Space Needle To Become WiMax Antenna

Technofusion writes "Seattle, Washington has found a new use for their aging Space Needle. Three companies have teamed up to turn the Space Needle into a giant WiMAX antenna. Bruce Chatterley, CEO of Speakeasy, announced it will be the biggest deployment of it's kind in North America with six towers, one placed on the Space Needle and five others around the city , beaming a signal over a 5 square mile area. Don't put away those 802.11b/g cards just yet, as WiMAX is projected to cost $500 a month for 1.5Mb service."

Giant Antenna, NOT

[lildogie]

The Space Needle will be a platform for a more conventional antenna, not an antenna itself.

Those who live in Seattle know that the Space Needle is shorter than most of the downtown buildings, but it looks tall because zoning keeps high-rise buildings away from it. And there are plenty of higher points where additional antennas could be placed, some of them not even on high-rise buildings (eg. hills).

Doesn't *anyone* RTFM anymore?

[TripMaster Monkey]

From TFS:

Don't put away those 802.11b/g cards just yet, as WiMAX is projected to cost $500 a month for 1.5Mb service.

And from TFA:

Chatterley says it'll be cheaper and much faster than the 1.5-megabit, T-1 service many businesses currently use.

"(Now), when you go above that speed, it's going to run about $6,000 a month," Chatterley said once he was back inside on firm ground. "What we're introducing today is the delivery of a 6 megabit --versus 1.5 -- data communications solution available for right around $800 a month. (That's) versus the 1.5 (megabit) solution that goes for about $500 a month."

I know that editors can't be bothered to check the accuracy of stories, but you think that at least the submitters would RTFM...

Re:$500 / month?

[CharlieHedlin]

Read rather than scan the article. It says 6mbits for $800/mo instead of 1.5mbps for $500 (obviously refering to T1 lines).

It is clear they are currently aiming this to be a cost effective upgrade from T1 lines.

6mbps fixed wireless for $800 a month, and it isn't mobile (at this time).

Re:Giant Cell Phone Tower?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most Seattle communications antenna are mounted on top of the Bank of America Tower [emporis.com], the city's tallest building. All city law enforcement broadcasts use towers up there, as well as several TV stations.

Summary is a little off...

[DJCacophony]

Space Needle To Become WiMax Antenna

The needle itself isn't going to be turned into one giant antenna. They're just putting an access point on top of it (FTA: Antennas and radio equipment are being installed 605 feet up at the top of the Space Needle).

Re:$500 for 1.5Mbit?

[dfghjk]

T1 isn't fiber, it's twisted pair. Just a POTS line with the filters taken off. Part of T1 is a builtin backup line so it's two pairs in reality. DSL data rates are fixed just like T1 but frequently assymetrical. The difference is the business grade monitoring and failover and the attitude at the ISP that the service is important.

Re:Fuck that.

[drinkypoo]

More important than being synchronous, in this case, is being symmetric. you can get 6Mbps down from comcast, but the most upstream I've heard of was 768kbps, and the whole package is $100/mo. (It's $65/mo in my area to get 6Mbps/384kbps.)

Re:HAHAHA

[drinkypoo]

Its actually $800, for 6Mbps. And there is no such thing at a 6Mb T1. It's 1.544Mbps or less depending on signalling.

HAHAHA

Re:Fuck that.

[lewp]

It's actually, at most, 3Mbps both ways. Or you can do 4/2, 5/1, etc. Seems slightly misleading to me :(.

http://speakeasy.net/business/wimax/pricing.php [speakeasy.net]

Re:Giant Antenna, NOT

[GGardner]

zoning keeps high-rise buildings away from it.

Maybe those same zoning regulations also help the range, with no pesky large buildings to block the signal...

Re:Giant Cell Phone Tower?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only TV thing up there on the Columbia building is KOMO's 23 GHz Tower Camera. Each Station in town has it's own tower in Seattle. That's why there are three huge TV towers on Queen Anne Hill and three more towers on Capitol Hill.

There's a BIG problem with projects like this!

[Newer Guy]

The problem is they share the same frequencies as b and g wireless do, and because of their height, have much better signals. These projects can cause interference over a wide area, making the wireless router in your living room USELESS for anything but in room use. I already have this problem here at home with other peoples' routers on just about every channel here (I can pick up a dozen or more on my laptop). No matter where I located a single access point in my (small) house, I had big time dead spots. Finally, I threw in the towel and installed a second access point in my bedroom. I used to be able to walk dwn the block and use my laptop fine (with a single AP); now I need two AP's just to cover my 650 square foot house. All because of interference. Now Speakeasy is going to put an AP up 600-700 feet? It's gonna wipe out half the wireless in downtown Seattle! It also works the other way too - a local AP can make Speakeasy's service slower (or non-existant) as well. This is the FCC's fault - putting MILLIONS of radios on just three (or 4) non overlapping channels is NUTS. Even CB had 23 channels starting out (later expanded to 40 channels).

Re:$500 for 1.5Mbit?

[steve6534]

While You're right about T1s (Or to be more correct with the current terminology DS1s)being able to be delivered via copper or fiber you are wrong about dsl having guaranteed bandwidth. The DSLAM that a dsl loop terminates on is oversubscribed just like a cmts in the cable world or a dial up shelf in the dial up world. With a real DS1 you have 1.5 MB/s all the way to the internet backbone so that if everyone were to max out their circuit at the same time you would still have 100% of your bandwidth available. IE if your DS1 is being muxed onto a DS3 by the carrier there would be a maximum of 30 DS1s on that circuit.

Re:Giant Antenna, NOT

[Misanthropy]

Tallest buildings in Seattle

# Name Height Year
01. Bank of America Tower 285 m 1985
02. Washington Mutual Tow.. 235 m 1988
03. Two Union Square 226 m 1989
04. Seattle Municipal Tow.. 220 m 1990
05. 1001 Fourth Avenue Pl.. 192 m 1969
06. Space Needle 184 m 1961
07. US Bank Centre 177 m 1989
08. Wells Fargo Center 175 m 1983
09. Bank of America Fifth.. 166 m 1981
10. Union Bank of Califor.. 163 m 1973