I had always written about the "big picture" of Broadband Wireless Internet Access as I saw it - encompassing what I considered sub-industries of BWIA such as cellular broadband, satellite Internet access, WISPs, metropolitan Wi-Fi networks, WiMAX, etc. But in the last couple of years I realized that that all of these "sub-industries" consider themselves "standalone" industries; WISPs didn't see themselves competing against metropolitan Wi-Fi networks; satellite Internet access didn't see themselves as being in the same business as cellular broadband, etc. So... I had the idea of individual blogs that discussed each "BWIA sub-industry", and a few about specialized topics such as BWIA operating faster than 1 Gbps, a blog dedicated to Clearwire, WiMAX systems for license-exempt spectrum, dedicated coverage of WISPs (http://www.wispnews.net), etc. might all find their own unique audiences.

I laid out this vision to my wife Tina over dinner one night in December 2006. We ended up talking about it late into the night and she agreed to help make my idea a reality by forming Stroh Publications LLC. Tina put her very strong organizational abilities and her background in business and marketing into the company as Business Manager, and my role as Editor / Analyst is to write full time for the portfolio of blogs. Tina's vision for Stroh Publications LLC extended even further than mine and she surprised me by purchasing the assets of Wireless Tech Radio from Jim Sutton, and hiring a very capable producer to help me restart Wireless Tech Radio later this year. We've also restarted publication of the newsletter, renamed FOCUS On Broadband Wireless Internet Access and WiMAX, reflecting the profound effect that WiMAX is having on the BWIA industry.

I'm really proud to have watched the WISP industry almost from its inception and having had a minor role in helping it grow with my writing, my presentations at conferences such as ISPCON and WISPCON, co-hosting Wireless Tech Radio, and consulting. I think that the WISP industry's best and most interesting days are in the immediate future, not the past. WISPs finally have much of the technology that they've always needed, and with 3650, 5.4 GHz, and television whitespaces, they'll finally have good... and enough... spectrum to provide services to a large base of new users, especially in rural areas. We're seeing serious investors seeking out and willing to invest in (or purchase outright) well-run WISPs. There's a dramatic shift occurring in the ISP industry with users demanding higher speeds to support video, (legitimate) peer-to-peer distribution, and incredible waves of innovative "Web 2.0" services. That shift is catching the telcos and cable television companies unprepared to make the enormous investments needed to increase the speed of DSL and cable modem networks, and that represents a huge opportunity for Wireless ISPs. While WISPA has some challenges in its path, its founders did the slow, careful, and at times painful work necessary to insure that WISPA could, and would become the organization that the WISP industry needed... and could be proud of.

I'm very proud that Stroh Publications LLC has been accepted as an Associate Member of WISPA, and in the coming years I hope to be able to help WISPA in more direct ways than just being a member.

Tina and I had hoped to meet with many WISPA members at ISPCON Fall 2007 in San Jose, but some lingering medical issues resulted in me being unable to travel during October and November.

Thanks,

Steve

Some Motorola Canopy Tidbits

There's a thread going on the WISPA General (Wireless, the public list) about how "bad" Motorola Canopy systems are for WISPs to use in their systems.

I posted some tidbits that I've picked up over the years about Canopy that might be of interest, and so I'm posting that information here also.

from Steve Stroh <steve@stevestroh.net>
to WISPA General List <wireless@wispa.org>
date Sep 13, 2007 11:46 AM    
subject Re: [WISPA] Legal Charges used in Malicious Interference Situations

I echo Mike's contention that Canopy was developed directly for use by Broadband Wireless Internet Access Service Providers... but notnecessarily the small, highly entrepreneurial Wireless ISPs.

In my discussions with some key Canopy personnel over the years, some of whom were remarkably candid, some interesting things came out:

• Canopy was originally designed to take advantage of the burgeoning demand for Broadband Internet Access in ulta-high-density markets suchas China. For a variety of reasons, that market never actually materialized, but Motorola (barely) decided to continue Canopy anyway
• Canopy was almost killed several times. One manager "fell on his sword" and retired prematurely as a result of his forceful, but successful lobbying to let Canopy emerge as a product
• Motorola was eventually surprised at how well Canopy was received by the market. For some time Canopy was kept "at arm's length" within Motorola, which during that time Motorola barely acknowledged that Canopy was actually a Motorola product. Even after Motorola grudgingly embraced Canopy as an "official" product, there was at least one very serious attempt to "shop the Canopy division around" to other BWIA vendors. I heard this from several vendors who Motorola approached.
• Part of Motorola's reluctance to embrace Canopy is that it cannibalized some of Motorola's system integration work to build public safety Broadband Wireless systems - Motorola was horrified when some public safety agencies actually deployed Canopy systems themselves (no lucrative systems integration contract)... on the (talk about unintended consequences) "reputation" that Canopy was a Motorola product.
• Canopy was designed for very large deployments by those not necessarily highly skilled in RF issues - hence the one-piece unit. If a service provider "followed the Canopy deployment instructions scrupulously, it almost always worked.
• Motorola KNEW, well in advance, that there would eventually be more 5 GHz spectrum made available in the US - what's now called the 5.4 GHz band, thus spectral efficiency wasn't an overriding criteria in Canopy's original design.
• Canopy's three design criteria were that it be 1) simple to deploy, 2) robust and reliable in operation, and 3) cheap to manufacture and sell.
• Deep down, Canopy's modulation is (pretty much, kind of) FM, adapted for Broadband and Digital operation. (Yes, I know this is probably technically inaccurate and horribly oversimplified, but that's the way it was described as the genesis of Canopy's modulation scheme - it was based on the robustness of FM communicaitons, of which Motorola is a world class expert.
• * The 2.4 GHz and 902-928 MHz versions of Canopy were purely an afterthought, not part of the original plans for Canopy; both were developed only in response to large deployments who needed the frequency diversity and the penetration characteristics of 902-928 MHz.

Thanks,

Steve

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).

Will Your Customers Beat You In Providing Service?

On the isp-wireless mailing list, Daniel Mullen posted this provocative statement:

This is getting mention on another list and it is interesting here - build it or your customer will!

http://www.shadysidewifi.com

(end Mullen posting)

Which says:

Wireless Shadyside is a free wireless [I]nternet network for the Shadyside retail district [in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania]. The network is donated by Shadyside Inn Suites in honor of late co-founder R. Jeffery Plesset. The network covers Walnut Street from Aiken Avenue to S. Negley Avenue. Wireless Shadyside consists of 17 mesh networking nodes connected to one 3.0/768k DSL connection and one 6.0/768 Cable Modem connection.

Wireless Shadyside's FAQ mentions that they're using Meraki Networks mesh networking nodes.

Mullen really gets it - exactly right. Customers now have the capability of building Broadband Wireless Internet Access networks, and as Wireless Shadyside illustrates, they're doing so.

But some WISPs don't get it. A follow-on post was dismissive, with a statement that began "I don't think I'm going to worry about my customers replacing our services with..." Perhaps that WISP has no reason to worry about this particular network using that particular configuration right now, but if you extrapolate just a bit...

• Although Wireless Shadyside is offering Broadband Wireless Internet Access service for free at the moment, they're just a few clicks away from converting the network to a pay model - it's just a configuration change on the Meraki monitoring/control web page, and a brief reload of the nodes. Voila - they're now a revenue-producing WISP. They don't even have to get into the messy business of billing - Meraki takes care of all that.
• There's nothing to stop Meraki from offering increasingly sophisticated systems that are equally low cost, easy to install, manage, and use as their current products.
• As to the use of "residential grade circuits" used as the source of broadband, that is easily changed when necessary. Covad, for example, provides business-grade DSL circuits at reasonable prices for business, and the reports I've heard are that they are easy, pleasant, and efficient to deal with.

Too often, in the day-to-day grind of keeping a Broadband Wireless Internet Access network operational, WISPs can forget about their customer's motivations and desires. Customers simply want to be connected to the Internet - fast, and reasonably reliable. How they get there or what entity connects them is usually an afterthought at best. If they can get a good-enough Internet connection for free or low cost, they typically won't care who's providing it - Wireless Shadyside, a WISP like Acme Wireless Internet (fictional name, as far as I'm aware), the City of Pittsburgh Wi-Fi cloud (fictional, as far as I'm aware), or a large entity like Clearwire or Sprint / Nextel.

Technology moves fast, and WISPs are no more immune to "disruptive technologies" like user-installable wireless mesh networks than the incumbent telecom companies that WISPs are disrupting.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged.)

A Story Of Good WISP Execution

Tom Evslin has written... or rather publicized an email from a WISP that Evslin makes into a great story, about Fire Island Wireless doing what WISPs do best - providing great service to their customers.

I've featured Tom's story on Broadband Wireless Internet Access Stories, and added Fire Island Wireless to Broadband Wireless Internet Access Service Providers.

On another blog, Evslin's correspondent Craig Plunkett discusses Evslin's mention of Fire Island Wireless.

One interesting thing is that Evslin hints that  "displacing DSL" is unusual, but then goes onto explain that Verizon, especially, isn't interested in investing more into DSL, especially in rural areas and how Plunkett shamelessly exploits that opening.

Imagine how well Plunkett would do if he did market and provide features like public IP addresses? He'd probably get more business than he could handle.

While that last comment probably comes off as sounding flip and snide, "more business than one can handle" is a very real, and perilous situation for WISPs. If they can't handle getting new customers online in a timely manner, the customers get irritated and talk bad about the WISP. But, handling "surges" is expensive for WISPs. But if WISPs are to survive and thrive, they must become adept and responsive as Plunkett has become to capitalize on opportunities.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged.)

Permit Me A Small Rant About PR-clueless WISPs

Admittedly this article is going to come across as a rant about a certain category of WISPs. So, if you're not in the mood to read a good rant, however well reasoned, well, there's always Google News.

The genesis for this rant is my ongoing efforts to compile an independent (without regard to membership in a particular organization or other selective criteria) list of Broadband Wireless Internet Access Service Providers, which includes WISPs. I monitor a number of WISP-related mailing lists and many other sources of news about BWIA Service Providers. When I find a BWIA SP or WISP that I haven't heard of, I add them to the BWIA Service Providers list. But when I go to check out many WISP's web pages, which is the online "face" of that WISP to the entire world and, of course, potential customers, investors, news personnel, potential employees, etc. ...

I'm just astonished... and appalled... that many, many WISPs whose web sites I look up simply don't bother to state on their web page where, exactly, it is that they actually provide service! The case in point as I write this is the WISP that I just looked up after seeing their (unfamiliar to me) domain name on a WISP mailing list. The only location information I can glean off that WISP's web page is the area code of their phone number, which (out of disgust) I didn't bother to look up. Heck... from this WISP's web page, I have no clue which state (or province?) this particular WISP operates in, let alone the region! Although this WISP's web page does have a coverage map, it shows counties and cities, but is so zoomed in that only someone who already knew that this WISP operated in a particular area would find the map useful.

I just find this practice to be amazing... amazingly clueless.

C'mon WISPs! I'm not asking you to make it easy on me when I look you up, but think about your potential customers who are trying to find you. Here's a quick test - if you Google "Wireless Internet" +(your county) +(your state) and search results don't show your WISP's web page in the first screen, your web page needs some real work.

At a minimum, any WISP's web site (or, for that matter, web sites for any business) should list the mailing address and/or actual business address. Unless, of course, you have something to hide... which is often a valid assumption when a business doesn't make it apparent where they're doing business from. Do you want to foster that perception?

One last rant while I'm in that mode. If you ever want your WISP to be mentioned in local media, 1) put a News section on your web page, and while you're doing that, put links to any stories you have been mentioned in, and 2) list full "media" contact information under the News section so that media personnel can actually contact you. For example - between the heated coverage that has recently erupted about the upcoming auction of 700 MHz, and yesterday's announcement about Clearwire and Sprint entering into a groundbreaking agreement, (good) news organizations are "hungry" for local angles related to national stories like this. Most of the time, they Google... and without some real location information on your WISP's web site, they won't find your WISP.

Less a rant and more of a well-intentioned suggestion - have you reached out to your local media on behalf of your WISP to let them know your WISP is already providing Broadband Wireless Internet Access in your local area? If not, now would be a great time to tell them about your WISP, perhaps with a teaser Subject like [purely fictional names, as far as I'm aware] "Zitherbloom County doesn't need to wait for Clearwire - Zoomungus Wireless Internet is already providing Fast Wireless Internet". Try it - you've got nothing to lose but new customers who didn't have any idea that your WISP could help them get Broadband Internet Access.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh

A Visit To Tranzeo Wireless Technologies, Part 2

Part 2: Tranzeo's Plans For The Future

In Part 1 of this story, I discussed my wife Tina's and my tour of Tranzeo Wireless Technologies' impressive factory in Pitt Meadows, British Columbia, Canada near Vancouver in March 2007.

In Part 2, the conclusion of this story, we sat down with Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Tony Kott and Vice President of Product Development Damian Wallace to discuss Tranzeo's plans for the future.

One of the first things we discussed was how people's use of Broadband Internet Access has evolved from being convenient and fun to, what is to them, now a necessity. Unlike a typical manufacturer who is "decoupled" from the actual end-users of their product, Tranzeo is able to observe Internet user behavior directly because they own and operate a Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) in nearby Whisler / Maple Ridge which they use as a testbed for new products. Tranzeo makes three key observations about use of Broadband Internet Access:

1. Users get really irritated when their Internet access goes down because they use it for, what is to them, important functions, so WISPs need to design and build their networks to be highly reliable.
2. "Best effort" grade of service is no longer adequate - WISP networks must have sufficient Quality Of Service (QOS) to support Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) very reliably - it's simply expected by the user.
3. Key applications that Broadband Internet Access users expect to work reliably are web browsing, email, Skype, and recently, entertainment. That's what they want to use their Internet connection for, even with the attendant large file transfers. To them, that's what Broadband Internet Access is all about.

One example of product development from their observations of their WISP is that Tranzeo noted that 60% of the traffic was upstream from the users from the use of Skype and video. As a result, Tranzeo developed a radio with full-duplex capability - transmitting and receiving simultaneously.

Tranzeo also gets input about its products by exhibiting at a number of trade shows... but not necessarily just the usual wireless and Internet conferences in the US. Some recent trade shows Tranzeo has exhibited at are CEBIT (the major European Internet and Information Technology [IT] tradeshow), in Germany, GITEX in Dubai, Expocomm in Mexico, and Computex in Taiwan. Exhibiting at major international trade shows such as this makes it apparent that Tranzeo's sights are set much higher than just supplying the WISP industry with great, cost-effective products.

When we discussed industry trends, the discussion quickly turned to WiMAX. Tranzeo sees WiMAX as a major technological shift for the WISP industry from proprietary and 802.11/Wi-Fi-based technology. Advantages of WiMAX include:

• Faster speeds - easily tens of Mbps;
• Full interoperability between different vendor's products - a key advantage for WISPs
• Longer ranges - tens of miles (designed for such ranges, not "fighting it" as is the case with 802.11/Wi-Fi-based systems)
• Near/Non-Line-Of-Sight capabilities
• Less-expensive systems because of higher production volumes, standardization, and direct competition

On the basis of that last point - "less expensive systems", Tranzeo plans to make a major push into the WiMAX market, including OEM sales which is a new line of business. Tranzeo feels it has a key advantage in the WiMAX market in having both design and highly cost-effective manufacturing located in North America because it can be "real-time responsive" to what they expect to be explosive demand for WiMAX Customer Premise Equipment (CPE).

Tranzeo feels that the US 700 MHz band that will be fully available for use beginning in 2009 will "go WiMAX". Tranzeo is close to in-house manufacturing of its 900 MHz systems which, which will then lead to its own 700 MHz technology.

But Tranzeo is hardly waiting around for 700 MHz WiMAX to develop. Tranzeo is busy developing a 3.5 GHz product for non-US markets, including Canada, and is cautiously optimistic about the proposed US 3.65 GHz (3650 MHz) band, and the resulting demand for systems from their core market of Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs).

In its non-WiMAX products, Tranzeo (planned, at the date of the interview) to be testing a new feature for its products that would add the "new" (to the US) 5.4 GHz band which required Tranzeo to add Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) and Automatic Transmit Power Control (ATPC), and likely shipping such products within a few months. When I asked about mobile systems (a favorite product category of mine), Wallace responded that Tranzeo offers the TR-600 "industrial" radio that is "hardened" to withstand extended temperatures and vibration, as well as being powered from 12 volts Direct Current (DC), and thus well-suited for vehicular applications. I was impressed - vehicular Broadband Wireless Internet Access is a rapidly-growing application, and if Tranzeo can combine its Sensoria Mesh Networking expertise with "hardened" hardware, it may well be able to break into a lucrative niche and compete with Motorola and Cisco for mobile systems.

Discussion of adding DFS/ATPC capability brought up the topic of Tranzeo's recent acquisition of Sensoria. Sensoria made, and Tranzeo has continued, Mesh Networking Broadband Wireless Internet Access systems. Tranzeo feels that the acquisition was highly synergetic - Tranzeo got highly-capable software/firmware capability that it previously lacked, and Tranzeo is able to apply its capabilities in highly-cost-effective hardware manufacturing to the former Sensoria product line.

The Sensoria team, now "Tranzeo USA", has already begun to supply software/firmware to Tranzeo's products, and Tranzeo expects its software/firmware to evolve to be on a par, or exceed, the capabilities of other router software commonly used in the WISP industry such as (legacy) Karlnet, Mikrotik, and StarOS, especially considering Sensoria's already mature Mesh Networking capabilities that the other three are only beginning to develop. Taking the Sensoria products forward, Tranzeo expect to achieve good sales given that Tranzeo/Sensoria mesh will sell for approximately $1000, and similar units from Mesh Networking industry-leader Tropos sell for approximately $3600.

Acquiring Sensoria not only expanded Tranzeo's technological capability, but it expanded Tranzeo's markets. Sensoria sold its products to Metropolitan Wi-Fi Networks, hotels, education, warehouses, auctions (fast setup), camps, and many others where Tranzeo did not yet have much of a presence. Sensoria's established markets "meshed" well with Tranzeo's existing plans to press into markets such as security, SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) telemetry systems used for such things as pipeline and water distribution networks, enterprise, education, government, and Wi-Fi HotSpots. Coming from the WISP industry, with the attendant intense demands for technically sophisticated and highly-reliable products at very competitive prices, Tranzeo feels it is well-equipped to enter into these new markets, especially in partnership with capable "channel partners", for example, security (alarm) service companies.

Postscript
I wish to thank Tony Kott for his invitation to visit Tranzeo and Damian Wallace for making time to offer his technological and business insights so unsparingly. Both were very gracious and surprisingly candid in their answers. The delay between our visit and the release of this article was due to personal circumstances on my part, but I feel that the observations made are still quite timely.

In the months since our visit, a quick look at Tranzeo's Press Releases conveys continuous progress in many of the areas discussed, such as the release of WiMAX products, and strong growth. I continue to be impressed with Tranzeo, both as a key vendor to the very dynamic WISP / Broadband Wireless Internet Access industry, but also as a strong, but currently underestimated vendor of wireless technology to the new markets which Tranzeo intends to enter. I think they will do very, very well.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh

A Visit To Tranzeo Wireless Technologies, Part 1

Part 1: Tour Of The Tranzeo Factory

My wife Tina and I were privileged to visit Tranzeo Wireless Technologies, Inc. in March, 2007. Our visit was at the invitation of Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Tony Kott. Tranzeo is located in Pitt Meadows, British Columbia, Canada, near Vancouver.

Tranzeo is a primary supplier to the Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) industry, with products specifically designed, marketed, and supported for the WISP industry, especially the WISP industry's "agressive" cost points (low prices).

I had been curious about Tranzeo for some time, specifically, how Tranzeo could offer such a high-quality product, at low prices, and ostensibly manufacture and support it with North American cost overhead.

Several things struck me upon beginning the tour of Tranzeo's facilities:

• Their facility was very large, with ample room for expansion
• All equipment was (what appeared to be, from my limited knowledge) state of the art, including high-speed pick-and-place robotic circuit board assembly units, fully automated soldering systems, and very impressive post-manufacture testing systems.
• The overall atmosphere was bright, pleasant, and relaxed; it seemed a very pleasant place to work. There were no "buzzers" indicating break time, start/stop time, etc.
• We arrived just after lunch time, and the employees were just returning to work from the daily company-supplied lunch.

These first impressions answered one immediate question about Tranzeo - unlike so many vendors of low-cost products to the WISP industry, Tranzeo is far, far more than the typical "garage shop assembler", merely assembling commodity parts. Words don't do justice as to how impressive Tranzeo's facility really is, and although we weren't allowed to take our own photographs, Tranzeo later provided us with  authorized photographs; the captions are my descriptions.

The only electronic units that Tranzeo does not make in-house are the radio cards (supplied by vendors such as Atheros) and portions of its 900 MHz radio. All other electronics - the router boards, are designed and manufactured in-house, including firmware. Tranzeo subcontracts its enclosures and antennas. Tranzeo doesn't appear to manufacture the bare circuit boards in-house (I didn't see a printed circuit board process - only circuit board assembly).

Early in our visit we were joined by Vice President of Product Development Damian Wallace, who helped explain the technology that is used to manufacture its products as well as the technology that goes into Tranzeo's products.

One of the first things I wanted to understand was Tranzeo's sudden emergence into the WISP industry several years ago. I was very impressed to learn that Tranzeo was established solely to develop products for the WISP industry. Tranzeo saw a need in the WISP industry for low-cost, high-quality Broadband Wireless Internet Access systems that wasn't being filled by products and companies that designed and sold products mostly for telecommunications carriers and merely "deigned to sell" their products to the WISP industry. Low-priced products for the WISP market were often poorly-designed, almost always poorly supported, and surprisingly often were sold with no regulatory certification.

Tranzeo doesn't seem to have "evolved" from the "garage shop assembler" type of operation, but rather was established and funded to do what we saw them doing during our visit. The only differences from when Tranzeo was founded was that of growth, scale, and excellent acceptance from its targeted market. For example, Tranzeo had previously subcontracted circuit board manufacturing, but grew frustrated over quality, delivery, and ability to rapidly update features and so decided to manufacture their own circuit boards - at a cost of several million dollars. Tranzeo has outgrown its previous facility, grown from a handful of staff to 102 at the time of our visit, and evolved from being privately funded from "friends and family" to being a publicly-owned company (TZT on the Toronto Stock Exchange).

Tranzeo builds Broadband Wireless Internet Access products that comply with the three major "wireless" regulatory agencies - US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), and Industry Canada. It supplies products to over 2400 unique customers (mostly Wireless Internet Service Providers) through 18 distributors worldwide (60% of sales), as well as direct-to-end-customer sales (40%). With a staff of 102, Tranzeo builds approximately 500 units per day on a single shift.

We started the tour seeing the circuit board assembly area. As a former electronic technician, I was very impressed with the working conditions - all work areas were very well lit and well-laid out with comfortable benches. All personnel were supplied with ergonomic furniture and tools, and fume hoods removed all traces whatsoever of fumes resulting from chemicals, soldering, etc. I was told that Tranzeo meets the (European?) regulations for lead-free electronics.

As mentioned, Tranzeo uses several impressive robotic pick-and-place automatic circuit board assembly systems. The systems operate so fast that all you can see is a blur. It's probably commonplace for such systems, but I was impressed that the circuit board assembly systems don't merely "blindly place" components, but rather employ artificial vision systems to insure that all the individual components are correct, as well as placed correctly on the board. Only Tranzeo's older systems have through-hole circuit boards; all their newer circuit boards are surface-mount.

An example of Tranzeo's attention to detail is that it manufactures its own "pigtails" - the very small coaxial cable that connects from the radio card to the external antenna connector (or assembly, such as a Radio Frequency [RF] lightning arrestor). Pigtails are maddeningly exacting - the connectors are tiny on the radio cards - tough to mount on a circuit board, but very tough to mount on a coaxial cable the size of a pencil lead. I've heard of WISP vendors that buy their pigtails from high-quality suppliers and go to the extra effort of 100% testing with RF test equipment, but Tranzeo is the first WISP vendor I've heard of that builds their own pigtails from scratch. Tranzeo paid $50,000 for the specialized machine (no hand tools) which precisely strips the coaxial cable for a pigtail - exactly the right lengths of the center conductor, center conductor insulator, outer braid, and outer jacket, with absolutely no nicks. Specially trained personnel assemble the pigtails, which then undergo "200% test" - each pigtail is individually tested, and the the pigtail is also tested as part of the fully-assembled system. Pigtail testing is performed at 2.4 GHz and 4.9 - 6.0 GHz. Wallace explained that cheap OEM pigtails are a key failure point in many products similar to Tranzeo's, and this sort of attention to detail has markedly decreased Tranzeo's in-field failure rate.

Although Tranzeo does not manufacture its radio modules, it "characterizes" them to a surprising degree. Tranzeo uses a "Veriwave HotSpot Simulator" to test 100% of the radio cards it uses in its products. This unit provides a "characterization signature" for every individual radio module, and Tranzeo retains this "signature" data indefinitely for quality control, product development, and product support (they know exactly how much power each radio module can transmit, and what its receive sensitivity was as it left the factory). Tranzeo also "flashes" each radio module to maintain absolute consistency of radio firmware so there is no variation from unit to unit. Tranzeo is an Atheros licensee, so it has "privileged" access to the inner workings of Atheros wireless modules, with the corresponding ability to "tweak" various parameters such as frequency selection.

Tranzeo is best known for its relatively low prices, but its users also appreciate that Tranzeo takes great pains to ensure that their products are reliable. The final stage of production before boxing and shipping is 100% system test where the radio is mounted in a test fixture and programmed to transmit through its entire power range (in an RF-dampening chamber), as well as measuring receive sensitivity through the antenna/pigtail/radio card chain, and of course, all the digital/network functions are tested. Each unit includes a lightning arrestor as standard equipment. One interesting example of Tranzeo's "easy setup" philosophy is that Tranzeo imprints the setup instructions onto the shipping box - "We design all of this very deliberately to NOT cause support phone calls. Installers don't really have excuses like 'we lost the manual'" quipped Wallace. Tranzeo also offers extensive training options with abbreviated training co-located with popular industry conferences as well as training at their factory. Tranzeo's training addresses the "two types" of people entering the WISP business - Entrepreneurs (know just a little, but knows a hot new business when they see it) and Geeks (know the technology, but don't know business issues). Wallace explained that over the years, Tranzeo's experience was that potential customers didn't understand three key things:

1. Network design - how do you scale your systems and networks from 20 users to 200 users and beyond.
2. The necessity of lightning protection, and how to do lighting protection properly.
3. Taking into account Line of Sight / Fresnel Zone issues to engineer a reliable network.

To summarize our visit of the Tranzeo factory, we were very impressed with Tranzeo's use of state-of-the-art electronics manufacturing equipment, a dedicated, motivated, and apparently happy workforce, that there are few or no inefficiencies in Tranzeo's production, resulting in Tranzeo's ability to offer high-quality, reliable products at agressive prices.

In Part 2: Tranzeo's Plans For The Future, I'll detail the wide-ranging discussion we had about Tranzeo's future, including some surprising new directions that Tranzeo intends to explore.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh

My Take On 700 MHz For WISPs

I was asked by a leader in the WISP industry for my views on the soon-to-be-auctioned 700 MHz band as it relates to WISPs and especially WISPs operating in rural areas.

I've written about the 700 MHz band several times, most recently in April - 700 MHz Isn't The End Of Spectrum - It's Just The Beginning and What "Save Our Spectrum" Doesn't Understand.

Short answer: I'm skeptical about WISPs being able to make use of 700 MHz; there are a lot of issues with 700 MHz that, in my opinion, generally preclude WISPs from being serious contenders in acquiring 700 MHz licenses.

1. 700 MHz is going to be auctioned - to the highest bidder. That's mandated to the FCC by Congress, and the anticipated revenues have already been factored into the US Federal Budget. That means  there won't be any "bidder's preference" to help WISPs. There are going to be deep pockets bidding for 700 MHz, most purely as a speculative investment without having to build out actual communications systems. Hey, it worked spectacularly for those that won in the previous 700 MHz auctions. While some WISPs have won spectrum auctions (mostly in very rural areas), winning a spectrum auction is only the first part of a long process (see below).
2. 700 MHz is turning out to be incredibly contentious. There are two groups competing to have the FCC change the structure of the 700 MHz auctions to aid them in building out national, quasi-public-safety systems. Then there is the issue that the commercial portions of the 700 MHz band will be spectrally "right next door" to public safety portions of 700 MHz, and as we've seen with Nextel digital voice systems at 800 MHz, public safety systems seem to be easily interfered with, so commercial (especially broadband) 700 MHz systems will be even more challenged to avoid interference to public safety 700 MHz systems. I think that this means that WISPs aren't, and can't, be a significant factor in the 700 MHz auctions.
3. If a WISP does win the bidding for some 700 MHz spectrum, their next challenge is going to be finding Broadband Wireless Internet Access systems for 700 MHz. Most WISPs require low-priced Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) for their business model to work. With 700 MHz, there won't be much equipment available any time soon, and what little becomes available will likely be expensive, and proprietary. Adapting WiMAX to 700 MHz may help with the proprietary equipment issue, eventually, but it won't be any time soon.
4. Yet another challenge to WISPs wanting to make use of 700 MHz is that they then have to actually be able to fund the construction of 700 MHz networks. Yes, 700 MHz systems can have improved range and penetration over 2.4 GHz, but building 700 MHz networks is also more of a challenge in many ways. For example, dealing with 700 MHz antennas is a much greater challenge than 2.4 GHz antennas (and even more than 900 MHz antennas) because 700 MHz antennas are physically much bigger (and therefore heavier, and harder to mount on towers and buildings, and thus expensive). It's also a challenge to "constrain" your 700 MHz system's coverage to only the geographic area that your license covers; that calls for careful, expensive system design at the edge of your coverage area.
5. In rural areas, WISPs will likely find that they have an unexpected competitor for 700 MHz spectrum - small, rural telephone companies. They have deep (enough) pockets to bid agressively for 700 MHz spectrum, and they can afford the poor economies of proprietary systems (because in rural areas... the economies of scale with wireless are far, far better than that of wireline.) Rural telephone companies may well "hedge their bets" by purchasing 700 MHz spectrum because of the possibilities that subsidies that they rely upon such as the Universal Service Fund and reciprocal (telephone call) compensation may be eliminated in the future, rendering their wireline networks totally unsustainable (financially).
6. 700 MHz is radically different than what WISPs are used to. Typically what you would win at a 700 MHz spectrum auction is a single (or paired) 6 MHz channel for a very specific area. A 700 MHz service provider has to be very careful not to "bleed over", both spectrally, and geographically, to another service provider's 700 MHz allocation. Not to mention that there is the challenge of nighttime "skip" (formally, tropospheric ducting) that occurs at VHF and UHF frequencies during the summer months.

Overall, I think that "lusting after" 700 MHz is the wrong "fight" for WISPs for more effective spectrum to serve their customers. Instead, I think that WISPA and other WISP-related organizations should be leading the fight for license-exempt access to television broadcasting "white spaces" - using television broadcast channels (that remain for that use after the transition to digital television broadcasting on February 17, 2009). Yes, WISPA is "involved" in the white spaces issue, but its efforts have been clouded (nowhere near transparent) by its mysterious participation with companies such as Microsoft and Intel.

Another "fight" that WISPs should be working on instead of 700 MHz is the proposed 3.65 - 3.70 GHz band (or, 3650). This band was proposed for, and optimized for, the specific requirements of WISPs. Some preliminary equipment is already available for "3650" because it was a minor adaptation from existing equipment that operates in the 3.5 GHz band in use nearly everywhere in the world except the US.

All of that said, this year's 700 MHz auctions are going to be very interesting to observe. There are many, many factions (some who have yet to "uncloak") that will be competing for 700 MHz spectrum.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh

CALEA FAQ For WISPs

Alex Goldman, Managing Editor of ISP-Planet, posted on the  isp-wireless list:

If you have not already read it, do take a look. ISP-Planet is pleased to publish WISPA's hard work here:

http://www.isp-planet.com/fixed_wireless/politics/2007/wispa_calea_faq.html

(end Goldman posting)

I was very impressed with the WISPA CALEA FAQ as presented by ISP-Planet. One suggestion is that it should include a version number or "last updated" because it will (need to) continually evolve. The authors of the WISPA CALEA FAQ - Michael Erskine of Kabellero.com (team leader), Brent Anderson of Great American Networks, Martha Huizenga of DC Access, Marty Dougherty of Road Star Internet, and Eric Plikuhu of ImageStream are to be commended.

I was most impressed that the WISPA CALEA FAQ did a good job of definitively laying out what WISPs are subject to CALEA requirements:

Any facilities based ISP must         be CALEA compliant. The only exemption to CALEA is the private network         exemption. A private network is a network which is not offering a service         to the public whether for profit or not for profit. If the network is         available to the public, it is not a private network. If you resell to         your neighbor you are offering a public service. If you share a connection         with your neighbor and he pays half the price, you are offering a public         service.

One key point that I personally gleaned from the above is that the "dividing line" between being subject to CALEA requirements and not being subject to CALEA requirements is whether an organization offers Internet access to the public. An organization's status as a for-profit or a not-for-profit is irrelevant (I had the impression that not-for-profit entities were not subject to CALEA). Thus not-for-profit (defacto) ISPs and WISPs that provide Internet access such as public-access Wi-Fi HotSpots (open, or closed), low-income areas, and many other entities that have not previously viewed themselves as being an Internet Service Provider are, in fact, subject to CALEA requirements.

Although it would seem to me to be an inane question, whether WISPs are "facilities-based" or not has continually come up on the various WISP mailing lists. This point of the FAQ seems to answer that question pretty definitively:

6) What is the definition of "facilities based"?       

The FCC has defined "facilities-based" providers as entities that provide         transmission or switching over their own facilities between the end user         and the ISP.       

Based on the FCC's definition, we are facilities based in most cases.         If your own hardware is being used to deliver the service and you provide         a public service you are facilities based.

Open Wi-Fi access points are also addressed in the WISPA CALEA FAQ... and is that ever a relevant question! But, how "far down it goes" - to individuals choosing to freely share their Internet access via an open access point was surprising to me:

10) What about open access points?       

If you have open access points and don't know the target then it is         the LEA that should distinguish target and non-target. We just provide         the full data. The LEA may work with you in identifying the target in         preparation for obtaining and presenting the legal authorization (e.g.,         subpoena, intercept order, etc.) but there will always be some legal document         requesting this information.       

Who is responsible for tracking down a bad guy who is         hijacking a connection on an open access point?       

This is a joint effort between the LEA and the WISP to the best of the         ability of the WISP.       

and...

17) Are OPEN hotspots going to become illegal because         the owners cannot become CALEA compliant?       

No, they will not become illegal, but the LEAs may have to have you         help them identify the target.       

If you service customers that have an open hotspot and you can access         it, then you can provide the required information. If the WISP does not         have control of the Open AP, then you can only provide a full collection         on this AP to meet the requirement. The AP owner may be asked to provide         information under CALEA but this will be required under the intercept         order.       

For example, my wife has an open AP in her restaurant.         Should I advise her to secure it and go to an authentication system so         that she can ID the users of her open AP?       

NO, but she should be aware the collection may be on the full AP stream         if they are not able to get the data wirelessly.       

I was glad to see that the WISPA CALEA FAQ addresses a very often-mentioned misconception about CALEA and upstream bandwidth and IP address providers:

7) If a provider gets his IP addresses from an upstream         ISP and provides every customer a public IP address from that ISP's CIDR         allocation, wouldn't that relieve that downstream provider of the requirement         for compliance as the upstream ISP could do the intercept?       

No. Each CALEA-covered provider remains covered regardless of whether         someone else in the mix also has this information. The upstream provider         may also have to show what they have but this does not release the downstream         from providing what they have per the court order.

As I predicted some years ago in presentations I gave at various conferences, a WISP providing Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) telephony service ultimately isn't a simple, or necessarily profitable line of business when regulatory issues are factored in. VOIP Service Providers are not only subject to the evolving CALEA requirements that the WISPA CALEA FAQ details, but also E911 requirements, and increasing scrutiny from large carriers over issues such as "interconnection" and "reciprocal compensation", and as we've seen from a recent patent suit by Verizon against Vonage, intellectual property is also an issue with VOIP telephony.

By Steve Stroh

Ten Years Of Writing About Broadband Wireless Internet Access

April 2007 marks a full decade that I've been writing professionally about what I now call Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA).

My debut was a column called Wireless Data Development in Boardwatch Magazine's April 1997 issue shown at right. My column topic made the cover - AT&T Introduces A Wireless Local Loop. (Unfortunately, only a few remnants have survived online from Boardwatch's once-considerable online presence, and the April, 1997 issue isn't among them.)

Although I cannot find where and when he said it, some time prior to the April, 1997 issue, Boardwatch Editor Rotundus (his self-conferred title) Jack Rickard abruptly transitioned the magazine from covering both the Bulletin Board Service (BBS) industry and the fledgling Internet Service Provider industry, to just the latter. He also invited those who had ideas for new columns to submit their ideas. I submitted a writing sample and a proposal, and heard from a Boardwatch editor in approximately January-February 1997 to "start writing".

In those first few years of Wireless Data Developments, I struggled to explain to the new Internet Service Provider industry about the benefits of using wireless technology to provide the last mile between the ISP and the user.

The topic of the column and I were met with a lot of outright skepticism, not the least of which was from Editor Rickard who I never met or talked to the entire time I wrote the column, and later feature articles. Rickard only told me years later that his opinion then was "This guy [me] can't write worth crap... but let him keep trying". I don't think Rickard ever really got wireless, even though he did finally get to see the realization of what I had been talking about for all those years by attending a WISPCON - Wireless Internet Service Provider Conference where Rickard saw for himself that the small entrepreneurial ISP that was so beloved to him and Boardwatch was alive and well... just now using wireless.

Wireless Data Developments opened the door to other writing opportunities about the subject of Broadband Wireless Internet Access. I particularly enjoyed writing for Broadband Wireless Business (now also apparently defunct) in its early years.

Wireless Data Developments lasted about five years, and Boardwatch didn't survive for too much longer, a victim of two ownership turnovers, loss of passion (and Rickard), the devastating downturn in the tech industry, the movement of advertising and readership to online, and trying to cater the content to what the big advertisers wanted rather than keeping the content relevant to the core audience of smaller, entrepreneurial ISPs.

One proud moment with Boardwatch came in January, 2002 with the publication of what I submitted as my last column, but ended up being barely sandwiched into the magazine as an article called Wireless Smart Radio, Heavy Lobbying Would Bring Wireless ISP Band. I've told that story previously on this blog. As far as I'm aware, this was the first article in print that proposed what are now called Cognitive Radio Techniques that would allow Broadband Wireless Internet Access to effectively share unused television broadcast channels (now called "TV Whitespace") while protecting legacy television broadcasting. Such a proposal is now under active consideration at the FCC, backed by companies such as Microsoft and Cisco.

But my proudest achievement in ten years of writing about Broadband Wireless Internet Access was that I conveyed information of worth to readers. I taught them things, and about things, that they otherwise wouldn't have known about or understood as well. Over the years, many have told me that they've appreciated my writing, and being told that is very gratifying.

During these last ten years, especially the past seven writing full time, my wonderful wife Tina has supported me in every conceivable way. I couldn't have written at all, but especially couldn't have written as much or as well, without Tina's unflagging support. Thank You Honey!

(Within the last few days, DailyWireless.org and Wi-Fi Networking News have announced milestones of their own.)

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh

WISP Industry Rollups

It's been quite the quarter for rollups of small Wireless Internet Service Providers into larger Wireless Internet Service Providers, or as I call them "Big WISPs". To wit:

• March 27, 2007 - WisperTel Acquires KLNT Enterprises LLC (d/b/a BroadSpoke)
• March 8, 2007 - WisperTel Acquires Path / Broadband Services, Inc.
• February 23, 2007 - Ohio-based Slane Telcom Acquires WISPs to Satisfy Consumer Demand
• February 19, 2007 - KeyOn Communications Becomes Largest Rural Wireless Broadband Company With Purchase of SpeedNet Services
• January 11, 2007 - ERF Wireless Acquires Seventh Wireless ISP

(All of these stories are at www.biwapressreleases.com, acquisitions category)

It's even more impressive when you consider that these are just the companies that chose to announce their acquisitions with a press release through PR Newswire (the company that I receive most of my press releases from.)

One clear trend... there's investment capital, either from the increasing economies of scale and overall profitability of Big WISPs, or external capital recognizing the opportunity for the next big wave of telecommunications industry rollups or consolidation. Just as happened with small telephone companies, small cable television systems, small wireless telephony companies, small dialup ISPs, small DSL ISPs... small Wireless Internet Service Providers are now being rolled up / consolidated into larger and then larger organizations.

While one reason is that capital is available to do so, another reason is that the technology used by WISPs is finally, reasonably scalable, reliable, and easy to install (and often outsourced to installers who also handle satellite television installations.)

Here's a bit of explanation about what's really different about Big WISPs and "Small" WISPs, from my Fall, 2005 article "What I Learned At WINOG" (in which I mentioned, I'm pleased to note, WisperTel as just such a "Big WISP").

From my observations of the Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) industry over the last eight years, here are some general characteristics of “Big WISPs” that set them apart from smaller or startup WISPs:

• Big WISPs are well capitalized with bank lines of credit, leasing programs, and favorable terms from vendors and resellers
• Big WISPs have often acquired other ISPs, including dialup and wireless
• Big WISPs typically have more than ten employees, including dedicated administrative personnel and technical support
• Big WISPs use built-to-purpose Broadband Wireless Internet Access equipment from major vendors such as Motorola Canopy and Trango Broadband.
• While Big WISPs use systems from major vendors, they retain the ability to build special systems for special requirements.
• Big WISPs consider managing their network extremely thoroughly to be a core competency, and their resulting reliability of their networks is very high
• Many, but by no means all Big WISPs have active marketing programs to recruit new customers, and regularly engage in proactive Public Relations activity such as Press Releases
• Some Big WISPs have been able to build out their network sufficiently to bypass the need for using Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC) – “phone company” connectivity such as T-1 and T-3 circuits.
• Through favorable pricing and performance and good reputation with customers Big WISPs are maintaining and growing their customer base in spite of competition from DSL and cable modem offerings, including recent aggressive low-cost offerings.
• Big WISPs cannot be generalized about market size – they’re found in rural areas, urban areas, and every size of market in between.
• Unlike Broadband Wireless Service Providers, Big WISPs are very price sensitive about their equipment cost. They will spend what they need to spend to insure reliable performance, but they will not spend lavishly, and demand excellent price/performance from the systems they choose to use.
• Big WISPs make extensive and often exclusive use of license-exempt spectrum, often all three ISM bands – 902-928 MHz, 2.4 GHz, and 5.3/5.7/5.8 GHz. Some Big WISPs have begun using licensed spectrum, especially for high-value customers and backbones. Gigabit links are have become sufficiently affordable for Big WISPs.

While the trend to rolling up WISPs is demonstrably accelerating (WisperTel is certainly doing its part), the WISP industry is still highly fragmented and there are many thousands of (small) WISPs scattered across the entire North American continent and throughout the world.  It will take a while to find them all, let alone roll up a significant percentage of them.

WISPs would do well to have a reasonable, provable valuation for their companies ready for when the investors eventually come calling.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh

WildBlue-1 Launched... Maybe Not So Easy For WISPs To Sell Against Now

On March 20, 2007, WildBlue announced that its new satellite, WildBlue-1 is now partially operational and they are deploying new customers to use it.

Comments by WISPs on some of the mailing lists were universally dismissive. I think that such comments might be misplaced hubris.

One reason is that WildBlue-1 is the first of a generation of satellites that are specifically designed for providing consumer / Small Office / Home Office Satellite-based Broadband Internet Access, not to mention that WildBlue commenced their service with ground station and user equipment designed in the 21st century, not the late 20th. To date, we haven't seen how well WildBlue can really perform because they've been leasing capacity on another company's satellite. My guess is that, using WildBlue-1 and follow-on satellites of the same type, WildBlue will be able to provide "pretty good" Broadband Internet Access... though one cannot beat the inherent latency of an 89,200 mile "packet/ack" round trip (x2 for a data packet to be received).

Another reason is that to date, using leased satellite capacity, WildBlue has been severely constrained on the total number of customers that it can offer service to, so WildBlue hasn't been able to do a "full press" in marketing to rural customers on a national basis. When courting consumers, marketing really, really counts, and the majority of WISPs are not very good at marketing, often only using a phone directory listing, their corporate web page, and word of mouth. Done right, WildBlue could easily conduct a direct mail campaign to all potential rural customers.

One last reason is that WISPs shouldn't be too smug about WildBlue's prospects is, surprisingly, price. WildBlue's service packages start at $50/month. To some consumers with minimal needs for broadband, that might well be an enticing offer.

There are a lot of potential customers for Broadband Internet Access in the US that don't have any alternative to satellite-based Broadband Internet Access. Yes, satellites have been a generally poor alternative in the past, but with WildBlue-1, that may be changing.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh

KeyOn Communications Claims To Now Be Largest Rural Broadband Wireless Company

(Catching up after a week at WISPCON 2007)

An announcement last Monday was "KeyOn Communications Becomes Largest Rural Wireless Broadband Company With Purchase of SpeedNet Services". This is evidence of a key trend that I noted during my talk at WISPCON of continued consolidation among WISPs, and one of the reasons vendors should continue to / return to being involved in the WISP industry.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh

Blogging from WISPCON 9 / WISPCON 2007 - Part 2

Kevin Suitor of Redline Communications presented "The Road to WiMAX for License-Exempt WISPs" at WISPCON 2007.

Kevin gave a very informative presentation on the near-term evolution of both fixed (802.16 "D") and mobile (802.16 "E")... which was, unfortunately, nearly completely irrelevant to the assembled WISPs.

Short... no, terse summary:

Redline's outlook is that for US WISPs that use license-exempt spectrum, there is no usable implementation of WiMAX. Yes, there will be a Fixed (802.16 "D") implementation of WiMAX, but because it includes no measures for interference mitigation... it will perform poorly at best. Redline predicts this from the difficulties it has endured to date making WiMAX work in "clean" licensed spectrum.

Redline's voting with its corporate wallet. While it won't produce fixed WiMAX systems for license-exempt 5.8 GHz, it will produce 5.8 GHz systems for countries where 5.8 GHz is licensed, such as Russia. For license-exempt spectrum, its efforts will be primarily directed into its proprietary RedCONNEX product line.

Again, largely irrelevant to US WISPs using license-exempt spectrum, Redline feels that there is enormous promise in 700 MHz in the US after the "Upper 700 MHz auctions" due to be completed by January, 2008.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh

Wireless Tech Radio Is Back!

We - Stroh Publications LLC - announced at WISPCON that Wireless Tech Radio is back!. More information at Wireless Internet Service Provider News - WISPNews.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh

Alvarion Conspicuously Absent From WISPCON 2007

Given their stated renewed interest in the Wireless Internet Service Provider industry, Alvarion is curiously absent from WISPCON 2007. Three of their primary competitors - Redline Communications and Trango Broadband are exhibiting, and Airspan Networks has a representative present.

Granted, WISPCON 2007 is a small show... but it is 100% about Wireless Internet Service Providers.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh

Blogging from WISPCON 9 / WISPCON 2007 - Part 1

Kevin Suitor / Redline Communications Keynote Tuesday, February 21, 2007 - 08:00

Some key things learned from Katrina and past disasters:
* First responders often showed up with incompatible communications systems, so "infrastructure" like Broadband Wireless Internet Access communications needs to be flexible on how you allow them to plug in
* Response is usually late - need to stockpile equipment to be ready
* License-exempt ruled; no licensed; would have taken too long
* VOIP was 80% of IP communications traffic; voice is mission-critical
* Frequency Management was very important; interference impacted mission-critical voice
* Licensed links that are destroyed are often replaced in the short term with license-exempt links and since they're causing interference to established license-exempt links
* Mounting hardware was crucial... couldn't set up link, thus couldn't communicate without ability to mount the antenna
* Better to be conservative - when stocking, default to 2' (as opposed to 1') dishes and long cables. "Hastily Formed Network" is now well-recognized concept and terminology
* Regular exercises

"In any large-scale catastrophe, the first thing to go is communication. You have to plan for that." Dr. James Gregory

Resilience - The capacity to absorb shocks gracefully; difference from redundant which assumes individual component / system / link failure

When you construct Resilient or Redundant systems, you have to test them - UPS', backup files (tape), failover onto backup links Redline advocates WISPs selling business-grade links as "business continuity solution" - so your employees don't have downtime. When you factor in the productivity losses, a backup wireless link is a cheap investment Another opportunity is business sparing for servers; having servers staged at the ISP ready to help small businesses who have servers that go down or are destroyed due to disaster.

New opportunity - Storage Area Networking, IS applicable to WISPs.

Product Anouncement: AN-80i - FCC certified for operation in new 255 MHz of 5.4 GHz band, 9 Mbps - 90 Mbps upgradeable with software keys, 10/20/40 MHz cnannels, PMP is in beta, Power Over Ethernet (all outdoor), simple mounting - starts at under $2000 per end. Specifically designed to be a good match for Wi-Fi mesh systems. See full details in Press Release at www.bwiapressreleases.com/2007/02/redline_unveils.html

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh

Why I Started WISP News

One of the most exciting things about starting Stroh Publications LLC was that I would finally be able to do a reasonable job of following and writing about all the segments that make up what I see as the Broadband Wireless Internet Access industry, and none more so than Wireless Internet Service Providers - WISPs.

I've never had an "outlet" for my writing where I was able to do justice to all that I've learned, and continue to learn about WISPs. Considering that I got my start writing (Boardwatch Magazine, Wireless Data Developments column, April, 1997) about ISPs that were starting to use wireless, it stung a bit when I have been told by WISPs that they didn't relate very well to most of what I wrote because they "didn't see themselves" in my writing - technological developments in systems for licensed spectrum (like current-generation WiMAX gear), cellular service providers, Metropolitan Wi-Fi systems, satellite Broadband Internet Access, mobile broadband, etc.

Well, that's now changed. As part of the Stroh Publications LLC business model, I have a dedicated venue to cover the WISP industry - Wireless Internet Service Provider News - or WISP News, or wispnews.net. I intend WISP News to be "All WISP, all the time". I want to dive deep into WISP business models, challenges, technology, and other topics of specific interest to WISPs, as well as offer editorial comment when I think it's needed.

WISP News will be a mix of original content and "referrers", and will often feature mentions of my postings on other Stroh Publications LLC sites that I think are directly relevant to WISPs. I'll get a lot of source material, especially inspiration for stories, from the three WISP mailing lists that I monitor - Internet.com's "isp-wireless, Part-15.org's "wisp", and WISPA's "wispa". I'll try to do justice to what Part-15.org and WISPA are doing.

I'll be writing WISP News in an informal, relaxed style, much like the tone on all three of the mailing lists.

In the coming weeks and months, please let me know you think about WISP News - steve at steve stroh <-oneword dot net.

Thanks,

Steve

It's wispnews dot NET

Please remember that the URL for Steve Stroh's WISP News site is:

www.wispnews .net

(wispnews.com is taken by some domain speculator... but given what WISPs actually do, using dot net is pretty cool, but most are used to typing in .com, so that would have been nice to have too.)

Thanks,

Steve