RBI Colo, Access and Hand Over...

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DonGould

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#442052 21-Feb-2011 18:55

Beccara: 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

Yet what Ray's talking about is 30% of that cost.

You could be talking the different the customer pays - $60/m or $200/m.

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DonGould

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#442059 21-Feb-2011 19:03

Beccara: 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.

Sure. I'm providing service to half a dozen rural guys, then YourNextBigCorporateTelco comes along, pays their good money to set up their own kit, takes all the community owned space with no signed customers...

No great issue with that. Explain it to all the customers why I can't deliver service till I reconfigure my network to use private spec space, get them all to sign on for a 5 year contract then go to govt and buy some of the space that's up for sale.... or just leave the community to go take up the issue with YourNextBigCorporateTelco.

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

Yes I do have to concede you that one. I've been told many time that I under estimate New Zealanders interests to just screw the next guy over and bugger the consequences.

It's basically why I'm here on GZ just chatting about it rather than lobbying govt for change.

D

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SaltyNZ

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#442060 21-Feb-2011 19:03

DonGould: 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

..Aaaaaaand that's why we have spectrum licensing and regulation!

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Beccara

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#442073 21-Feb-2011 19:20

DonGould:
Beccara: 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

Yet what Ray's talking about is 30% of that cost.

You could be talking the different the customer pays - $60/m or $200/m.

And with all due respect to Ray a decent tower to provide quality service is not $3k. I manage a network of close to 100 transmission sites, not huge but also not tiny either. Alot of these are solar and our standard cost pricing for a solar site is $15k+ based on having put alot of these up.

To start with the solar we have sites that have a base load of about 40watts, Even in sunny northland we have to have 200watts of solar to keep things running nicely which is about $600-1000 depending on quality and price at the time, Next up are batteries for this loading we would put 130-150amp hr in which is another $400-500. Solar controller is a big key item, You need it networked so you can read voltages and you need it to be high quality to handle the environment, We put in a MPPT gear and it's about $900

So before you even factor in the tower cost's, the RF gear, antenna's and your TIME to build it all we're sitting at $1900-2400 just for your power setup.

Yes you can do it cheaper with your DSE controller and a car battery etc but you're going to run into problems, If you want to provide a quality service thats stable you can't do it on a $3k budget

And please, spectrum doesn't grow on tree. You can't just take some clients, lock them into 5 year terms and goto RSM and buy some spectrum, The minute you step outside unlicensed bands the cost of the gear sky rockets, You need to have a RF engineer on call to you and you need cash behind you

Most problems are the result of previous solutions...

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DonGould

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#442124 21-Feb-2011 21:40

Beccara: And with all due respect to Ray a decent tower to provide quality service is not $3k.

(my bold)

I think you hit on a key point here that Ray eluded to. I'm not saying that what Ray is doing isn't a quality service, I have no idea exactly what he's doing, so please don't take my comments as any reflection on what he's doing.

However I keep hearing this assumption of 'quality' bandied about.

Many people are just after 'a' service and a price that represents that service. Sure, I agree in a massive once in 30 year wind a cheap M5 on a bit of 30mm pipe stuck in the ground may end up in the farmers paddock three doors down and that means service will be out.

But if you're paying $60/m v's $200/m then you just deal with it being out after a big wind.

Beccara: So before you even factor in the tower cost's, the RF gear, antenna's and your TIME to build it all we're sitting at $1900-2400 just for your power setup.

Another very valid point. When you're working for someone else you do want to be paid by the hour for your time when you're building something that's their investment.

When you're building your own investment then you tend to account for time differently.

Beccara: Yes you can do it cheaper with your DSE controller and a car battery etc but you're going to run into problems, If you want to provide a quality service thats stable you can't do it on a $3k budget

The DSE comment set me thinking for a while. DSE are an interesting bunch. They have a whole range of kit.

Though they don't stock M5's as far as I'm aware.... I think there are 3 levels of kit, the sort that DSE stocks, the stuff that Dale stocks and the sort that you're talking about.

I do tend to agree that if you pick the cheapest kit you can find from DSE then things are going to end in tears. But there's still a world of difference between reasonable quality and carrier grade kit and what you can do with it.

Beccara: And please, spectrum doesn't grow on tree. You can't just take some clients, lock them into 5 year terms and goto RSM and buy some spectrum, The minute you step outside unlicensed bands the cost of the gear sky rockets, You need to have a RF engineer on call to you and you need cash behind you

Which I guess is why more and more people are just building stuff out of public spec stuff.

D

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raytaylor

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#442131 21-Feb-2011 21:58

A remote relay consisting of two AP's uses 12 watts. Thats one radio for backhaul and one radio for the local transmission. Backups to be put in place or extra backhaul off to another site might push total usage up to 20 watts.

So for a network edge repeater site:

==SOLAR PANELS===
12 watts * 24 = 288 Watts per day
Capture 244 watts in 8 hours of light = 36 watts per hour
Capture 36 watts with a solar array working at 20% on a cloudy day = 180 Watt Solar Array.

===BATTERY BANK===
288 watts / 12 = 24 Amp Hours per day
Battery bank goal of running for 5 days without any sunlight = 120 amp hours
Account for a never drop below 50% policy over those 5 days = 240 amp hours
Remember the solar array is sized to capture enough power to run the system even on a cloudy day - any auctual direct sunlight is a bonus. This means that we are prolonging the life of the deep cycle batteries by keeping their state of charge levels to never drop below 89%

===SOLAR CONTROLLER===
Steca PR2020 20 amp solar controller - not a cheap DSE unit

===VOLTAGE MONITOR RELAY ===
A relay monitors the voltage of the batteries and disconnects a network plug from the second port on an NS when the batteries drop below an approx limit - eg. 60% charge. The second port is then monitored via SNMP remotley. Not super fancy so it doesnt provide an exact voltage supply other than an alarm to say the tower will need to be visited in the next 48 hours.

$1200 - 180 Watt Solar Array
$800 - 2x 12v Deep Cycle Batteries with 260aH total capacity
$300 - Steca Solar Controller
$ 50 - voltage monitor relay
=======
$650 - Remaining to spend on cable, box for battery bank, panel frame, fence and 5m pole.
Okay there may be some other costs but nothing to tip it too much.
=======

I agree the cost for a larger company to do it might be $5,000+ with labour costs involved also.

I dont have as many solar sites as you but I do have 5 which I have set up for less than $5000 each and working well for 2 years so far. Dont seem to have any downtime other than the regular maintance I perform - part of which is a reboot of the devices on the site and test.

Ray Taylor

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raytaylor

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#442133 21-Feb-2011 22:04

I think we should end this thread.
I dont even remember what we started talking about. The subject has changed too much.
Continue if you want - probably best for me to sit out as I dont want to argue about stuff that doesnt really matter right now.

One last thing - does anyone know which government e-newsletter we should subscribe to so we can get updates on the tcl/vodafone deal.

I subscribe to the RSM newsletter but would like to be alerted if any public submissions are required for discussion so I can take part.

Ray Taylor

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Beccara

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#442141 21-Feb-2011 22:16

Hi Ray,

Thanks for the break down, Since this is a thread about the RBI I wont derail much further but....

Thats a good setup and if you get a good batch of gear but every system you add in carrys the risk of failure, your voltage monitoring system gets flaky and the site's dead. It's good to hear that it's worked well but when you scale up you find things tend to fail more.

It's kinda like someone at home with a bunch of hard disk's might say there is no difference between WD and Seagate in terms of failure but then someone with a big DC might know that WD's tend to fail more than Seagate simply because they have more HDD's to fail.

We've learn't lessions from starting off with systems like your to find all the bugs you come across like guided free standing towers have the guide rust away due to cheap wire used and tower blows over :) Or U-bolts snapping due to the number of thermal hot-cold cycles and the antenna going bye bye.

Back on topic, Hopefully if you have a standard system you deploy to sites you will be able to cut cost's by not having to have an RF engineer check the gear every single time etc etc and WISP's will get some economy from mass deployment and as such will consider putting gear up on 20 tower rather than 2 :)

Just remember everything about these towers is limited, There's limited fiber running to it, limited shed space, limited tower space, limited tower wind loading levels, limited unlicensed and even licensed spectrum, limited power or power generation (for power failures) A free-for-all or a barrier to entry too low on one or more of these things will not be good. I do get a sinking feeling alot of these questions wont be answered until after the RBI tender is a done deal

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