A post on one of the many mailing lists that I monitor was just so out-of-synch with what the most clueful Broadband Wireless Internet Access Service Providers are doing that it just stopped me cold... and really begged comment. Here's the relevant excerpt:
Our [local college] students complain about radios that cost $125.
The context of the comment is that the (considerably greater than $125) cost of (proprietary) 902-928 MHz Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) devices are too expensive for customers to be willing to pay for up front.
But students not wanting to pay a paltry $125 for a radio to receive Internet access??? Bing! Reality check time. Those students are absolutely right to balk. There is absolutely no reason why they should be asked to pay anything for a radio to connect to a BWIA network. The reason is that they have (laptops) or can get and install very inexpensive Wi-Fi gear.
I've mentioned this before in numerous talks and presentations, and in at least one previous article. What that Service Provider should be doing is to use his existing BWIA network as backhaul to lots of well-placed outdoor, high-power, directionally-focused Wi-Fi Access Points near the concentrations of students. The photo at right is from a campground installation - you quickly get the point on how relatively simple it is to "distribute" Wi-Fi outdoors as long as you keep the link relatively short between the Wi-Fi users and the Access Point. The equipment is smartBridges; you'll find a link to them in the new BWIA Vendors sidebar on the right side of the page as you scroll down.
There are many, many service providers that have very profitably deployed such a hybrid infrastructure - use Wi-Fi where it makes sense - where it can be highly localized and you can take advantage of higher power, more sensitive receiver, and directional antennas on an outdoor Access Point. Use (much!) better-than-Wi-Fi backhaul to provide bandwidth to that Access Point... or (shudder) use DSL or T-1.
While it's happening a lot, you won't find it readily confessed by those that are doing it as I described... likely just because there's no point in "smartening up" the competition.
By Steve Stroh
This article is Copyright © 2005 by Steve Stroh.
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