Email Delivery

Receive new posts as email.

Email address

Syndicate this site

RSS | Atom

Contact

About This Site
Contact Us
Privacy Policy

Search


November 2010
Sun Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat
  1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30        

Stories by Category

Basics :: Basics
Casting :: Casting Listen In Podcasts Videocasts
Culture :: Culture Hacking
Deals :: Deals
FAQ :: FAQ
Future :: Future
Hardware :: Hardware Adapters Appliances Chips Consumer Electronics Gaming Home Entertainment Music Photography Video Gadgets Mesh Monitoring and Testing PDAs Phones Smartphones
Industry :: Industry Conferences Financial Free Health Legal Research Vendor analysis
International :: International
Media :: Media Locally cached Streaming
Metro-Scale Networks :: Metro-Scale Networks Community Networking Municipal
Network Types :: Network Types Broadband Wireless Cellular 2.5G and 3G 4G Power Line Satellite
News :: News Mainstream Media
Politics :: Politics Regulation Sock Puppets
Schedules :: Schedules
Security :: Security 802.1X
Site Specific :: Site Specific Administrative Detail April Fool's Blogging Book review Cluelessness Guest Commentary History Humor Self-Promotion Unique Wee-Fi Who's Hot Today?
Software :: Software Open Source
Spectrum :: Spectrum 60 GHz
Standards :: Standards 802.11a 802.11ac 802.11ad 802.11e 802.11g 802.11n 802.20 Bluetooth MIMO UWB WiGig WiMAX ZigBee
Transportation and Lodging :: Transportation and Lodging Air Travel Aquatic Commuting Hotels Rails
Unclassified :: Unclassified
Vertical Markets :: Vertical Markets Academia Enterprise WLAN Switches Home Hot Spot Aggregators Hot Spot Advertising Road Warrior Roaming Libraries Location Medical Public Safety Residential Rural SOHO Small-Medium Sized Business Universities Utilities wISP
Voice :: Voice

Archives

November 2010 | October 2010 | September 2010 | August 2010 | July 2010 | June 2010 | May 2010 | April 2010 | March 2010 | February 2010 | January 2010 | December 2009 | November 2009 | October 2009 | September 2009 | August 2009 | July 2009 | June 2009 | May 2009 | April 2009 | March 2009 | February 2009 | January 2009 | December 2008 | November 2008 | October 2008 | September 2008 | August 2008 | July 2008 | June 2008 | May 2008 | April 2008 | March 2008 | February 2008 | January 2008 | December 2007 | November 2007 | October 2007 | September 2007 | August 2007 | July 2007 | June 2007 | May 2007 | April 2007 | March 2007 | February 2007 | January 2007 | December 2006 | November 2006 | October 2006 | September 2006 | August 2006 | July 2006 | June 2006 | May 2006 | April 2006 | March 2006 | February 2006 | January 2006 | December 2005 | November 2005 | October 2005 | September 2005 | August 2005 | July 2005 | June 2005 | May 2005 | April 2005 | March 2005 | February 2005 | January 2005 | December 2004 | November 2004 | October 2004 | September 2004 | August 2004 | July 2004 | June 2004 | May 2004 | April 2004 | March 2004 | February 2004 | January 2004 | December 2003 | November 2003 | October 2003 | September 2003 | August 2003 | July 2003 | June 2003 | May 2003 | April 2003 | March 2003 | February 2003 | January 2003 | December 2002 | November 2002 | October 2002 | September 2002 | August 2002 | July 2002 | June 2002 | May 2002 | April 2002 | March 2002 | February 2002 | January 2002 | December 2001 | November 2001 | October 2001 | September 2001 | August 2001 | July 2001 | June 2001 | May 2001 | April 2001 |

Recent Entries

In-Flight Wi-Fi and In-Flight Bombs
Can WPA Protect against Firesheep on Same Network?
Southwest Sets In-Flight Wi-Fi at $5
Eye-Fi Adds a View for Web Access
Firesheep Makes Sidejacking Easy
Wi-Fi Direct Certification Starts
Decaf on the Starbucks Digital Network
Google Did Snag Passwords
WiMax and LTE Not Technically 4G by ITU Standards
AT&T Wi-Fi Connections Keep High Growth with Free Service

Site Philosophy

This site operates as an independent editorial operation. Advertising, sponsorships, and other non-editorial materials represent the opinions and messages of their respective origins, and not of the site operator. Part of the FM Tech advertising network.

Copyright

Entire site and all contents except otherwise noted © Copyright 2001-2010 by Glenn Fleishman. Some images ©2006 Jupiterimages Corporation. All rights reserved. Please contact us for reprint rights. Linking is, of course, free and encouraged.

Powered by
Movable Type

« iPhone Users Get Free Airport Wi-Fi from Boingo in August | Main | American Airlines Commits to In-Flight Broadband Tests with AirCell »

August 1, 2007

MetroFi Offers Wireless T-1 Replacement in Portland (Ore.)

TowerStream pioneered T-1 replacement with wireless broadband for businesses: That's not to say they were first, but they established the market, and have slowly grown to more and more major cities. MetroFi formally entering the business in Portland, Ore., for up to 10 Mbps wireless broadband thus isn't a giant event in the history of business-grade circuits. Rather, it's a significant move in metro-scale networks.

Service will start at $350 per month for T-1 speeds and rise to $1,500 per month for a 10 Mbps circuit and $1,000 for the receiver, the company told me. By comparison, Speakeasy Networks charges $390 per month for a wireline T-1. Towerstream charges $500 for a T-1 speed connection with bursts up to 3 Mbps, and $2,200 per month for 8 Mbps and $2,970 per month for 12 Mbps; their prices vary based on service level agreements.

As I and others have been writing over the last few months, there's been a kazoo-bassoon duet playing behind news coming from municipal markets. Subscribers numbers are poor. It's hard to get an indoor signal without a Wi-Fi bridge that costs $100 to $150 typically, but could run $300 for a higher-powered unit. And so on.

Thus the public announcement that MetroFi is actively seeking business customers looking to switch from wireline or gain far higher access speeds is good news--it's another line of revenue for the company. It's something that EarthLink et al. promised in the very beginning, too. Business-grade service using pre-WiMax, WiMax, or proprietary point-to-multipoint technology would be one of the revenue legs in the municipal network stool. All the metro-scale network buildings have to put some kind of aggregating point-to-multipoint hubs to carry their backhaul; the topology varies, but it's all there.

In MetroFi's case, their technology partner SkyPilot originally designed their networking architecture to handle lots of high-speed connections from pointed antennas (not omnidirectional ones). SkyPilot uses some clever techniques to create the equivalent of a dedicated wireless connection for very brief periods of time. (They have one radio and switch in a time-synchronized fashion among eight antennas, only broadcasting to a 45-degree arc and a single paired device at a time.)

MetroFi's release said that they could have service to a location in the covered area typically within a week. Upping the speed is a matter of a configuration change by MetroFi. MetroFi is also offering a service-level agreement; these contracts bind the provider to specific speeds and uptime, with discounts when those goals aren't met.

T-1 lines are the gold standard for reliability, although I have heard horror stories from plenty of telco customers that have seen nothing like 99.999 percent availability, and only excuses from the incumbent providers. Wireless broadband's advantage to a customer is that bandwidth can scale above 1.5 Mbps with no additional equipment or installation. The leap from T-1 to fractional T-3 (about 45 Mbps, sold in increments up to that level) is rather large. Broadband wireless can also be installed in as little as minutes, in a pinch, and the provider has no wirebase to depreciate, just equipment on either end; they typically get the customer to pay for their receiver, or get a one-year or more commitment to eat the cost of the receiver.