From: Ken Meyering (ken@define.com)
Date: Fri Oct 15 1999 - 16:04:18 MDT
About this time last year on this list we discussed last mile
broadband solutions, eventually concluding that mass produced
terrestrial lasers is a possible long-term solution, at least as a
supplemental last link to a fiber backbone.
The October 1999 Scientific American covered the current state of
mass broadband rollout. The report discussed cable modems, DSL,
LMDS, and LEO Satellite plans such as Teledesic.
See http://www.sciam.com/1999/1099issue/1099currentissue.html
They discussed the prohibitive costs of fiber-to-the-neighborhood
(hybrid fiber/coax) and fiber-to-the-home.
LMDS is expensive to start up, requiring tens of thousands of dollars
for the basestation equipment then thousands for network terminal
equipment and antennas at each end-user point.
See http://www.alcatel.com/telecom/rcd/broadband_wireless_access/
The LMDS solution can serve as many as 4000 users from a single base
station, but the hardware costs prevent small ISP's from entering the
market.
One solution that Scientific American didn't discuss is internet
2.4Ghz internet radios which can provide between 1 and 1.676 Mbps
between radio routers at ranges from 1 to 30 miles depending on
configuration.
See http://www.rooftop.com/RadioDatasheet.html
On September 2, Nokia acquired Rooftop Wireless of Mountain View, CA
for $56 Million, and renamed the company to Nokia Wireless Routers.
The Rooftop design is elegent. Multinode networks configure
automatically, and can be extended create multi-hop networks covering
great distances. Presently, minimum network configuration consists
of two radios, each priced at $1995. Each internet radio has an RJ45
10Base-T Ethernet connector.
With Nokia's purchase of Rooftop, the price of each radio will surely
be reduced dramatically as a result of mass production for the last-
mile consumer market.
One obstacle that "wireless ISPs" will face is discovery of service
territory. Local telephone companies will not disclose their Central
Office locations, so it's impossible for an ISP to obtain a map of
the territory outside the phone company's DSL service area.
Currently, phone companies must perform a loop qualification test on
a customer-by-customer basis to determine whether DSL is available to
their homes.
How can a third-party competition be introduced when the mass-market
service areas remain a mystery to would-be competing ISPs?
----------------------
Kenneth D. Meyering
email: ken@define.com
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