An 802.11 ISP on Maine's Rocky Coast
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Installation isn't cheap
The cost is still a sticking point for some users. Jones says, "That's the hardest part about wireless -- the client end. The price we get up front is steep." The company charges about $800 for a standard installation and client equipment, but it can go up from there if inside wiring or complicated outside antenna siting is required. Jones says that they're currently offering a $300 rebate for a 12-month contract to bring in more users.
After installation, it runs $50 per month for one machine, plus $8 per additional computer on the same network. Jones says the pricing competes with the cost of a second wired phone line and Internet account, and that it's worked for both customers and their bottom line. (If this seems expensive to those of you who, like me, are reading this from an urban area with competing DSL, cable, and satellite options, consider the cost of the only real competitor on Maine's Midcoast, ISDN from Verizon. With modem and installation, it costs about $350 to get into, plus $59 per month for the service and $30 per month for an ISP account with them. And that only buys you 128 Kbps, compared to throughput up to 1.9 Mbps over wireless.)
MIS's access points are typically connected to a wireless bridge over a local Ethernet network. Breezecom's wireless bridges offer a nice feature: They can connect with Breezecom access points as a client, meaning you don't need a bridge on each side of a span. This allows MIS to deploy a hub-and-spoke approach, in which Internet traffic is relayed via access point to bridge to access point to end user with only losses in latency, while retaining most of the bandwidth potential.
Jones says that MIS hasn't limited itself to offering this simple arrangement, however. For instance, in nearby Damariscotta, further west toward Portland, they offer DSL in conjunction with a local independent phone company with bandwidth brought in wirelessly from their head office to the local telco's switch.
Out to the islands
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But they also connected this access point to the island's phone exchange. Residents can make local calls to the modems at MIS's facilities on the island. These modems are in turn networked via a terminal server to MIS's wireless connection, avoiding any toll costs or metering for the locals.
Jones says the company has installed some similar operations inland, as well, installing a tower in the town of Union to bring dial-up into the local exchange and wireless access to line-of-sight residents. Union has 55 dial-up customers now and about five wireless users.
MIS has also used solar and battery power at some locations to avoid bringing electricity to more remote locations. The Breezecom devices use about 2 amps each, and a complete installation is well under 10 amps.
Security and scaling
The Breezecom devices use a combination of closed-network IDs and back-end RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service) authentication, to avoid snooping and access hijacking. Jones explained that Breezecom's frequency-hopping equipment first requires authentication of the network ID (the ESSID used to uniquely name a network) before it reveals the hopping pattern; then, with the client hopping along with the access point, RADIUS authentication logs the user into the network.
Frequency hopping offers additional advantages, Jones says, in having many, mostly non-interfering hopping patterns, which allow MIS to install lots of overlapping service without signal degradation. This limits the company to the raw 3 Mbps maximum of 802.11, but Jones feels the tradeoff for security, configuration, and cost is worthwhile. MIS has no current plans to add 802.11b service.
Jones notes that they can easily handle more users in most locations by adding sectorized, higher-gain antennas that handle just a certain degree of arc directionally.
The limits to the speed and availability of the service don't seem to be a problem for the users that Jones interacts with regularly. "People want speed, not bandwidth," he says. "The average user isn't going to be downloading a bunch of files or CDs or images day in, day out. They just want to be able to go to a Web site and have it be fast."
Distance hasn't proved a problem. Jones says the company thinks nothing of a 15- or 20-mile link, and that longer connections have worked with some tweaking. From Westport to Rockland, for instance, MIS runs a 40-mile point-to-point connection with a 300-foot tower on one end and a 100-foot tower on a 450-foot hill on the other.
Jones says that MIS hopes to push further inland using wireless as their toehold. He admitted to a certain obsession with siting. "When I travel around, one of the first things I'm looking at it now is, 'I wonder if this would be a good place for access.'"
Glenn Fleishman is a freelance technology journalist contributing regularly to The New York Times, The Seattle Times, Macworld magazine, and InfoWorld. He maintains a wireless weblog at wifinetnews.com.
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