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Wireless Networking The Internet Hardware

Speakeasy Will Test IEEE 802.16 In Downtown Seattle 121

Posted by timothy from the share-with-your-neighbors dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Speakeasy will be testing a WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) network in downtown Seattle. If successful, plans to roll out similar networks in other cities will follow."
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Speakeasy Will Test IEEE 802.16 In Downtown Seattle More

Speakeasy Will Test IEEE 802.16 In Downtown Seattle

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  • Hmm.. can we say 802.16 phones? communicators? cars?

  • Thank Goodness... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Jazzer_Techie ( 800432 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @06:10PM (#10782104)
    I've been waiting for the day when microwaves would be interoperable worldwide. Now I can make popcorn or EasyMac anywhere!

  • With any luck ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by isometrick ( 817436 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @06:11PM (#10782121)
    ... this will begin to curb the reproductive capability of certain people living in and around Seattle.

    Ahem.

  • Beginning Downtown? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Belsical ( 238668 )
    Isn't this the kind of thing you'd want to try out first in rural areas? After all, this should be complementing DSL and Cable modems at first, then replace them eventually, not vice versa.
    • Not replacing them any time soon. Did you see the price range? Close to $600 a month for a 3MB connection. My cable modem is faster than that for $40 a month. This will compete with business T-1 lines, which are slower than cable but some laws and regulations keep cable modems out of businesses. Really disappointing, too, as my company has to spend hundreds a month on each of the T-1's at our remote locations. I know that the T-1 is reliable and steady, but a cable modem would work just fine at the retail l
      • How does DSL suck?

        I just finished ordering a business 768 up connection for $90/month - that's half a T1 right there, and I get 3 meg down for "free".

        • Re:Beginning Downtown? (Score:3, Informative)

          by yppiz ( 574466 )
          1) DSL is a fixed point to point connection. It's hard to take it with you if you move, and you have no hope at all of roaming.

          2) It's expensive to roll out. The ISP needs to put their hardware in every telephone central office (CO).

          Also, some cities (like Boston) have a large number of crufty old phone lines that are not suitable for DSL, so rollouts involve rewiring neighborhoods or sorting through lots of existing copper pairs to find the few that are clean enough to use.

          --Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu

    • Re:Beginning Downtown? (Score:5, Informative)

      by The Cisco Kid ( 31490 ) * on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @06:22PM (#10782220)
      At $600/mo they arent going to be getting too many residential customers (nor do they probably expect to). Nor do they want to put up what is probably some expensive connection so they can get all 25 of them that would live in the rural area this would cover. They are targeting businesses who want an alternative to paying for a wired T1.

      What *I* want to see, is equipment, affordable to end users, to facilitate point-to-point Megabit-or-faster wireless links over 30+ miles. 802.11 can do this, with the same equipment on both ends. I seriously home WiMax equipment eventually supports that, as opposed to only offering a huge expensive 'head end' to tie to the small end-user units (like DSL and cablemodems currently work)

      • Re:Beginning Downtown? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by div_2n ( 525075 )
        802.11b is supposed to support links less than 1000 feet. We all know that if you buy a 200mw card, get directional antennas and/or big amplifiers that you can make 802.11b do a lot more than that. But you will not get very reliable links without line of sight beyond a few thousand feet.

        WiMAX is slated to get 1 to 3 miles. Perhaps using the same approach involving directionals and amplifiers it would be possible to achieve longer distances, but without line of sight, I wouldn't expect it to go 30+ miles
        • It all depends on the frequency - some frequencies penetrate different materials with different effectiveness. I havent checked, but if we're lucky, maybe WiMax uses an NLOS frequency.

          • Re:Beginning Downtown? (Score:3, Informative)

            by div_2n ( 525075 )
            The lower you go on the frequency scale, the less opaque objects become. 900mhz is somewhat successful with NLOS, but you have to go all the way down to about 400 mhz to get exceptional performance. But of course the lower you go, the less data capacity the frequencies have.

            WiMAX is defined for 10 to 66 ghz. Between 10 and 11 ghz some NLOS will be possible but not anything that is going to go 30+ miles without some serious altitude on end points.

            Keep in mind that the most advantageous NLOS frequencies

    • Re:Beginning Downtown? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      At $650/month do you really think there will be a big demand for rural customers? Oh wait. You didn't read the article. This is a replacement for T1 lines for businesses.

  • 802.16? (Score:5, Funny)

    by jxyama ( 821091 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @06:12PM (#10782132)
    man, lots of noise for a 0.05 improvement in the version number... =)

    why can't we skip a bit to, say... 803.11?

    (i have no clue about the IEEE naming convention. sorry.)

    • 802.16 [ieee.org] is the IEEE standard for broadband wireless access. Whereas 802.11 [ieee.org] is the IEEE standard for wireless LANs.

    • Re:802.16? (Score:3, Informative)

      by ch-chuck ( 9622 )
      No, it must be 802 because: "The first meeting of the IEEE Computer Society "Local Network Standards Committee", Project 802, was held in February of 1980."

      • very cool. thanks for that info!

      • Re:802.16? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by femto ( 459605 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @07:07PM (#10782608) Homepage
        I've got a suspicion that isn't actually correct. According the IEEE 802 committee [ieee.org] (see first paragraph of the 'history' section)
        The first meeting of the IEEE Computer Society "Local Network Standards Committee", Project 802, was held in February of 1980. (The project number, 802, was simply the next number in the sequence being issued by the IEEE for standards projects).
        So it is true that the first 802 meeting was in February 1980, but it doesn't follow that the number '802' is derived from that fact. Indeed, the IEEE implies, by the use of the word 'simply', that the two are unrelated.

        The story I've heard is that the '80' does relate to the year 1980 but the '2' is a sequence number saying 802 was the second committee formed in 1980. If the first meeting had been in March, IEEE802 would still be IEEE802 (and not IEEE803).

        Can anyone provide clearer references to show that the '80' really does relate to 1980 (not just a coincidence) and whether the '2' is really just a sequence number (and not the month)?

      • So when was the first meeting of the IEEE 1394 committee?

  • The Story (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @06:13PM (#10782143)
    "

    Wednesday, November 10, 2004

    Wireless net to cover downtown Seattle

    By JOHN COOK
    SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

    A high-speed wireless network that covers most of downtown Seattle is being rolled out by Internet service provider Speakeasy.

    The Seattle company plans to have 10 to 15 test customers using the network by the end of the year, with Speakeasy CEO Bruce Chatterley saying commercial deployment of the WiMax network will occur early next year. The network -- powered by as many as four base stations located at high points throughout the city -- will cover an area from Queen Anne Hill to Qwest Field and Lake Washington to Elliott Bay, he said.

    "This is the equivalent of putting in a T-1 line, but it is wireless," said Chatterley. "It is going to change everything."

    The company chose Seattle as its first test market, citing the geographic challenges along with the demand for high-speed Internet in the downtown area. Speakeasy will roll out similar WiMax networks in other cities if the test in Seattle is successful, Chatterley said.

    WiMax, which is short for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, is a relatively new technology that provides wireless Internet access over great distances. Unlike Wi-Fi, which is typically confined to a couple of hundred feet in coffee shops or bookstores, WiMax networks have a range of several miles.

    Speakeasy is not disclosing the equipment vendor that it is using for the Seattle deployment. But Chatterley said customers who sign up for the service will attach a small device to a window, allowing the signal to be transmitted from nearby base stations. Some potential customers have expressed interest in using the wireless network as a backup to a more traditional system, while Chatterley said others are considering making a switch to a complete wireless network.

    "If you had good coverage, you absolutely would be able to run your business on this," said Chatterley, whose company has been testing a similar technology at its Belltown headquarters. Chatterley also said the WiMax offering is designed to support Voice over Internet Protocol, meaning phone calls could be routed over the network.

    Pricing has not been finalized, but the company is considering charging about $650 per month for a wireless connection that reaches speeds of three megabits per second. That compares to $530 per month for a T-1 line, which is 1.5 megabits per second. A T-1 line is about 30 times faster than a dial-up modem.

    In August, Intel invested an undisclosed amount in Speakeasy as a way to help the Internet service provider develop its WiMax strategy. The Santa Clara, Calif., semiconductor giant is one of the biggest backers of the technology. Last month, it invested in Clearwire -- a Kirkland startup led by billionaire Craig McCaw that is throwing its weight behind WiMax networks.

    Speakeasy, which offers Internet service in 120 markets, has fewer than 100,000 customers. It reported revenues of $49 million last year"
    • Wait, so this article about WiMax, *microwave* frequency transmission, was written by John *Cook*. You can't make this stuff up, folks.
      • Uh, you do realise that microwaves are used for a bunch of things? They were first used for radar and astronomy, AFAIK. WiFi uses microwaves too, as do cellphones. It's a matter of how much power you use.

        Your body puts out a measurable amount of microwave energy (anything at room temperature emits them - it's just one frequency band of black body radiation).

        You could use a 1KW halogen bulb inside your microwave instead of a magnetron - it's just that microwaves penetrate futher into the food (they have a

  • Methods? (Score:3, Funny)

    by SkankinMonkey ( 528381 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @06:15PM (#10782152)
    Are they going to use a large pringles can for this?
  • I can't wait to see the day where Wireless net access will be free for everyone in Big cities...
    Would it be anonymous? Untracable? Probably not... but free information (with a wireless-enabled computer, which is not exactly free...) is excellent for communities....Knowledge is power.
    • Question being, _free_ free, or "somewhere in your tax bill" free?
      • Second option, sadly :( Nothing is free, in the end...

        I just read the article, and they charge an INSANE price for their service... this is sad :(
      • If it's all wireless, the cost of maintaining it goes down, because the only places you have to have any kind of physical connection you'll just be running a little fiber and carrying obscene amounts of bandwidth on it, and doing everything else wirelessly. It will of course further marginalize the mom and pop ISP, but that's the way the system is headed anyway. Eventually you will only have backbone providers, gigantic ISPs, and collectives. Even if the government somehow ended up supplying the backbone it
        • Further marginalize the mom and pop ISP? What this does is enable the "mom and pop" ISP. If you are in the busness of providing bandwidth to end users and haven't looked at 802.16, your not much of an ISP. Unless you have fiber to every customer in your area, you should be looking at ways to get more bandwith to your customers. If you don't do it, someone else will. Hopefully me.

          CP
    • Anonymous access through 802.11 hotspots is already a law-enforcement headache, especially in crowded (sub)urban areas like NYC, Seattle, and No. Virginia. It's too easy to wardrive until you find a nice open access point, do some dirty deeds (dirt cheap!), and be gone within an hour. As long as there are enough of them around to make blanket stakeouts infeasible, there isn't much that law enforcement can do.

      The question of whether wide-area 802.16 access can be anonymous/untraceable will be a HUGE deal.
      • Hell, from my apartment in the UDistrict in Seattle, I pick up at least 12 wireless networks (802.11b) and 8 of'em are wide open. When you consider I have thick cement walls on all sides except for the west-facing windows, this is especially nuts; if I sat on the roof of the building I could probably pick up four times that. Talk about law enforcement headaches.

  • $650 for 3Mbps? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I don't get it $650 for 3Mbps? Isn't DSL also 3Mbps? What I am missing here? --
    • A service level agreement and upstream spead.

      • Re:$650 for 3Mbps? (Score:3, Informative)

        by kaustik ( 574490 )
        When I order a partial T-1 line for a remote location, I get a CONSTANT 1.5 up and down, guaranteed. I also get 6 voice lines with 6 separate numbers through the T-1, and 16 different public IP addresses. Supposedly I get 24 hour support with technicians on-call, but we all know how that works. Plus, there are regulations (at least in California) that prevent us from ordering cable Internet for a business location. Correct me if I am wrong there.
        • Sounds right to me--I was saying the SLA and upstream speed are missing from DSL.
        • Still don't get it. I think you are wrong, but I am not an expert ... I am not talking about marketing or pricing (maybe the cooper owner don't want to market such a service) I am talking about "last mile" possibilities. They CAN offer the same with symetrical DSL, the same service level agreement, the same constant 1.5 up and down guaranteed, the voice lines, and the 16 different public IP addresses. Am I wrong?
          • You can push 1.5/1.5 over a good DSL line without any problem. You could also give away as many static IPs as you want, but you couldn't get the voice lines. Also, the distance that you can push a DSL line is much shorter then for a T1. A T1 is just a pair of wires on which you own all the channels. It will cost you about 150 a month here in Baltimore. That's just for the loop, No bandwidth included.

            CP

  • Dear Speakeasy (Score:5, Funny)

    by Triumph The Insult C ( 586706 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @06:18PM (#10782187) Homepage Journal
    I am psychic. It will work so well in Seattle, you'll be very pleased.

    That said, using my psychic abilities, I'd like to save you a little work.

    I think your next target city should be Phoenix Metro, specifically Tempe, and even more specifically, the corner of University and Mill.

    The fact that I live at that crossroad is just a coincidence, I promise.

    Thanks.
    • I am psychic as well. You are an out of work techie who can't afford a dedicated 3MB $600 connection to your house.
    • When I moved to tempe (scotsdale and curry) I thought hell yes now I can get a decent DSL connection instead I am stuck with a cox connection that blocks ports and goes down once a week. I used to live in glendale the outskirts of the Phoenix Metro area we got dsl there 2 years ago and its on acrage. Yet there is only one option in a condo in the middle of Metro Phoneinx. Something is defently wrong with the distribution of decent quality lines in this town.
    • Sprint already offers microwave in the valley.
    • Wow, my hands tremble.

      You *are* a psychic. I was going to post same joke.

      From Phoenix Metro.

      Specifically Tempe.

      More specifically, the corner of Broadway and McClintock :-) You kinda lose it there.

      I knew I shouldn't have taken that tinfoil hat off.
  • Color me daft, but I'm not sure how 70MBps is going to do a whole lot of good. They're arguing that they will be able to support 60-70 businesses. Given that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of businesses in metropolitan areas, can we honestly expect this to provide any usable service? Does this thing have a couple hundred channels available? Or, is it the first ISP and five dozen companies wins?
    • 802.16 is for fixed positions anyways, I'd imagine if you get a good enough density of users in a spot you can just aim a good directional antenna at that place and recycle the channels in other directions. At least, that's how the theory goes.

    • Re:The economics of this? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Wesley Felter ( 138342 ) <wesley@felter.org> on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @06:39PM (#10782371) Homepage
      If you use six sectors per cell, that means 360-420 customers per cell, which is quite a bit. If they have more customers they can always turn down the power and use more, smaller cells.
    • Actually, each tower can handle up to 2500 subscribers, and with the article saying that they have put up 4 seperate towers, thats 10000 subscribers. As for only handling T1 speeds, the WiMax technology can actually pipe up to 4 T-1's per subscriber. The backbone (towers) can handle an OC-768, so you are really not that limited. They will only be starting out with a test group of 60 - 70 businesses. There is no certified WiMax equuiptment, but several companies have released a 'pre' version, that they w
  • "This is the equivalent of putting in a T-1 line, but it is wireless," said Chatterley. "It is going to change everything."

    I sure hope this was simply mis-spoken or mis-quoted. A T-1 only has speeds of 1.5Mbps. That's hardly revolutionary. Even basic 802.11b has more speed than that... Or am I missing something?

    • Re:Only T-1? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by IdahoEv ( 195056 )
      Even basic 802.11b has more speed than that...


      Not with 50km range, it doesn't.

    • Re:Only T-1? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Garabito ( 720521 )
      It was mis-spoken. Wi-MAX is able to make 70 Mbps.

    • Re:Only T-1? (Score:3, Informative)

      by calstraycat ( 320736 )
      As someone else mentioned, WiMax has a much higher capacity than a single T-1 line.

      The reason he compared it to T-1 lines was not to compare maximum bit rates, but to compare it to the competing service offering. Early roll outs of WiMax are going to target the local monopoly's lucrative T-1 wireline business. T-1's are still in wide use and are cash cows for the guys that own the wires.

      This is the same play that the CLECs like Covad made using leased copper and CO space to provide T-1 competition with DS

  • speakeasy kicks ass (Score:4, Interesting)

    by seanadams.com ( 463190 ) * on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @06:22PM (#10782216) Homepage
    I just got their new VOIP service and it works great. They control the QOS from end-to-end, so it doesn't drop out when you're using the intarweb.

    Kick-ass ISP.

  • Best use for WiMax (Score:5, Informative)

    by RealProgrammer ( 723725 ) on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @06:31PM (#10782303) Homepage Journal
    Here in the wide open expanses of the midwestern U.S., we have small cities of 10-100K spread out about 50 miles apart. In between there are small farming communities, each with their own grain elevator. Atop the grain elevator there is usually a satellite dish and a TV/radio tower.

    A fella could do worse than to set up a network of WiMax repeaters and WiMax-WiFi routers (for local traffic) on these grain elevators.
  • I was about to submit this story, oh well. One thing I found interesting was that in their press release [prnewswire.com] they delcare Seattle the "First Wireless Broadband City" which an ExtremeTech article [extremetech.com] addresses from the start.

  • Got WiFi? (Score:3, Informative)

    by _newwave_ ( 265061 ) <<vt.reklawluap> <ta> <todhsals>> on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @06:45PM (#10782416)
    My city, Hermosa Beach, just rolled out free hi-speed wifi [wifihermosabeach.com] to about 30% of it's residents. Holding a high gain (16db) antenna connected to my lap-top standing in the backyard I was able to get close to 1Mb up/down. I'm about a half mile from the access point but without line of sight. I will be connecting the weatherproof antenna/bridge combo to a pole and installing it on the roof this weekend, which should help a bit. If all goes well, I am looking forward to a day with no ISP bills!

    <PLUG>
    However, I must say...Speakeasy is far and away the best ISP I have ever encountered. They encourage you to run mp3/game servers and even will bill your neighbors for you should you choose to share your internet connection via a wireless router. So if you are looking for a new ISP, sign up here [speakeasy.net] and give me a free month. Thanks! ;-).
    </PLUG>
  • First off, I wonder who the WiMax equipment provider will be. There aren't really that many manufacturers out there so I wonder why they're being mum about it. Intel is banking on WiMax taking off. Proxim is another major player. This seems like and excellent marketing push for either company. Quick searches on both companies sites didn't show any news on the Seattle initiative.

    Next, there seems to be a bit of confusion as to what exactly WiMax is good for. Let's assume you have your MiMax base station
  • A family member lives in a rural section of Kentucky without broadband access (satellite access is too expensive). She's only a few miles from another relative with broadband access, but there's no line-of-sight between them -- it's a hilly, twisty road between them, and she's not about to put up any towers. While I suspect some WISP will come along and provide service eventually, part of the beauty of Wi-Fi is it's DIY, corporations-be-dammed attitude. Will we see that in the Wi-Max world?

    Is Wi-Max app
  • For me to have more connectivity options to use when the server goes down. Wait a minute, I am the boss. Hmmmm... maybe this will have promise afterall. Um, never mind.
  • What WiMAX gear is ready for production deployment? Anyone know?
  • They should be doing this testing in Buffalo, NY where you have every possible weather pattern to contend with. That is what I consider extreme testing and will prove how much WiMax can take. Buffalo has 12 major hubs (cities) within a 500 mile radius. I demand the testing be done in buffalo, NY and not Seattle!!!!
    • I happen to know a company that is looking into testing Buffalo. Don't know when but it would be cool to be snowed in and blazing online. It would also be cool to get Adelphia the hell out of here!
  • Looking out my Queen Anne office building I can already see some of the homeless wearing Aluminum foil hats.
  • /me moves to seattle.

  • Should have said Pre-WiMax (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The WiMax forum plug fest will not even have started interop testing until April 2005 at the earliest. We will not see "WiMax Standard" products until mid to late summer 2005 at the very earliest. Many companies in the WiMax forum are currently selling gear that they call "almost WiMax". This would include Aperto, Alverion, Redline, Airspan, Wi-Lan, and others. The first standarized products to hit the shelves will be outdoor, fixed point products. It will be 2006-2007 before you see a WiMax cpe integr
  • I'd be very wary about replacing my 'T1 style connection' with something that can anonomously bought down by someone sitting in a unmarked van somewhere in my vicinity with an unlicenced radio transmitter. It's one thing for my WiFi network to be bought down (with my wired T1 still up), but to loose everything would be pretty bad.

    Or am I thinking wrongly here?

    -James.
  • My father lives in Southern Pines, NC, and a small business [velocitybroadband.us] has started up there providing wireless broadband access, becuase there are no other options for high speed internet available. They deploy some products made by Motorola called the Canopy [canopywireless.com] in order to achieve it. Unfortunatly, you have to purchase some proprietary hardware, and the geography of your location really affects the signal. He gets good signal where the box is located now, but some people at the bottom of valleys and hills can barely

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