WiFI on utility poles

Fri Sep 11 13:27:03 UTC 2015

I'm not suggesting that WISPs have exclusive-use spectrum at all. It isn't necessary, just cooperation and design best practices. For example, there aren't likely to be any people a hundred or two hundred feet in the air where the towers are, so why do the cable companies' radiation patterns include up there? Get yourself some higher gain antennas that focus their power in the lower 180* of elevation. I do understand that the cables these are typically mounted to will sway, so just put the AP closer to the pole where the sway will be less. 

Where would you suggest WISPs deploy? In spectrum that costs so much that it ruins the business model of being a WISP? Say there's a new WISP that wants to start, how could they possibly get spectrum if Clear bought it all up 10 years ago? At least there's potential with the upcoming 3550 - 3650 MHz. Then again, the licensed channels are tiny, so real amounts of bandwidth can't really be delivered. The government has been crapping on the TVWS for the last ten years as well. Then the areas that have foliage issues will have some relief, but there's always some special interest or another rearing their heads in the way, spewing FUD. 

Canopy operators are WISPs and their platform has been one of the most successful WISP platforms. So successful in fact that sync capability has been on the demanded features list for all other vendors. 

Spoken by a WISP that's been running in rural and suburban areas for the past 11 years. 

----- 
Mike Hammett 
Intelligent Computing Solutions 
http://www.ics-il.com 

Midwest Internet Exchange 
http://www.midwest-ix.com 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Bryan Fields" <Bryan at bryanfields.net> 
To: "Mike Hammett" <nanog at ics-il.net>, "Scott Helms" <khelms at zcorum.com> 
Cc: "Corey Petrulich" <Corey_Petrulich at cable.comcast.com>, "Kenneth Falkenstein" <Ken_Falkenstein at cable.comcast.com>, "NANOG mailing list" <nanog at nanog.org> 
Sent: Friday, September 11, 2015 2:56:18 AM 
Subject: Re: WiFI on utility poles 

On 9/10/15 1:15 PM, Mike Hammett wrote: 
> The tower-deployed AP can see the cable wireless APs for miles and can see 
> a few dozen of them at any one time. Given the goal of full modulation at 
> all times for optimal use of spectrum and dollars, the ever increasing 
> noise from the cable APs makes this a challenge. You need 25 to 30 dB to 
> maintain full modulation and that's increasingly difficult when you hear 
> cable APs everywhere at -70. 

Frankly this is what the WISP's get for deploying on Part 15 spectrum. 
It's a race to the bottom, and always has been. 

In 1999-2000 2.4 Part 15 was golden with FHSS, and we played nice with the 
Karlnet guys. Then the muni's came in with their 2.4 networks and killed 2.4 
for anything decent. Canopy operators came in like a thousand people blinking 
in unison and crapped up 5.8. We all retreated to 5.3 and then 5.4 opened up 
and life was good. 

900 was never an option as even in rural areas you had to deal with paging at 
929 mhz blowing out the front end of your receiver. We made it work with 
stupid long antennas and horizontal polarization, but that was only to go 2 
miles through trees. Remember waverider? 

Now it's happening again; get licensed spectrum or go home. 
-- 
Bryan Fields 

727-409-1194 - Voice 
727-214-2508 - Fax 
http://bryanfields.net 