[Wireless-general] RE: [GKD] RFI: WiMax Utilization

[Kyle Johnston]

Good morning.

I got a copy of your post to the GKD on a different mailing list that I am
on, one that is focused on similar things to what you are trying to do,
except we are focusing in Africa.  I am a technical consultant to this
group, based just north of Toronto Canada.

WiMax will be a great thing, but like you said it is still a few years off.
My understanding is that there is only one product on the market right
now... there might be one or two more by now.  The one I know for sure is on
the market is the Redline AN-100.  Great product, I use all kinds of other
Redline equipment in other projects that I am working on.  Thing is, they
make great point to point links, but are still far to expensive to use as
CPEs.  In time the price will come down, but for now, we are staying with
802.11b/g equipment, and some proprietary protocol equipment that works in
the 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz bands.  While writing this message, I did some product
searches looking to confirm operating frequency... the only one I could get
firm data on uses 3.5GHz, which is currently a licensed band.  Not sure if
that will be an issue for you or not, but definitely something to watch for.

When trying to design your network infrastructure (the towers) you have to
look at your funding, and how you are going to handle CPE equipment.  What I
am getting at, is that if your organization is paying for everything... Base
stations, CPEs, CPE installation, bandwidth, tower rent, and network
maintenance, it is often far more cost effective to work with multiple
towers then it is to try and make everything work using just one.  Long
range CPEs get very expensive, and the fresnel zones clearance required will
likely mean that people further then 15-20 miles will need a TV tower to
ensure connectivity.  One of my WISP clients has a goal for not having a
customer more then 6 miles from a tower.  That is probably a bit of
overkill, but it does suit his application well.  This strategy has kept the
CPE cost less the US$250, instead of the US$1400 for some of the long range
equipment.

Here is a link to a decent white paper on WiMax.
http://www.alvarion-usa.com/runtime/materials/pdffiles/WiMAX_WP.pdf.

There are tons of options out there... As you are looking at them, keep your
CPE density, bandwidth requirements, and future expansion in mind.

Hope this helps at least a little.

Kyle

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-gkd at phoenix.edc.org [mailto:owner-gkd at phoenix.edc.org]On
Behalf Of Keith Birkhold
Sent: January 7, 2005 2:22 PM
To: gkd at phoenix.edc.org
Subject: [GKD] RFI: WiMax Utilization


Dear GKD Members,

I was reading though the message submitted by Lee Thorn and was
particularly interested in his use of WiMax technology. Lee could you
exaborate on how far you have been able to progress with the WiMax
technology? If there are any others in our group with WiMax experience,
I would appreciate your comments. We are in the process of building a
hybrid e-school to be regionalized around Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA.
Even though we do not have the last mile connectivity issues that many
participants in the GKD group face, we too are limited in the type of
education we employ by the lowest connectivity speed. I did some
reasearch on using this technology to create a metropolitan area
network, and with the potential for a 30 mile coverage radius from one
tower a lot of headaches could be eliminated, but the feedback I
received was that it is still several years off, and that the hardware
is not yet small enough to fit into a notebook computer. If any of you
have additional info, I would appreciate hearing from you.

Keith Birkhold
The Web Education Academy


On 1/5/05, Lee Thorn <leethorn at sprintmail.com> wrote:

..snip...
> As you know, villagers in Phon Kham have not been able to get permission
> to connect yet. We're working on a new idea using WiMax that might
> overcome the main barrier. We are proceeding with the process of
> developing a POC of the Jhai PC and communication system on the Navajo
> reservation and betas in several other countries, including Laos.
..snip...



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