RBI Colo, Access and Hand Over...

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#441471 19-Feb-2011 12:44

You simply can't allow random radio gear to go on these towers, someone has to oversee whats going up to make sure it wont interfere with others on the tower. Anyone whos run a unlicensed link across a major city knows what a headache it can be to find the right channel, doing this on a tower would be dam near impossible gven that there is radio gear still these days that have quite bad bleed over

There is a reason Telecom/Vodafone/Kordia do these checks, its not just some made up policy to annoy people, You wouldn't like it if your Vodafone signal went out because someone switched on some long range 900mhz gear that bleed into their band

Cost's will come down but never to those levels, you need these kinds of checks in place to make sure everyone plays nicely with one another and that requires a really good RF engineer and they dont come cheap

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#441472 19-Feb-2011 12:45

Beccara:

There is a reason Telecom/Vodafone/Kordia do these checks, its not just some made up policy to annoy people, You wouldn't like it if your Vodafone signal went out because someone switched on some long range 900mhz gear that bleed into their band

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#441493 19-Feb-2011 16:33

Beccara: You simply can't allow random radio gear to go on these towers, someone has to oversee whats going up to make sure it wont interfere with others on the tower.

Hold up... isn't that the whole point of radio freq allocations? Gear operates in a range or we'd have gear failing all over the place.

Beccara: Anyone whos run a unlicensed link across a major city knows what a headache it can be to find the right channel,

Again hold up... we're not talking about trying to run a link across a congested area. We're talking about lighting up unlit rural areas.

doing this on a tower would be dam near impossible gven that there is radio gear still these days that have quite bad bleed over

Yip, I'm going to give you that one. Each operator needs to make sure their gear doesn't bleed and that needs to be their responsibility.

I recall that XT had issues with its gear upsetting Vodafones network and turning it on for production had to be delayed.

Though you're talking 450w towers? v's 500mw aps for doing short hops?

There is a reason Telecom/Vodafone/Kordia do these checks, its not just some made up policy to annoy people, You wouldn't like it if your Vodafone signal went out because someone switched on some long range 900mhz gear that bleed into their band

Ok, now I'm getting confused again... 'long range'? I thought the whole point of these 154 towers with fibre feed was to push out the long ranges and put everything in the 'short range' arena.

Cost's will come down but never to those levels, you need these kinds of checks in place to make sure everyone plays nicely with one another and that requires a really good RF engineer and they dont come cheap

Ok, I think we're going over board again... If I can turn the stuff on and point is across a suburb 1.5km wide and not upset any of the three mobile networks, half dozen tv networks, dozen radio stations, then it's hardly going to cause issues in an un-congested rural area is it?

I'm no expert in this stuff clearly. But I'd be interested to hear from those who are with some concrete evidence that a couple of small wireless APs are going to knock out mobile kit.

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raytaylor

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#441502 19-Feb-2011 17:49

Even though there is fibre going out to the new RBI cell towers, if i colo on one, i would still have no plans to use it. I would microwave backhaul everything - just not enough customers to warrant fibre.

Telecom and vodafone were operating on completley different frequencies, but even though an antenna may be transmitting on one frequency, there can be bleed over and there are all sorts of other sources of interference that only travels a few metres. So telecom had to install cavity filters. Installing a cavity filter on a 2.4ghz or 5.8ghz wireless system would kill most of the signal.

One of the big things about cellular systems and how they break through walls and go non-line of sight is that there has to be very very little noise so it can work on such marginal signals. A ubnt link will work 5mbit at -70 with -90 noise but a cellular T-Stick may have to do the same with -85 signal and -98 noise. So anything nearby would have to be vetted.

One example of something that needs vetting before being installed
If you are familiar with ubnt equipment, you will know that an unshielded ethernet cable sending data up to the AP can cause havoc to alot of things nearby in the 100 to 200mhz VHF band. Its pretty much the reason I dont bother installing service to a customer that is also a HAM radio operator. A big wisp i know of went and colocated at a radio transmission tower and screwed with all the VHF stuff when installing their routerboards.

I have even had problems locating a 5.8ghz and 2.4ghz antenna within a metre of each other.

So in the end i really doubt this is going to be affordable to anyone other than a large national company like Kordia who can expand the Extend wholesale network. They will be able to get their standardised equipment approved for all towers in one big go without some sort of individual site evaluation. Something i really hope doesnt happen because the smaller regional wisp's are still much cheaper for the consumer.

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webwat

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#441842 21-Feb-2011 10:32

I have to say the fibre would cost far more than 55,000 to run, especially if you have to dig up and restore concrete or anything on public land. If you do trenching yourself on your own property then no need for a resource consent or road traffic plans I guess, but the trench still has to be level and meet the correct specs.

I also have to ask whether you will be reselling service to other users, and you probably would have to as a condition of open access space. That implies your users would require sufficient resilience to keep the network functioning through a cyclone or power outage without too many single points of failure. If people rely on your network to be able to call emergency services then you dont want the thing to leak and crash just as someone needs to call an ambulance as a result of the storm.

Open access means you can negotiate interconnection and hosting agreements, but still have to meet a bunch of requirements including cable pathways in the colo area and any protocols that have to be tested (eg interconnecting your wifi node to ethernet backhaul). Even the LFC agreements will include some provision for % uptime required for emergency services. I also wonder if your M5' remote troubleshooting tools and alarms will help get you a reliable service, and if it has functions to load-balance heavy users.

Time to find a new industry!

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#441998 21-Feb-2011 17:01

M5's can be set up to operate with a program called The Dude which monitors a network and using an email to sms service, you can get a text message within minutes of a unit failing. You can then do some basic setting changes and have a second M5 start up and take over the load. They also have QoS functions built in to offer priority to telephone calls. Best of all they are TDMA so the phone calling is very reliable, and you can deprioritise the radio airtime of heavy users or non-telephone subscribers by the radio timing slots or auctual tcp/ip data throughput.

I would have thought that the open access means that people other than vodafone/telecom can access the towers, not that the equipment we put on the tower may be accessed by others. I do see it as a good opportunity - which is why i reckon Kordia Extend will be the 3rd player in this game.

If I had to guarantee uptime, then I would be expecting more than open access to the towers- I would be requiring funding from the TSO.

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Beccara

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#442010 21-Feb-2011 17:30

Powering up that 2nd M5 means another channel in term's of either cross-polarity or freq which brings us back to needing oversight of the tower and it's users otherwise there is nothing stopping me from running on all of the 5ghz channels on both polarities to effectively block anyone else from running on the tower. Someone needs to say who goes where and who gets how much spectrum otherwise it all goes to hell when 1 player has 60mhz of spectrum to feed 5 clients and player 2 needs another 20mhz because they have 51 clients now but can't find a free channel

This is the thing that small WISP's or people with no background in playing nice on unlicensed bands is going to have to learn, you simply can't power on another device or jump to another channel. An example is an ISP I know that got in UBNT's XR9 cards for a job in which are 900mhz radios, They put them up and had power levels within RSM limits etc etc 2 weeks later got a nasty letter from Vodafone telling them to turn it off before they got RSM involved because it was interfering with phone calls. Turns out the XR9's bleed to much and pushed into Vodafones 900mhz band

Someone needs to make sure everythings ok and that means cost's

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DonGould

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#442031 21-Feb-2011 18:02

Beccara: Powering up that 2nd M5 means another channel in term's of either cross-polarity or freq which brings us back to needing oversight of the tower and it's users otherwise there is nothing stopping me from running on all of the 5ghz channels on both polarities to effectively block anyone else from running on the tower. Someone needs to say who goes where and who gets how much spectrum otherwise it all goes to hell when 1 player has 60mhz of spectrum to feed 5 clients and player 2 needs another 20mhz because they have 51 clients now but can't find a free channel

While valid points I think we're getting a bit out of the realms of a rural community working together. Can you point me to a rural community that's likely to have 51 clients in the same area all wanting service?

If you've got that much business then why not just bid for some of the lic spec?

If this was my community and the situation I'd be sitting down with the locals and having a bit of a chat.

Beccara: This is the thing that small WISP's or people with no background in playing nice on unlicensed bands is going to have to learn, you simply can't power on another device or jump to another channel. An example is an ISP I know that got in UBNT's XR9 cards for a job in which are 900mhz radios, They put them up and had power levels within RSM limits etc etc 2 weeks later got a nasty letter from Vodafone telling them to turn it off before they got RSM involved because it was interfering with phone calls. Turns out the XR9's bleed to much and pushed into Vodafones 900mhz band

Someone needs to make sure everything's ok and that means cost's

Ya, people are doing just that though aren't they. So the XR9's bleed, that's all just part of working in a wireless world isn't it. What's the issue with just having a simple mailing list like NZNog or geekzone to just tell ppl what you're planning?

I agree it's a bit rude to knock someone else network out, so as a small community we really should just make is easy for everyone else to give each other heads up.

I'm sure that UBNT would also like to know their kit bleeds badly because that would impact sales in other places if the kit is known to be poor.

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#442035 21-Feb-2011 18:04

raytaylor: M5's can be set up to operate with a program called The Dude which monitors a network and using an email to sms service, you can get a text message within minutes of a unit failing. You can then do some basic setting changes and have a second M5 start up and take over the load. They also have QoS functions built in to offer priority to telephone calls. Best of all they are TDMA so the phone calling is very reliable, and you can deprioritise the radio airtime of heavy users or non-telephone subscribers by the radio timing slots or auctual tcp/ip data throughput.

I would have thought that the open access means that people other than vodafone/telecom can access the towers, not that the equipment we put on the tower may be accessed by others. I do see it as a good opportunity - which is why i reckon Kordia Extend will be the 3rd player in this game.

If I had to guarantee uptime, then I would be expecting more than open access to the towers- I would be requiring funding from the TSO.

The Dude is cool.... I didn't know it interacted with the M5s though. That's really cool.... or did I mis-understand?

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raytaylor

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#442036 21-Feb-2011 18:04

As I understand, XR9's are not designed for the NZ market. There is something like one channel thats like 5mhz wide that we are allowed to use - everything else is auctually in vodafones band. So when someone uses one, they see all these usable channels that are auctually not allowed in nz.

An M5 can be set to listen only mode so it doesnt occupy any radio bandwidth until it is needed. Also GPS sync is avaliable so you can use multiple rocket sector units on the same tower on the same channel.

You raise a good point about unlicensed frequency use. Its something that is going to have to be used as a first come-first use situation with limits imposed by the tower operator - something like 10mhz wide channels maximum per radio. Self interference would stop someone occupying the whole band in that situation. If I were denied access to a tower because all the 5.8ghz band is in use, then I'll just go to a nearby hill and set up there, and then happily exclude myself from any organised band managment plan with the tower operators.

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Beccara

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#442037 21-Feb-2011 18:10

Who says it's rural communities? Without someone overseeing it there is nothing stopping a national provider current or new from stepping in and crapping up the channels.

You are putting way too much faith in the ability of competing companies or community efforts to work together and sort things out.

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#442038 21-Feb-2011 18:10

DonGould:

The Dude is cool.... I didn't know it interacted with the M5s though. That's really cool.... or did I mis-understand?

Yes you can set it up to ping an ip address for monitoring. I dont have it txting me though, i have it emailing my cellphone because its so much cheaper.

So I have the dude running in my home office constantly monitoring the network.
If a customers radio goes down for more than 3 minutes (so they can unplug it and plug it back in without bothering me) it emails me to say something is wrong. If I get more than one email from multiple clients off the same AP then i know i need to investigate.
I have instant emails set up to alert me if a backhaul link or AP itself goes down for more than 60 seconds.

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Beccara

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#442041 21-Feb-2011 18:14

raytaylor: As I understand, XR9's are not designed for the NZ market. There is something like one channel thats like 5mhz wide that we are allowed to use - everything else is auctually in vodafones band. So when someone uses one, they see all these usable channels that are auctually not allowed in nz.

An M5 can be set to listen only mode so it doesnt occupy any radio bandwidth until it is needed. Also GPS sync is avaliable so you can use multiple rocket sector units on the same tower on the same channel.

You raise a good point about unlicensed frequency use. Its something that is going to have to be used as a first come-first use situation with limits imposed by the tower operator - something like 10mhz wide channels maximum per radio. Self interference would stop someone occupying the whole band in that situation. If I were denied access to a tower because all the 5.8ghz band is in use, then I'll just go to a nearby hill and set up there, and then happily exclude myself from any organised band managment plan with the tower operators.

Just a note, the XR9 was running in the correct band and correct E.I.R.P level, it was bleed over.

First in first served doesn't work, In your example you say you'll go up the hill close by. Thats great if you can handle the increased costs but your also able to use the band thats pointing away from you aswell. The only channels you'll cause a problem on are the channels with antenna's who's beam-width include the location of your antenna's beam-width and even then it's just a power level game which is easier to deal with when the interference is coming from 600m away rather than it coming 3ft away

raytaylor

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#442043 21-Feb-2011 18:22

Beccara:
Just a note, the XR9 was running in the correct band and correct E.I.R.P level, it was bleed over.

First in first served doesn't work, In your example you say you'll go up the hill close by. Thats great if you can handle the increased costs but your also able to use the band thats pointing away from you aswell. The only channels you'll cause a problem on are the channels with antenna's who's beam-width include the location of your antenna's beam-width and even then it's just a power level game which is easier to deal with when the interference is coming from 600m away rather than it coming 3ft away

Stick a Canopy system in nearby and you will kill any 802.11 system on the channel. But I am not like that. I wouldnt try to interfere with another operator - wont be enough customers to warrant the competition.

The thing about going up the hill is that it probably wont be an increase in costs.
I have been talking to WISP operators overseas who colocate and what I would guess the assessment cost from telecom/vodafone for approval to colocate on a tower will easily pay for a couple of solar panels and a battery bank.

I estimate a setup cost of about $3000+ to get onto a RBI tower - plus hardware.
That $3000 will easily pay for a basic site buildout on a nearby hill for solar, batteries, pole and fence to keep the cows out. And then monthly site rental would be less.

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#442045 21-Feb-2011 18:29

$3k install fee is starting to be in the right ball park, if it's straight forward it should hit that point.

As with anything you there will be pro's and con's of going on another hill. The main con being your own "tower" and the cost's of the tower over it's lifetime. When your town blows down it's your cost, when an RBI tower blows down it's not :) Then you have battery maintenance and Solar etc, It all adds up.

RBI's going to bring the entry cost's down from the $100k+ mark to the $10k+ mark for new players, It's going to open up things to companies who simply didn't have the cash before but had a good idea. It's not going to allow every man and his dog to jump onboard

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