Endless options and variables! Ack!

[DCTech]

Hello all,

My name is Christian and my community is looking to establish a Wireless ISP to provide broadband internet access. Our community is semi-rural with a population of approximately 10,000.

I need some guidance, I've been browsing the forums (lurking) and it seems many of you have a great amount of experience and knowledge in this field. I have some questions I'm hoping you all can help me with...

Some info,
- We have a backbone connection secured.
- We have some financial backing (Not endless, but some)
- We're looking to start with our downtown core and possibly spread to more residential areas from there.
- We don't have any buildings taller then 3-4 stories
- Our downtown core would consist of approximately 5 city blocks

It seems that Mesh networks are a great low cost and effective method for setting up a wireless broadband network.

a) I've been browsing several sites can anyone detail some of the differences between say Open-Mesh hardware, Ubiquity hardware and Tropos? Can what I described above be done with strictly Ubiquity equipment?

b) Can anyone even give me an estimate on range? I saw one post where someone stated that a rooftop NanoStation can give you a little under a mile of range, is this accurate? Is NanoStation ideal, what about PowerStation, PicoStation etc.

c) We do want a captive portal for billing etc. I've looked at the rxg from rgnets.com anyone have any experience with it? What do one of those scukers go for? Are there better options?

d) Anyone out there doing something similar with a Mesh network, effectively?

e) Do I have to buy 3rd party antennas to extend my range, if so, what are some good options? I see so many different options it gets confusing Omni, Panel 7 dbi 24 dbi etc.

Keep in mind, we do want to keep a low TCO, that is why Ubiquity and Open-Mesh are appealing to us vs. some of the higher end Tropos, Nortel stuff. Is the high end product worth the cost in comparison?

Any insight you can give me, would be greatly appreciated.

[WHT]

It seems that Mesh networks are a great low cost and effective method for setting up a wireless broadband network. They do not scale very well. They are not as effective as hyped up to be.

the differences between say Open-Mesh hardware, Ubiquity hardware and Tropos? Can what I described above be done with strictly Ubiquity equipment? Some people have ported mesh firmware to UBNT products. YMMV

Anyone out there doing something similar with a Mesh network, effectively? Earthlink in several major cites. Opps...those projects failed. So, effectively? No.

Do I have to buy 3rd party antennas to extend my range, if so, what are some good options? I see so many different options it gets confusing Omni, Panel 7 dbi 24 dbi etc. I'd retain a consultant for you project first. Depends on how much information you can provide, costs range from $500 to $5,000.

[DCTech]

Well, thanks for your reply, sounds kind of doom and gloom actually. So what is the ideal solution,vsomething like PtMP with a 160ft tower?

My current plan is to buy some low cost hardware and see what it provides, probably 5 Nanostation2, see what kind of coverage I can reliably get.

What about Kalpesh, has anyone tried the Ubiquity powered solution they're selling? iMeshPoint I believe it's called.

Time is on our side, I look to implement a test (pilot) project with 5 routers, but the full-scale WISP network is still a good year out if not more.

Are there some good resources on the web such as really active forums and suhc for Mesh WISPs or WISPs in general? I've found a couple sites here and there but nothing too solid.

My question above in regard to low-end vs high-end hardware is really...Is it worth the additional cost? It seems the Cisco, Firetide, Tropos etc all have multi-radio products touting the separate backhaul channel as a main selling point. If the cost is worth it, I'll buy them. If I can accomplish similar results with Ubiquity products, then obviously I'll go with them. Let me know your thoughts.

[WHT]

something like PtMP with a 160ft towerWith a PtP access point, you can only transmit to one and only one other radio. That's a U.S. FCC rule and likely so in other countries. So a multi-subscriber WISP's AP is considered a PtM transmitter.

I was critical about Kalpesh here.
http://forum.ubnt.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3943
Reminds me of a one man operation working out of his basement bedroom at his parent's house.

My question above in regard to low-end vs high-end hardware is really...Is it worth the additional cost?For mission critical deployment, cost is rarely an issue. For the typical WISP, its hard to justify the Total Cost of Ownership and Return On Investment for that kind of reliability when the majority of the clients are residential users.

Cisco, Firetide, Tropos etc all have multi-radio products touting the separate backhaul channel as a main selling point. That's pretty much a standard for a WISP that might use 2.4 gig access points that backhaul to a NOC on 5.8 Gig.

If I can accomplish similar results with Ubiquity productsUBNT products can provide the same results in most cases. The higher end radios, like SkyPilot (Skypilot...old indian word for a handful of thousand dollar bills) can handle well over a hundred users per AP out to nearly ten miles.

But think a minute, that might be fine for a sparse population where you need to get as big of footprint (which means a greater possibility of competition's interference) as possible to justify a tower location. The landscape is changing and you'll see a greater number of smaller footprints with lower cost radios.

[Kalpesh Wireless]

Hi,

I hope we all agree some of the best ideas in software are started up by small companies with an innovative approach. With that being said, we've been in business for the past 3 years and have successfully helped our clients set-up wi-fi networks.

If you'd like to try out our firmware, please send us an email at sales@kalpeshwireless.com, would love to help you evaluate an easy way to set-up your muni network. We now email interested customers our firmware so that they can try out imeshpoint on their own ubiquiti devices.

Regardless, feel free drop a line to chat about your project...we won't charge you a consulting fee! :)

[Kalpesh Wireless]

WHT, you can't make that assertion because you've never used the product. It's fairly clear that you are making this personal, rather than objective. Please stop misleading people and wasting everyone's time.

[WHT]

How can you possibly think that DIRECTLY REFERRING to your OWN website's lack of information not objective?

Some measurable performance specs using well established and recognized metrics would be nice.

[Kalpesh Wireless]

WHT, I don't want to use this forum as a name calling match...that's not the purpose of it.

Our website gives a quick overview of how we can help our customers. Most email or call us and we answer their questions. If they are interested, they can try out the software, and we help them out as much as possible.

It's one thing to offer constructive criticism, it's another to be slanderous. Honestly, no one appreciates your slanderous remarks - you have never used our product, so you shouldn't really comment on it.

[MaximumISP]

I have on two occasions sent an inquiry email
and have never received a reply

also there has been nothing stated by WHT
that could even remotely be constrewed as slanderous here
perharps harsh toned factual observations but thats about it

Take something good away from it
and use it to improve your sites documentation.
respond to your emails and perhaps try to create
a real demo of your control panel

[Kalpesh Wireless]

Hi MaximumISP-

I have never received any messages from you. If you are still interested in our product, please email us (sales@kalpeshwireless.com) or respond back to this post with an email address. There is no reason why we'd ignore a potential customer!

Feedback has definitely made our product better, and we appreciate it - so long as it is constructive and from someone who has actually used the product.

[WHT]

I have on two occasions sent an inquiry email
and have never received a replyAt least *I* got a reply.

None of my critical metrics questions were answered.
I was referred back to the website for any answers.
I was told to just buy the unit and try it out.

Basically I said there was no way in h*ll I was going to spend several hundred dollars on a product to discovery information that could have been delved from decent online documentation.

[WHT]

perharps harsh toned factual observations

That was not harsh.

You should have seen the way I put down George O'Dowd aka "Boy George" about twenty years ago.

Will PM you what I said....

[WHT]

You should also realize that the major limitation on number of clients a WISP can service is based on the bandwidth available, not the number of users a device can handle.
A 30 Meg FIOS line or an AP with more than 30 active users...which is gonna crap out first?

[WHT]

I have on two occasions sent an inquiry email
and have never received a replyl
They stopped communicating with me after I emailed a reply that contained:

"Do you not even have any specific information that we can look at.

If not...this takes me back to my original assessment, "I like to see products stand on their own, rather play twenty questions to get an answer before I spend $250 on a Nanostation." Actually $500 for two of them."

Needless to say, I never got my critical questions answered.

[Kalpesh Wireless]

WHT, I hope anyone reading this post can clearly see you seem to enjoy picking fights on this forum and creating drama. Sorry, don’t have time to entertain you – we rather spend time on this forum helping people who want to build wi-fi networks.

[WHT]

we rather spend time on this forum helping people who want to build wi-fi networks.
I think your time would be better spent working on your website and providing more documentation.

[skyhook]

Hi Kalpesh Wireless,

have you a kind of demo (time limited) to upload on my devices to test your products?

[jeff.hunt]

Hello, I don't want to try to speak to everything going on in this thread, but can say the ubnt product with kalpesh wireless ported to it is currently working for me. I can also say that these are exciting times for wisps who are trying to scale to muni after some of the failures with tropos etc other cities have seen with their business models. So when I see a company finally come along that is making a good run at it in a cost effective way I don't like to see them knocked down for no good reason. Therefore I'm happy to provide my own experience using kalpesh thus far. Kalpesh is in a beta phase as municipal scale solution and we have been testing and rolling out features quickly, collaborating nicely and making progress. I currently run a 20 node mesh network in New Braunfels, TX using locustworld but have long been looking for something lower cost that could do the standard one mile links with omni antennas I could achieve with the locustworld hardware.

So far the progress is good with Kalpesh running on ubiquiti hardware. I am using bullet hp's and have done a three mile link and other shorter ones with omnis. It's been useful that I had a current network in place as I've been able to do a comparative test and have better range with this hardware/software combo than my old equipment, which, just FYI, is outstanding equipment with a good company behind it, but the cost for my purposes was a problem, in other areas it might be ideal though.

The next phase is continuing to roll out a test phase. Kalpesh I can say has been very quick to implement features I have suggested. And of course to my knowledge they are the first to port a mesh software to this great UBNT hardware many of us have been waiting for. If you don't want to be part of the process of building a new mesh you will simply have to wait in my opinion. The UBNT hardware is brand new, and it would seem obvious that it will take some time for people to customize the open source image they provide into a carrier class commercial product.

[DCTech]

Well thanks for the constructive posts.

I didn't mean to start a shouting match, just trying to get more information on the reliability and feasibility of mesh networks in a community/municipal setting.

Bottom line is, can Ubiquiti equpment handle a larger scale mesh implementation? Not having multiple radios...not having a specific dedicated backhaul channel etc.

My knowledge of this technology and equipment is growing, but still very limited. Just trying to wade through the mess of fact vs fiction and find out the truths.

I have sent a message to Kalpesh Wireless and will give them a chance to display their expertise and knowledge to me personally.

If not Kalpesh,what other options are out there for someone wanting to use Ubiquiti products?

Thanks for any additional input as well, aside from minor derailment, the thread has overall been productive.

[WHT]

larger scale mesh implementation Mesh does not scale very well...just ask all the cities that were left holding the bag when Earthlink and others folder their mesh dreams.

[MaximumISP]

Dc Id say

IMHO without use of a dual or preferably triple radio or more radio setup
(ie two strickly for BH one to the previous box one to the next box ect.)
The best mesh systems use mutiple radios that can dynamically
reroute upon any one paths failure such as http://www.meshdynamics.com/Mesh-Technology.html

Certainly the size of the deplyment is key here small scale with limited users may work well

But a large scale muni wifi deployment with lots of users
Regardless of the brand will crumble under load unless it is based on a multi radio design or
have a dsl feed ect.. every 3 units or so again
this would be dictated by the amout of users

[DCTech]

MaximumISP,

Thanks for your comments. I might have mis-spoke by saying large scale. I notice you have a WISP (MaximumISP) and you are the premiere Canadian Ubiquiti distributor...I live in Canada also. I'd like to have a discussion with you about your WISPs implementation if you wouldn't mind. The community my colleague and I are working to setup is in the US, but I'd still love to have a caht with you. If you feel up to it, maybe you could drop me your e-mail address or Skype / IM info

Thanks in advance

[MaximumISP]

Hi Dc
no problem follow my website
contact info is there :)

[dlink77]

I have been using Kalpesh for over 4 months and they have been awesome to deal with...a few minor problems but great support,,I would recommend giving them a try...So far the best firmware I have used,,,

[rconaway]

Here's my 2 cents worth. After 5 years of working with mesh products, albeit on a smaller scale than Philadelphia, for a simple and solid infrastructure, use the WDS infrastructure in AirOS. If you use a single radio per AP design, it's cheap and will work fine. You can use any combination of radios and maintain compatability while using Dude to monitor it. With Dude, you can watch to see if a certain area has higher loads. If that is the case, then you can add 5.8GHz radios to backhaul between AP's to avoid hop loss. However, if your bandwdith is going up, then you selling service and you can afford a couple hundred bucks to upgrade it.

If Kalpesh sells their mesh software to run on all the Ubiquiti products, then I might start looking at it once I do a field test. If they want to see the test, I have a network set up for that. My biggest issue with any software is stability. We have wasted way too much time in the field with firmware that caused huge problems that supposedly "nobody else on the planet" has ever seen. It's too expensive to troubleshoot problems like that.

[Kalpesh Wireless]

rconway-
sure, would be interested in running our software on your field test. we currently support bullets, nanos, and powerstations. we are starting our port to the picos and should be done by next week.

i'll send you a message to discuss further. thx.

[DCTech]

Well since I'm the bugger that started the post, I'll give my 2 cents on Kalpesh Wireless so far.

My colleague and I had a conference call with one of their Technical Sales people yesterday.

The rep answered ALL of our questions, gave us direction, advice and even contact information for specific hardware distributors (Antennas and the like).

It was fantastic customer service, friendly, polite and professional.

That being said, my plan is to purchase 3 - 5 Bullet HPs this week and their rep stated that I could throw the iMeshPoint firmware on as a 30-day trial.

Can't ask for anymore than that. Kudos to Kalpesh.

[WHT]

Good..an improvement over what I got last November.