[olug] starting broadband ISP, any suggestions?

Sam Tetherow tetherow at shwisp.net
Mon Aug 20 18:01:16 UTC 2012 

On 08/20/2012 03:57 AM, Rob Townley wrote:
> Not sure what you are asking, but ubnt.com has some cool wireless
> stuff and starting to incorporate GPS into equipment to help maximize
> signal-to-noise ratio. It would be worth it to register and poke
> around in their forums even if you do not use their stuff.
>
> 100Mbps long range 50km wireless using their AirMax stuff.
> Line-of-sight, but i wonder if you could get substantial bandwidth
> even when not line-of-sight.  Since bullet Ms are inexpensive ($50),
> it would be worth buying several to test out.  Let me know how dead-on
> line-of-sight accurate is actually required.
> http://www.ubnt.com/airmax#bulletm
I am a big fan of ubiquiti, most of my network is built using it, but 
you are not going to get 100Mbps at 50km.  Using airmax currently you 
are not going to get 100mbps at all, you have to remember that in the 
802.11 world, all links are half duplex, the radio can either send or 
receive, but not do both.  You can get close to 100Mbps, but until the 
titanium line ships you are still stuck with fast-ethernet connections 
to the radio.  You can realistically pull around 60/60 if the link is 
good, but most users do not pull symmetric traffic you can easily get 
80/30 over a pair of rocketdishes assuming you can get the link quality.

You do not want to use bullets for this application, they are single 
polarity radios so you are only using 1x1 802.11n.

You will want to use something like a nanobridge or a rocket dish for 
this type of application and if your starting speeds are going to be 
50/50 business class you are going to have to be point to point.  Yes 
you could probably put 2-5 users on a single AP and rely on 
oversubscription, but the problem you are going to run into here is 
available channels and the noise floor.

2.4GHz will mostly likely be completely worthless for these speeds.

3.65GHz license-lite will work, but you only get access to 25MHz of 
spectrum currently, which will be basically one channel for the speeds 
you are talking about.

5GHz is probably where you will have most links deployed and if you are 
lucky like me and not near any radar, you can get access to the DFS2 
bands and actually be able to use them.
>
>
> ubiquiti's airfiber is not microwave as it 24GhZ (yes, that is right,
> no decimal. twenty-four GhZ) and claims to support 1GB wireless to
> 13km.  Line-of-sight.  Developed from a former Motorola team.
> http://www.ubnt.com/airfiber

It claims to provide 1GB wireless or 13km line of sight, not both.   It 
will realistically provide 700Mbps full duplex to about a mile and a 
half.  It is a full duplex link since it is actually two radios and two 
antennas.  It is still in beta and as far as I know there has been no 
stated date for general release.  This is 24ghz so you are going to have 
rain fade issues.  I would guess that Des Moines is probably the same 
rain zone as nebraska, so if you deploy at more than 1.5 miles a hard 
rain will drop this link so you will need to have some sort of backup in 
place.

While ubiquiti is incredibly affordable and decent quality equipment you 
do have other options.  Especially if you are catering to high speed 
business clients.  Of course the catch is they will be expensive.  Once 
you get out of the UNII bands and 3.65GHz you will be looking at 
strictly point to point equipment.  There is gear available in the 6GHz, 
11GHz, 15GHz, 18GHz, 23GHz and 38GHz.  These are licensed bands and will 
require a license to be purchased for each link, they also have all 
sorts of requirements placed on them for antenna size (6GHz for instance 
requires a MINIMUM 6 foot dish, although I think that restriction is in 
the process of being reduce to I think a 3 foot dish)

>
> i had trouble finding a distributor that would actually sell me a
> bullet m when i first tried a year or so ago.  But now,
> http://www.microcom.us/bullet5.html sells several versions.  So no, i
> do NOT have any real experience with this long range hardware, but
> would be interested to see what you find.  If you are within 50km of
> the Westroads, i might be willing to test.
You can get ubiquiti gear from several places, they do have supply chain 
issues from time to time, but wisp-router.com invictuswireless.com 
caymanwireless.com streakwave.com doubleradius.com are all distributors 
that I buy from.

>
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 12:51 AM, Justin Reiners<justin at hotlinesinc.com>  wrote:
>> line of site wireless is the dream, that is more my bosses realm, I just
>> move packets. he leases space on his tower to many different companies. He
>> thinks he can do some type of directional microwave transmission, said it
>> will easily support his speeds he is looking for.
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 12:49 AM, Jason N<dashrender at cox.net>  wrote:
>>
>>> how are you going to get from your tower to the clients?
>>>
>>>
>>> ---- Justin Reiners<justin at hotlinesinc.com>  wrote:
>>> Ohh, touche, I guess on cox and such everyone is on the same network (for
>>> the most part), just firewalled on the client side (we hope :) ) so you
>>> think regular off the shelf (meaning cisco and such, not linksys or
>>> netgear) routers and switches. good good. My boss has checked on his pipe,
>>> can get it for about 9 grand a month, (1Gigabit, multiple fiber drops
>>> already exist at his tower.)
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 12:27 AM, Kevin<sharpestmarble at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>>> What if some business that you provide service to wants to contact some
>>>> other business you provide service to? i.e. A small business that hosts
>>>> their own website or mail server?
>>>> On Aug 20, 2012 12:23 AM, "Justin Reiners"<justin at hotlinesinc.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>>> The upstream bandwidth will be fiber, 1 gigabit, already priced. The
>>>> users
>>>>> will be business users, requiring at least 50/50, or whatever they
>>> need.
>>>>> their will be 100Mb users as well. I would like all users (businesses)
>>> IP
>>>>> to be segregated for security reasons. all businesses will need static
>>>>> public IPs. Last mile will be microwave.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 12:17 AM, Kevin<sharpestmarble at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> What is your upstream bandwidth like? Fiber? From who? They are the
>>>>> people
>>>>>> you'll need to buy your IPs from. You don't need to buy a public IP
>>> for
>>>>>> everyone, just use NAT(assuming they're home users), although there
>>> are
>>>>>> some who would take issue with that. Some of those who would take
>>> issue
>>>>> are
>>>>>> people of this list.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Routing could be done using a Linux box. You'd need multiple
>>>> interfaces,
>>>>>> and you'd want it to be redundant, although you'd want that as part
>>> of
>>>>> any
>>>>>> setup you would use. Play with iptables some to get it set up and
>>>> running
>>>>>> properly.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What kind of networks will you be running that you'll want to keep
>>>>>> separate?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Aug 19, 2012 11:57 PM, "Justin Reiners"<justin at hotlinesinc.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>> Hey eveyone, weird question, I have done my googling, to no avail.
>>> I
>>>>> was
>>>>>>> wondering if anyone here works for an ISP, or has the understanding
>>>> of
>>>>>>> first time setup. My boss have come to me with a task, He is
>>> looking
>>>>> for
>>>>>>> starting an ISP in his home town, as there are no, 100MB+ isps in
>>> the
>>>>>> area,
>>>>>>> connection type is fixed wireless, or microwave. He owns a tower in
>>>>> IA, I
>>>>>>> cannot say where exactly it is located because he hosts things for
>>>> the
>>>>>> CIA,
>>>>>>> FBI and such. He also has fiber to the building, unused at the
>>>> moment,
>>>>>> and
>>>>>>> he also has all the capital he needs to get it going. I have some
>>>>>>> questions, He wants to start with 1Gb of bandwidth, and knows
>>> plenty
>>>> of
>>>>>>> businesses in the area that are looking to go faster.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 1. When the fiber is installed, will we be left with a 1Gigabit
>>>>> Ethernet
>>>>>>> port I route off of?
>>>>>>> 2. I assume we will need to buy public IPs. any idea on the costs?
>>>>>>> 3. What types of switches and routers do you recommend, (hoping it
>>> is
>>>>>> just
>>>>>>> ethernet) (number of users will be around 20 at first, then the sky
>>>> is
>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> limit.)
>>>>>>> 4. can the routing be done using a linux box?
>>>>>>> 5. Can multiple users use the same directional antenna?
>>>>>>> 6. How can we keep networks seperate?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Any help will be appreciated. I am hoping someone in the group
>>> works
>>>>> with
>>>>>>> this type of thing. google has not been much help, I find a lot of
>>>> OLD
>>>>>> ISP
>>>>>>> pages, talking of dialup modems of such. lol.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> Justin Reiners
>>>>>>> www.PartsHotlines.com
>>>>>>> www.MrCycleParts.com
>>>>>>> Service/Support/Training
>>>>>>> Back-end Systems Support.
>>>>>>>      <
>>> http://www.facebook.com/pages/PartsHotlinescom/251605051521985
>>>>> <
>>>>>>> https://plus.google.com/102910487271834609118>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> OLUG mailing list
>>>>>>> OLUG at olug.org
>>>>>>> https://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> OLUG mailing list
>>>>>> OLUG at olug.org
>>>>>> https://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Justin Reiners
>>>>> www.PartsHotlines.com
>>>>> www.MrCycleParts.com
>>>>> Service/Support/Training
>>>>> Back-end Systems Support.
>>>>>      <http://www.facebook.com/pages/PartsHotlinescom/251605051521985><
>>>>> https://plus.google.com/102910487271834609118>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> OLUG mailing list
>>>>> OLUG at olug.org
>>>>> https://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug
>>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Justin Reiners
>>> www.PartsHotlines.com
>>> www.MrCycleParts.com
>>> Service/Support/Training
>>> Back-end Systems Support.
>>>      <http://www.facebook.com/pages/PartsHotlinescom/251605051521985><
>>> https://plus.google.com/102910487271834609118>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Justin Reiners
>> www.PartsHotlines.com
>> www.MrCycleParts.com
>> Service/Support/Training
>> Back-end Systems Support.
>>      <http://www.facebook.com/pages/PartsHotlinescom/251605051521985><https://plus.google.com/102910487271834609118>
>> _______________________________________________
>> OLUG mailing list
>> OLUG at olug.org
>> https://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug
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