161–170 of 199 posts
I started one of the first 56k dial up ISPs in Nebraska when I was 13 years old with the help of my parents. In high school I partnered with some friends after reading a CNET article about a WISP in Washington state. My friend's dad had a few businesses that needed to share a T1 line so we connected them wirelessly and sold the excess capacity to farmers in rural Nebraska and Kansas. It was an amazing experience. Wor…
Hey everyone! Author here. Happy to answer questions. Thanks for posting @tomcam! Just a quick note about me - I currently work with the great folks at common.net running an ISP that is similar but not exactly like what's described here. Look us up if you're in East Bay maybe we can get you better Internet service! This site is not associated with common.net, though.
Hi Graham, thanks for authoring and sharing such an interesting topic! My main question is, how is the latency of these wireless networks? How well do these roof antennas perform in rain or covered in snow? Is gaming suitable with wireless ISPs such as common.net? And finally, what are the biggest complaints from your customers?
Hey everyone! Author here. Happy to answer questions. Thanks for posting @tomcam! Just a quick note about me - I currently work with the great folks at common.net running an ISP that is similar but not exactly like what's described here. Look us up if you're in East Bay maybe we can get you better Internet service! This site is not associated with common.net, though.
Hi Graham, thanks for authoring and sharing such an interesting topic! My main question is, how is the latency of these wireless networks? How well do these roof antennas perform in rain or covered in snow? Is gaming suitable with wireless ISPs such as common.net? And finally, what are the biggest complaints from your customers?
These numbers are from an 802.11ac based network using proprietary MAC (Mikrotik NStreme), YMMV.
Here's a 2 mile link @780Mbps modulation rate, tested with ping -s 1500:
72 packets transmitted, 72 received, 0% packet loss, time 71108ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1.051/3.132/26.567/4.466 ms
Here's a 10 mile link @650Mbps modulation:
122 packets transmitted, 122 received, 0% packet loss, time 121164ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.984/2.174/20.479/3.260 ms
And finally here's stats over the two links combined (the path between my office and civilization):
68 packets transmitted, 68 received, 0% packet loss, time 67102ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1.755/4.471/14.968/3.658 ms
Note that if you allow too much traffic on these links they will saturate and QoS will go to crap. So careful traffic shaping is in order. They are half-duplex so achievable throughput is much lower than the modulation rate (these links are delivering me around 250Mbits/s).
At unlicensed frequencies (2-6GHz) snow and weather are generally not a problem. You do have to choose antenna design wisely : the satellite dish type antennas that have a separate reflector can get snowed up, but people here in snow country are aware of that issue and brush the snow away. Rain fade is not a practical problem : you need some link received power margin for reliable operation and the worst that happens is rain eats into that a bit. Lightning is a much bigger issue in my experience: you need to be aware of proper grounding techniques (which can be expensive) and you need to be prepared to replace some gear every year due to EMP damage. Also fyi you want to at all costs avoid deploying CPE antennas on a roof. The roof is a nightmare for access, insurance costs, risk of causing leaks, and potential injury. For that reason WISPs will try to mount on a eave, soffit etc rather on the roof surface.
My son uses our network for gaming and while he does complain quite often about QoS, when I investigate the problem is _always_ with our upstream provider or the server end and never to do with our network.
OP stated above that he is using licensed spectrum for backhaul (probably 11 or 18GHz) and therefore will have better latency (full-duplex radios and hence lower MAC overhead).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes interference and channel planning can be a big headache. I do have planned a section that will cover this but haven't finished it yet. I've typically gotten around interference problems by 1) using licensed (or at least not 5ghz, preferably full duplex) backhauls and 2) using AP antennas with narrow beamwidths (higher gain, less area covered.) I'm sure you're doing the same things if you've been doing it that lon…
Actually I didn't see anything about licensed spectrum on the site, but of course that helps with backhaul and high-end subscribers. For many years we really didn't see any interference issues with P2P links @5GHz but that has changed recently. We have been deploying dishes with shrouds to cut down on sidelobe gain. My experience has been that interference is as much a problem at the CPE side (and much harder to diag…
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Even that is pretty weak... Comcast offers 1000 down for 80 dollars a month in my area (MD in DC metro). I would expect a city to do just as well...
But it's comcast (I had comcast in MD in DC Metro). So having that speed doesn't mean your service will actually will work. Dealt with them at home and as a business. Awful. Just awful.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hi Graham, thanks for authoring and sharing such an interesting topic! My main question is, how is the latency of these wireless networks? How well do these roof antennas perform in rain or covered in snow? Is gaming suitable with wireless ISPs such as common.net? And finally, what are the biggest complaints from your customers?
Also very interested in knowing average latency numbers for your network, Graham.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any links about the rumor? That would be interesting if they switched directions
I think it was something I heard in person .. can't remember where now! Probably at Wispapalooza.
Having been employed by an ISP and decided to do something with less night time hours and more floors above ground with windows, I have the habit of doing free consultations (meddling) in order to stay up to date.
Currently I warmly recommend Mikrotik (not their CRS-series though) since they have very little limitations. The most recent case involved pre-purchased AirOS-devices and it's lack of virtual AP:s. Why I find this a drawback is how Ethernet and Internet Protocol are designed. It was never meant to be that customers should share broadcast domains, a privilege that enterprise customers are granted but consumers rarely are.
To make a first class network experience for both ISP and customer, give every legal entity their own broadcast domain and subnet (read: routing in access layer). As WISP:s, you should be conservative on allowing unnecesary brodcast-packets to propagate, especially through half-duplex links. This also defends your network from rogue DHCP and what not that might bring the entire network more or less down. I've designed a few FTTH-networks this way and these networks have never been disturbed by customer shenanigans.
I route because my cheap devices can route ;)
Wow, this is fascinating! I would love to invest and start a wireless ISP on the eastside of Seattle. Suppose you have an area that is flat with lots of exposure, where everyone hates Comcast (maybe that last part is superfluous). I would think you'd find plenty of programmer customers if you have a say 200 mbit wireless connection without bandwidth caps (or maybe something insane like 10 tb/month). This seems like a…
It seems like there'd be a market for a "ISPaaS" style company. This company would consult on the setup, in the style of this guide, but would remote-admin all the gear, keep track of updates, security settings, make sure everything is documented, run 24/7 NOC monitoring, spot bottlenecks early and recommend upgrades, review site access contracts (or provide standard contracts), run billing and customer service etc.…
If this is something people are interested in though reach out to me! I may be able to line something like this up.
Hey everyone! Author here. Happy to answer questions. Thanks for posting @tomcam! Just a quick note about me - I currently work with the great folks at common.net running an ISP that is similar but not exactly like what's described here. Look us up if you're in East Bay maybe we can get you better Internet service! This site is not associated with common.net, though.
Also there's this mailing-list (in english) dedicated to sharing knowledge between DIY ISP, a database and map of DIY ISP[2], this series of blog posts (in french) documenting how to build an ISP[3] and a wiki page centralizing resources about building a non-profit ISP[4] on the FFDN[5] wiki (Non profit ISP Federation from France).
[1]: https://lists.ffdn.org/wws/info/diy-isp
[2]: https://db.ffdn.org/
[3]: http://blog.spyou.org/wordpress-mu/?s="comment+devenir+son+p...