http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r8934503 en Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:48:53 EDT Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:48:53 EDT http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,9033502 neeloy : Hi Centex. Not to rain on your parade or anything but a couple of things I would like to contribute. First of all 802.16 does work in the licensed spectrum, meaning much higher power levels than un-licensed ops. I am not entirely familiar with FCC regs, but up here in Canada, Industry Canada makes it fairly cheap, but never easy to get licenses for rural areas. Secondly, aside from the mobile capabilities afforded by the 802.16e spec, the way 802.11 does things on a technical level is totally different than 802.16. Meaning that 802.16 is actually meant to be used in a metro-area or wide-area situation and therefore has mechanisims in place, mainly based off what we learned in the DOCSIS spec, to deal with the many variables in the outside environment that 802.11 does not account for. Thirdly one of the big advantages to the longer distance reach offered by 802.16 is that you can have fewer backhaul points provided you have more than one small community within 15 - 30 miles of each other.

Don't get me wrong, I don't envy your position. I don't and haven't operated a small ISP or WISP like you because I know how difficult it can be and have set up several. However I do know that as a major or "big" ISP, there is a business case to be made using 802.16e for supporting rural areas that barely breakeven or may even end-up costing money as long as you have the necessary metro area subs, because it raises your company profile, helps out businesses in certain areas, and gives your metro customers better mobile coverage. Afterall the only thing that drive down the cost of CPE devices is volume. 5 years ago a cable modem cost $300, today, you can buy one for a tenth of that.

Anyways, best of luck to you with your WISP.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,9033502 Sat, 10 Jan 2004 01:11:01 EDT http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8997826 feet_smellin : ;)Hey Centex I would seriously look in to the Rural Communcations Act. This might relieve some or all of your financial burden in providing a service that is becoming a necessity. A Gov't subsidy that is greatly enjoyed by SWBC and all the other highly profitable companies in America. It actually sounds if you deserve such a break.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8997826 Tue, 06 Jan 2004 17:09:45 EDT http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8948163 CenTex2 : yessir, we're based in Marlin, but have towers covering about 80% or so of Falls County, and stretching a bit into the surrounding counties as well. Our current service area stretches from Bremond to Waco approximately....
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Don't sweat the petty things, and never pet the sweaty things...]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8948163 Thu, 01 Jan 2004 14:08:07 EDT http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8943854 reverendRon : Is your wireless service in Marlin? If so, where are you finding subs there?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8943854 Wed, 31 Dec 2003 22:36:26 EDT http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8935306 CenTex2 : unfortunately, there's no right answer on that one. I'd personally like to see CPE equipment dip to around $200 per subscriber or less. I suppose it's possible, but not very likely. The ideal price to charge is whatever your market can willingly pay without gouging them. If we were able to offer $100 installs, we'd be booked solid for months ahead of time, but would YOU want to sit on $500 + per subscriber for 3 + years to recoup equipment cost that only has an effective service life of less than 2 years?
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Don't sweat the petty things, and never pet the sweaty things...]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8935306 Wed, 31 Dec 2003 01:17:39 EDT http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8935257 CenTex2 : it's supposedly NLOS, but it's still microwave - and microwave is microwave. We've played around a bit with 802.16 equipment, and the NLOS range is very short. Not very practical unless you saturate your service area with towers and AP's...not something anybody in the industry wants to do due to the cost. True NLOS is only going to be achieved by lower frequencies and higher power output...no matter how good your design is, you can't defeat physics. The higher the frequency, the more bandwidth the signal can carry, but it's more affected by the type of terrain and obstacles you find in rural surroundings.
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Don't sweat the petty things, and never pet the sweaty things...]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8935257 Wed, 31 Dec 2003 01:11:22 EDT http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8934855 phoenixtech : Isn't 802.16 NLOS? I believe this market is as big as satellite TV. The biggest problem is going to be the shared nature. It is going to be way worse than cable internet.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8934855 Wed, 31 Dec 2003 00:20:30 EDT http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8934503 Jafo232 : Let us say the cost of the equipment goes down as it becomes more and more implemented in urban areas. At what point would it become profitable?
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nos insuadibilis defessus, nos insuadibilis inclino, nos insuadibilis concido.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8934503 Tue, 30 Dec 2003 23:36:36 EDT http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8933713 CenTex2 : My partner and I own a wireless ISP in rural Texas, and I can say with a 110% amount of certainty that 802.16 gear IS NOT going to be the solution for broadband access in under-developed areas. Anyone here ever heard of "scale of economy"? You simply can't sell a $600 radio and the associated additional equipment to the average joe that lives in the sticks, no matter how fast the porn comes in...lol. Lemme break it down for those of you not in the business like I am, and i'll use the actual numbers to instill the fear of God into anyone that belives all the WIMAX hype. If you think ANY major provider is going to go through all this trouble for a handful of clients that they never showed interest in to begin with, time to change your medication! LOL Here's how the wireless business works:

As an example, let's say you live in a rural area, with an approximate population of 7,000 persons in a town of approx 6 square miles in rural Texas. Due to pure insanity, you decide to provide fixed wireless broadband services to the area, as no other options are available and the major players don't deem a population density this low worthy of their time and investment to provide services. You sink you life savings into setting up an infrastructure to handle about 300 clients (servers, radio equipment, establishing an office, staff, etc.). As wireless technology requires line-of-sight between your main transmitter and your client radios, you must either rent space on an existing structure or build your own tower on land you must purchase and zone appropriately to construct a 200ft. tower. Now that you've invested $50,000 worth of equipment and have a tower to transmit from, you have to feed this beast with some type of broadband connection to resell to your client base. In a great deal of rural markets, a SINGLE T1 will cost anywhere from $900 - $1,200 each, per month. There is generally no competition for your business, as the local telco is the only game in town that can offer you your T1's, and they will NOT cut you a deal because 1) you are now their competitors 2) there's no other competition, so you'll pay what they're asking if you want service. To get decent pricing (if that's what you want to call it), you sign away your life on 2 T1's to start off with, for a contract period of 3 years at a cost of approx. $2,000 per month. Since you're a newly formed business with no D&B rating, the local telco reluctantly sells you service after you provide them with a $3,800 down payment. After approx. 60 days (or whenever they get around to it), your T1 lines are hot and you're ready to sell services! Only problem is, good commercial grade equipment isn't cheap by any stretch of the imagination. YOUR cost as a provider to hook up ONE client runs between $500 - $600. Unless you're EXTREMELY well funded, you'll need to pass at least half of this cost down to your customer as installation fees of some type. Remember that line-of-sight issue I mentioned earlier? Well, most rural areas have trees - and LOTS of 'em. You'll also have to erect a tower or mast at your client's site in order to recieve the wireless signal. You HAVE to clear the vegetation and other obstructions, or the link won't work - adding more upfront costs to you and your subscriber. By the time all things are setup and working properly, the customer's out of pocket expense is $350 (assuming you're willing to eat half).

Let's say your first month went well, and you convinced 15 rural households that they need to spend $350 of their hard-earned money during a natoinwide recession on a service that is not generally considered a necessity. In 3 of these households are teenagers that LOVE downloading and sharing music and movies on their computers - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Because of the wireless technology, your peer network speed drops to a dead halt for your subscribers while a few kids flush your $2000 per month investment down the toilet for a fleet of badly produced CD's and movies that they burn onto CD's. Time to invest another $2,500 of your money on a device that controls how much bandwidth each customer gets, and integrate it into your existing network. You now have the ability to control who's using what, and can start offering various levels of service at different price points. How much to charge? Good question! As a rule of thumb, I keep my prices competitive with the average DSL and cable service in surrounding markets (even though it is not available here). At $40 per subscriber per month, it takes you 50 clients to break even on your monthly bandwidth costs, THEN you can start recouping your other expenses.

Running a wireless ISP is a 24x7 operation that takes a sick sense of dedication to keep running smoothly and keeps your clients happy. As your client base grows, it requires a small army of support personnel that know all aspects of the business very well. These technicians and engineers cost money, and must be willing to relocate to where you're going to offer service in order to provide quick resolutions to problems that arise.

Does anyone in this forum REALLY believe that ANY major player is going to go through all of this to provide last-mile internet connectivity to all of rural America? HaH! These people have trouble competing in the markets they specialize in....lol. All they understand is PROFIT, plain and simple....and unless things drastically change in the telecommunications market very soon, IMHO there will never be enough profit to make their efforts worthwhile. I might be wrong, but if I were, there would already be broadband available EVERYWHERE, right?
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Don't sweat the petty things, and never pet the sweaty things...]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8933713 Tue, 30 Dec 2003 22:08:07 EDT