[clue-talk] Wispertel

[dperkins at techangle.com]

Thnaks.  I've passed on the recommendations to my coworker.  He's been
desperately trying to find an alternative to dial-up.  And he can see the
Wispertel tower.


> dperkins at techangle.com wrote:
>
>>Does anyone have any experience or knowledge of Wispertel?  They offer
>>wireless ISP service.
>>
>>www.wispertel.com
>>
>>
> I know you already got a number of positive responses, but I'll add
> another $0.02.
>
> I'm on the tech crew and BoD of a ham radio club, The Colorado Repeater
> Association -- www.w0cra.org.  (Yeah, don't laugh at the website, it
> sucks.  We know.  Heh.)
>
> We've been using Wispertel for wireless connectivity to our Conifer
> Mountain site for over a year and it's been virtually flawless.  Our
> radio site is actually higher than the site Wispertel's RF folks wanted
> us hanging off of, so it looks pretty funny to have the dish with built
> in up-tilt pointing down at the ground from the tower, but it works!
> (GRIN)
>
> I also know a couple of their operations guys personally, and they have
> something going for them that many wireless ISP's did not, at least
> early on when WISP services started up around here... and this may have
> changed since then, but at first -- most local WISP services were mom
> and pop shops, who were computer people first, and RF
> engineers/techicians second.
>
> Wispertel's core operations team were RF guys first (most worked in the
> 2-way radio and cellular industries, building a lot of the cellular
> infrastructure in Colorado for a couple of different carriers and
> running their own 2-way businesses), and then they quickly learned that
> F/OSS software was the successful path for their ISP to be profitable in
> the long-run.  Being that they know RF very well, their over-the-air
> backbone (45 Mb/s with mulitple redundant routes to most main sites) and
> technology is very good.
>
> They also know without a shadow of a doubt that Windows servers don't
> provide them the reliability or the simplicity they need to provide a
> 24/7 service.  They originally started out with some FreeBSD stuff, and
> very early on migrated almost everything over to Linux.  Every time I
> talk to them they're adding/upgrading hardware, and they're not skimping
> on putting money back into their infrastructure, which is more than I
> can say for even some of the local wireline-based ISP's.
>
> IMHO, the only other well-designed wireless network that competes
> locally is Mesa Networks, and they did it by purchasing a Motorola
> Canopy system.  Wispertel took off-the-shelf gear from Trango Wireless
> and probably paid a whole lot less overall for their RF gear, but had to
> have some clue about how to build/design a network.  Canopy is great
> gear, and from everything I've read, rediculously easy for the
> installers/techs to set up... but damn spendy -- like most things with
> Mother M's name on them.  Mother M loves fully-integrated "buy the whole
> thing and service contracts for the rest of your life" type systems...
> Trango seems more the "here's the pieces to build something cool...
> we'll help, but it's your network" kind of folks.  Both have a place in
> the world.  Both businesses seem to be doing well, but Mesa's going to
> be paying off their radio gear a for lot longer than Wispertel, I
> think.  Just my opinion, looking at retail prices and guessing about
> what each gets for discounts from distributors.
>
> "Little things" make a big difference with the customer's experience
> when operating on a wireless network, and these guys pay attention to
> detail.  Stuff like properly grounding antennas, and things that the
> "data geeks turned RF guy" type shops didn't even know were going to
> bite them you-know-where later on.  An example was when we mentioned we
> were putting our Antenna/Access Point on a communications tower, the
> Wispertel folks knew without question that their system would have to be
> integrated into the mountaintop site's tower ground and lighting
> protection system.  They pointed out that (ironically) Motorola makes a
> grounding device for the Canopy gear that does exactly this, and helped
> us find a source of the device, which we integrated with our Polyphaser
> panel and site lighting protection the week after we installed the gear.
>
> I'd wholeheartedly recommend Wispertel to anyone.
>
> Nate
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