Another take on the BB debate...

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benkepes

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#20646 1-Apr-2008 21:01

Hi all - sorry for the linkbait post but you might be interested to check out this post discussing another strategy in the (thus far one sided) broadband debate

Any comments more than welcome

Ben Kepes
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exportgoldman

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#120342 1-Apr-2008 21:41

benkepes: Hi all - sorry for the linkbait post but you might be interested to check out this post discussing another strategy in the (thus far one sided) broadband debate

Any comments more than welcome

The first part of the article rambles, but I get the idea.

The problem is last mile Wifi simply isn't ready for commercial residential deployment. Many have tried (and trying) and failing. There are fixed wireless (pole fixed on outside of house) back to central aerial, but this involves a installer etc.

WiMax seemed to be the solution, but a major player in Australia which deployed it said it was a disaster, but Mexico is having some success with it, but the pentration into building starts dropping off after 400 metres, unlike mobile technologies.

Eventually someone will get it working reliabily, but the real question is if it will be then be cost effictive to build a new network, or simply rent Telecom's at (what I assume) will then be much more competitive prices.

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freitasm

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#120368 1-Apr-2008 22:18

The density of radio devices needed to provide wi-fi in a city block would make it very expensive and prone to interference.

Wimax would be ideal but the lack of standards has created confusion in the market.

exportgoldman

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#121672 7-Apr-2008 02:36

freitasm: Wimax would be ideal but the lack of standards has created confusion in the market.

From what I have been reading, the lack of standards is the least of WiMax's worries, the CEO of the biggest Wimax network in Australia suprised everyone at the Wimax conference by saying it's been a complete disaster, and the network is performing very baddly, and isn't able to do the one promised killer feature...VOIP as the jitter and latancy is too bad.

For a product which was once called wireless DSL, it's looking worse and worse by the day.

Don't get me wrong, I WANTED wimax to be everything it promised to be, I dream of DSL2 speed wireless connections without $$$ costings in the usual Vodafone price play book.

But it seems less likely every day to be coming from Wimax.

If you really need evidence that it's a bad technological choice, Woosh just started backing wimax :-)

Tyler - Parnell Geek - iPhone 3G - Lenovo X301 - Kaseya - Great Western Steak House, these are some of my favourite things.

freitasm

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#121679 7-Apr-2008 07:07

freitasm: The density of radio devices needed to provide wi-fi in a city block would make it very expensive and prone to interference.

Wimax would be ideal but the lack of standards has created confusion in the market.

Last year during one of the sessions at Wireless and Broadband forum in Wellington we heard the reports that to completely cover a city block in San Francisco they needed to deploy about 60 Wi-Fi access points.

A document (pdf) suggests about 40 mesh wifi nodes per square mile (16 per square kilomter). This is not counting for indoor usage.

webwat

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#121939 7-Apr-2008 22:47

freitasm:
freitasm: The density of radio devices needed to provide wi-fi in a city block would make it very expensive and prone to interference.

Wimax would be ideal but the lack of standards has created confusion in the market.

Last year during one of the sessions at Wireless and Broadband forum in Wellington we heard the reports that to completely cover a city block in San Francisco they needed to deploy about 60 Wi-Fi access points.

A document (pdf) suggests about 40 mesh wifi nodes per square mile (16 per square kilomter). This is not counting for indoor usage.

Wifi is very sensitive to congestion, kind of like an old hub, so improving coverage in a city block essentially increases the amount of likely congestion. There are only a few radio channels available in the spectrum for wifi and they are shared by private wireless LAN as well as subscriber networks. Nobody would attempt to COMPLETELY cover a city block with wifi, not enough money in it. You would calculate how far you wanted to go with deminishing returns for higher density, and then put antennas in locations that have the best tradeoff between reach and density using directional antennas etc. Too much reach, and your congestion/interferance would make the service unusable. RoamAD have a good NZ-made system for wifi mesh — http://www.roamad.com/

The guy in Australia was apparently not a major player at all, and appears to have completely misunderstood the technology's capabilities (translate "cowboy"), considering the WiMax radio spectrum is completely unsuitable for high building penetration. Wired Country network is similar to what you would use for WiMax offering better contention ratios etc to compensate for install costs, but probably a less than ideal % of population has line of sight to base stations. If they had gone for higher density using smaller base stations with less coverage instead of a big one at Sky Tower, this % might have been improved at a much higher cost and a lot more backhaul. Thats the tradeoff, so I think wireless needs to co-exist with other broadband technologies sharing the backhaul.

Time to find a new industry!

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#121942 7-Apr-2008 22:52

I still dont think I would be interested in an exclusively wireless network, but anything has to beat CDMA! There is a place for copper and fibre local loops, but wireless can extend reach to users that didnt get copper/fibre.

Time to find a new industry!

freitasm

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#121982 8-Apr-2008 07:11

CDMA EVDO is actually quite good and offers lower latency and less breathing than WCDMA-based technologies...